In it she finds the corpses of her husband’s previous wives, all with their throats cut. This keyring includes one key that she must not use: the one to the “room at the end of the great gallery.” Of course, like all fairytale heroines worth their salt, she enters the room forbidden to her. Called away on business, the newlywed husband leaves his wife the keys to every room and cabinet in the house. The legend, as recorded by the seventeenth-century author Charles Perrault, begins with the marriage of a girl to an eccentric, wealthy man. The title story re-appropriates the legend of Bluebeard, the mysterious French nobleman who murders his many wives. You might think that fairy tales are the sorts of stories to read to children in bed to lull them to sleep – not these versions! Her renditions are intended not to comfort but to disturb and titillate. Angela Carter revises Sleeping Beauty, for example, from an adult, twentieth-century perspective. Published in 1979, The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories retells classic fairy tales in a disturbing, blood-tinged, explicit way. (Caution: contains strong language) Introduction This BBC documentary from 2018 explores the visions and writing of Angela Carter, and reveals Angela’s unconventional childhood and education.
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