Feminist fairy tales: Who's afraid of the big bad wolf?

British author Angela Carter has retold well-known fairy tales with humor and horror. A newly translated and illustrated edition transforms "The Bloody Chamber" into a brilliant feminist classic.

Wolves raised her, and of course she would call herself a she-wolf if she could speak. But she can't. The girl moves around on all fours. She lives without a future, without a past. But when she begins to menstruate, she develops a vague notion of time from the recurrence of the same. The "germ of a kind of wild thinking," which creeps into perception in "Wolfsalice," is at work in all of Angela Carter's stories. With luminous aplomb, they combine speculation and imagination. They are magnificent, full of wit, and unafraid of sex and violence.