Read Contes de Perrault in Frenchwith every sentence explained

Contes de Perrault by Charles Perrault was first published in 1697. In Passage you read the full text in the original French, marked beginner and filed under children and fantasy. It runs to about 20,000 words.

Once upon a time, these stories were told for the very first time.

In 1697, Charles Perrault, a member of the French Academy, published a little book of tales from the oral tradition. Polished with wit and elegance, and each ending with a playful moral in verse, they became the versions the whole world remembers.

Here are the originals: "Little Red Riding Hood", whose wolf is more cunning than you may recall; "Bluebeard" and his forbidden little key; "Puss in Boots", the cleverest cat in literature; "Cinderella" and her glass slipper; "Sleeping Beauty"; and "Hop o' My Thumb", who outwits an ogre. This edition also includes "Riquet with the Tuft", "The Fairies" and two tales in verse, "Donkeyskin" and "The Ridiculous Wishes".

Perrault's Fairy Tales inspired the Brothers Grimm, ballets, operas and countless Disney films. In the original French, they are short, charming and surprisingly sharp.

Passage sets the book as a quiet, paginated reader in French. Read at your own pace, and when a sentence stops you, tap it. You get:

• a natural translation of that exact sentence,
• a short note on the grammar, in plain words,
• the key words, which you can save with the sentence they came from,
• all of it in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Turkish or Portuguese, whichever you read best.

It's marked beginner, so it's a good first whole book if you know the basics of French and want something you can finish. The words you save come back later in short review games, so the book keeps teaching after you close it.