The Lang Fairy books (not 1st editions but the late sixties Dover reprints) have a nice central spot on the shelf in my office. With lots of barbarism, there is also a sizable amount of wisdom in the volumes. They make a small rainbow on the shelf when one sorts them by color. I also have the Dover reprint of Lang's Arabian nights Entertainments and a 1929 printing of The Book of Romance, with very worn gilded covers, a taped spine and which deals with tales of the Arthurian legend. I still need to acquire Mrs. Lang's Book of Heroes to complete the set.

I haven't read much up on the personal life of Lang, but I'm not surprised he got tired of being stereotyped as the author/editor of fairy tale books.

The books are an acquired taste and I find it's impossible to read a Lang Fairy book in a single setting. One reads it a short story, or two, at a time when grabbing a volume for a lunchtime read. As a result, I've read most of some books and some I've yet to read at all. It is obvious the books were designed to be read to children, one story at a time. Parents better know to pre-read the story they plan to read aloud, or they may be in for a rude surprise and with a child more terrified than ever of going to sleep. ;-)

I've never read Ella Enchanted but will make a point to check it out or pick it up the next time I visit a library or bookstore. Most of the faeries in these tales act as plot devices or proxies of the person's own desires. They also act as catalysts. Whether to teach that obedience is not always a positive trait or to illustrate how important listening to one's conscience is, faeries can act as the external projection for the lesson. Like Aesop using animals, faeries joined animals in the lesson teaching game. And I suspect that during the more mystical periods of cultures' growth and development Faeries, like witches, were believed in wholeheartedly much as some religious folks still believe in angels and demons today.

And who knows? Perhaps in some faraway place beings with such, or similar, powers exist. Sometimes all it takes is for storytellers to tap the universal subconscious for these things and that's why it strikes such a chord with mankind all over the Earth.