He let it be known that he had decided to marry her, because she alone could release him from the promise he had made to her mother,” writes Collodi. “All of a sudden, and to his own disgrace, and even though until then he had been a man full of wisdom, he lost his mind and began to think that the princess his daughter was far more beautiful and graceful than his deceased wife. “For example, where Perrault simply notes that the king and queen ‘lived in perfect union’, Collodi writes that they were ‘two souls in a single fruit pit’ (which I translated as ‘two peas in a pod’.)” “Collodi made so many changes to Perrault’s version (which is in turn inspired by earlier Italian tales) as to be worth reading even if one has already read Perrault’s,” said the new volume’s translator and editor, Cristina Mazzoni. Perrault’s version is simplified by Collodi, and given a Tuscan sensibility by the Italian author. An unlikely children’s tale, it centres on a princess whose father wishes to marry her after the death of her mother, who escapes wearing the skin of a donkey. Collodi is included for his translation of Donkey Skin by the French author of Cinderella, Charles Perrault.
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