The Necklace of Princess Fiorimonde

Published in 1880 with illustrations by Walter Crane, this collection opens with its darkly memorable title tale. Princess Fiorimonde is beautiful, vain, and secretly versed in witchcraft, and to escape a marriage that would end her power she enchants each of her suitors in turn, shrinking them into golden beads on the necklace she wears at her throat. Only her sharp-eyed maid Yolande suspects the truth. The other stories share the same mix of wonder and moral steel, giving children real danger and real consequences rather than easy comfort. De Morgan stands with the finest Victorian fairy-tale writers, and this remains her best-known book. Free to read here in PDF and EPUB.