Beauty and the Beast is one of the most well-known fairytales around, partly because of the success of the Disney movies. But, like most fairytales, this one dates back centuries. It also has the distinction of being one of a few fairy tales that made it into the 1st edition of Grimm’s Fairy Tales (in 1812) but was then removed because it was too similar to another French tale they included in later editions. Hans Christian Anderson wrote his own version of this tale in 1837, but the original French version was written by Suzanne de Villeneuve in 1740. It was published in La Jeune Américaine, et Les Contes Marins under the title La Belle et La Bête.
Suzanne de Villeneuve’s original story was actually quite long for a fairytale, coming in at over 100 pages. It also included the full backstory of both the beast and the beauty. The beast was a young prince when his parents died. His father died in battle and his mother then went on to avenge her husband’s death by defending the kingdom. But to do this, the queen had to leave her son in the care of an evil fairy. This evil fairy tried to seduce the prince when he became an adult, but he refused. Humiliated, the evil fairy turned him into a beast.
Belle was the daughter of a neighboring king and a good fairy. The evil fairy who’d been taking care of the prince tried to murder Belle so she could marry the king. Because there was a lot of evil fairy vs. good fairy battles going on, Belle was placed in the home of a merchant for her own protection. Eventually Belle and her beast met… and she saves him. Not unlike how the queen saved the kingdom after her husband’s death.
This story was hugely popular but un 1756, Jeanne-Marie Leprince du Beaumont rewrote the story by making it shorter and eliminating characters. Beaumont’s version also added story elements that dealt with social and political issues that were happening in France around the same time. (the same issues that would eventually lead to the French Revolution).
There is also some evidence that this tale is much older than Villeneuve’s. Elements of Villeneuve’s story has elements of Cupid and Psyche, the tale from the novel Metamorphoses written in Latin in the 2nd Century AD by Apuleius. Apuleius’s story begins with an evil goddess (Venus) banishing Psyche to a mountain in order to marry a terrible beast. Venus then sends her son Cupid to destroy Psyche, but he falls in love with her and saves her. He hides her in a castle and marries her, but he only visits her at night and tells her she can never see his face. But Psyche gives in to curiosity and peeks at his face while holding a candle. When a drop of hot wax on his cheek wakes him, and scars him, Psyche offers herself to Venus as a form of penance. Venus gives Psyche impossible tasks, including one that included finding beauty from the queen of the Underworld (Persephone). Psyche receives a box filled with beauty from Persephone but opens it and falls into a coma. A grieving Cupid saves Psyche and begs Jupiter (the queen of the gods) to make Psyche immortal so they can live together forever. She agrees and there’s a happy ending.
The story of Metamorphoses has also been found in the Indian Panchatantra (which may have existed as an oral story before the printed version appeared in 500 AD.) in a story known as The Woman Who Married a Snake. In the Russian tale The Enchanted Tsarévich, and in the Chinese story The Fairy Serpent, the beast is also a snake. Yet, in the Italian version, the beast is a dragon who breathes fire. The Swiss have their own version where the beast is a bear, while the British story has a beast who is a dog. There’s even an American version where the beast is a wild man living in the Pacific Northwest.
But regardless of what the beast is, the trope of a woman taming a wild beast of a man–and saving him–has been around for centuries. It is one of the most beloved and enduring fairytales around, and I have no doubt that Beauty and the Beast retellings will continue to delight readers of all ages for a long, long time.
