No plot could be more romantic than this one: A kind and virtuous Beauty offers herself as a hostage to free her father from the castle of a fearsome Beast. When she falls in love with the Beast despite his outward appearance, he’s transformed into a handsome Prince.
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Beauty and the Beast by Madame de Villeneuve
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Once there was a hardworking girl with a a heart of gold and a wicked stepmother. She got a makeover from a fairy godmother and scored a dream date at the ball with a prince who tracked her down by her single lost glass slipper… and this story crossed the globe for thousands of years, winning hearts wherever it went. Although our version of “Cinderella” was recorded by 17th-century French writer Charles Perrault, there may be as many as 1,500 traditional variants of the tale around the world, including “The Girl with the Rose Red Slippers” from ancient Egypt, and a ninth-century A.D. Chinese version that just might explain the story’s fascination with small feet.
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