'Elegant and decadent vulgar and clever enchanting and dark. The love child of Angela Carter
and Anaïs Nin - the book I really really needed' SARAH PERRY author of The Essex Serpent
'The sentences sing on the page with wit and intelligence ... This memorable novel reminds the
reader of the enduring power of storytelling to transform and even save lives then and now'
THE NEW YORK TIMES Why don't they tell you it is the beautiful princess who becomes the evil
queen that they are just the same person at different points in their story? Versailles
1682: a city of the rich a living fairy-tale Louis XIV's fever dream. It's a place of
opulence beauty and power. But strip back the lavish exterior of polite society and you'll
find a dark undercurrent of sexual intrigue and vicious gossip. Nobody is safe here - no matter
how highly born they are. No one knows this better than Madame Marie d'Aulnoy. Each week a
rogue group of intellectuals gather at her Parisian home to debate flirt and perform Contes de
Fées - fairy tales - that challenge the status quo at a salon that will change the course of
literature forever. But while they weave tales of glass slippers enchanted beasts and
long-haired princesses a wolf is lurking who threatens to destroy the members of the salon
one by one. Brilliant and bawdy romantic and provocative The Modern Fairies is a dazzling
novel inspired by real events about the delights and dangers of storytelling in dark times.
'Funny filthy dancingly clever: a delectable confection of many-layered pleasures. A story of
stories storytellers and the lurking dangers of fairytales. It reminded me of Jeanette
Winterson's The Passion and I gobbled it all up' JOANNA QUINN author of The Whalebone Theatre
'Original fantastical historical and unputdownable' KAREN JOY FOWLER Booker
Prize-shortlisted author of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves 'Pollard's future as a
novelist is very bright indeed' THE I praise for Delphi
