Bluebeard: Composition, Publication, and Circulation

Bluebeard is a French prose tale usually attributed to Charles Perrault. In 1697 it appeared in Histoires ou Contes du temps passé, avec des moralitez, published in Paris by Claude Barbin. Its narrative centers on a wealthy, terrifying husband, a forbidden room, and a key whose bloodstains cannot be washed away. Two verse morals follow the tale, so the narrative ending does not exhaust the work.

According to Tony Gheeraert’s study of the text’s genesis, the bound manuscript of 1695 already contained five tales, including Bluebeard. Its dedication was signed “P. P.,” linking it to Perrault’s son Pierre Darmancour. The 1697 printed edition expanded the collection to eight tales. Comparison of the two versions shows that Bluebeard acquired a parenthetical explanation of the dead women’s identity, clarifying the plot. Its apparently simple storytelling had undergone textual revision.

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The dedication to “Mademoiselle” at the beginning of the 1697 volume is signed “P. Darmancour.” It adopts the modest pose of a child composing stories while insisting that these seemingly simple narratives contain moral meanings, whose appreciation depends on the reader’s understanding. The signature and rhetorical persona form part of the collection’s publication history; a single statement in the dedication cannot establish the actual division of authorship throughout the volume.

The dedication also associates the tales with the upbringing of children in ordinary households, while encouraging nobles destined to govern to learn about common people’s lives. It thus brings domestic storytelling, children’s education, and elite readers’ interests into a shared framework. In the printed collection, the fairy tale’s pose of oral narration becomes a style addressed to educated readers. Its promise of moral instruction also justifies admitting these “little things” into distinguished company.

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The young woman in the tale initially fears Bluebeard’s appearance and the mystery of his missing former wives, but accepts marriage after lavish entertainments and social visits. After their marriage, her husband gives her the household keys, forbidding entry only to one small room. She opens it nevertheless, discovers the former wives he has murdered, and finds that the key now bears bloodstains she cannot remove. Returning home, Bluebeard discovers her secret and threatens to kill her.

She asks him to postpone her execution and sends her elder sister Anne up to watch for their brothers. Repeated questions, the misidentification of distant dust, and her husband’s insistent demands prolong the moment of danger. The two brothers finally arrive and kill Bluebeard. His wife inherits his property, provides for her sister’s marriage and her brothers’ military commissions, and marries again. The heroine is unnamed, and Anne is her elder sister. Nor are the rescuers princes who appear unexpectedly: they are relatives who had already promised to visit.

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The first moral describes curiosity as a fleeting pleasure with a heavy price and admonishes readers in gendered terms. The second turns instead to power within marriage. It claims that such dreadful husbands belong to the past, that husbands today are often meek before their wives, and that identifying the true master of the household is no easy matter. A worldly joke immediately follows stern admonition, preventing the work from yielding only the interpretation that orders must never be disobeyed.

The prose narrative retains the same tension. Opening the door exposes the wife to danger but also reveals murders previously concealed. The husband’s display of wealth initially attracts a bride and guests, before that wealth ultimately passes to his surviving wife. The tale presents prohibition and transgression, but also allows rescue, kinship, and the disposal of property to determine its ending. The two poems should be read alongside these specific narrative arrangements, rather than treated as judgments defending murder.

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In 1889 Longmans published The Blue Fairy Book, edited by Andrew Lang, placing Bluebeard in a single volume with tales from Perrault, the Grimms, and other traditions. In his preface, Lang explained that the book was intended for children and that the Perrault tales retained an eighteenth-century English translation. His introduction specified that he had used a French–English parallel edition of 1768 purchased in Paris.

This account reveals continuity between early translations, later reprints, and new anthologies in the work’s English-language circulation. Lang also noted that his translation was based not on Perrault’s first edition but on a later, slightly modified text. The Blue Fairy Book’s Bluebeard retains the forbidden room, Anne’s watch, and the final disposition of the property, but does not reproduce the two morals appended in 1697. The anthology’s selection thus shifts the emphasis of the reading.

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Lang praised Bluebeard’s tragic and dramatic power and said that it continued to move him as an adult. He associated the tale with curiosity that breaks a prohibition, while acknowledging that children listening to stories might not absorb moral lessons as adults expected. His introduction was written specifically for adults and prefaced the limited edition. An ordinary children’s book and commentary addressed to collectors and scholars thus formed part of the same publishing project.

Images also contributed to the tale’s circulation. At the end of his introduction, Lang objected to the illustrator Jacomb Hood’s portrayal of Bluebeard as a Turk. Citing the two brothers’ respective roles as a dragoon and a musketeer, he emphasized what he understood as the story’s French setting. This is a nineteenth-century editor’s specific criticism of an image, not archival evidence of a fictional character’s actual nationality. Text, illustrations, and editorial commentary together shaped readers’ imaginings of the character.

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