Japanese Fairy Tales In The Public Domain

I was on one of my daily adventures in archive.org land the other day when I ran across the “Japanese Fairy Tales Series” published circa 1885.

Essentially the “series” consists of twenty traditional Japanese Fairy Tales retold in English and elaborately adorned with colorful illustrations. Each book in the series is roughly 20 -26 pages long.

These Public Domain books are ripe for repackaging.

There are 20 tales in the first series:

There also appears to have been a second series but it was apparently short-lived.

The “Japanese Fairy Tales Series” is available on archive.org at the link below (unfortunately Books #8 and #19 appear to be missing from this collection)…

The Japanese Fairy Tales Series on Archive.org

The possibilities for repurposing and using this unique content are wide and varied. The images can be used to create wall hangings, posters, artwork for the home or even notecards for Japanese art enthusiasts.

Each story can be repackaged as an individual fairy tale or you could create collections of three. Another option of course is to create a single book with all 20 fairy tales inside. While fairy tales are typically written for children, adults will find the stories both meaningful and delightful as well.

For instance, “The Matsuyama Mirror” (book #10), is a touching story about a young couple very much in love. They have a small daughter. The father gives his beautiful wife a mirror as a gift. Delighted with the gift but fearing vanity the wife tucks away her mirror. Her daughter grows into a beautiful young woman. The mother and wife becomes ill and is going to die. On her deathbed she gives the mirror to her daughter saying that once she is gone she can look into the mirror every day and talk to her. The daughter relishes this connection with her mother not realizing that she is in fact talking to her own image in the mirror.

These tales are both touching and entertaining – they’re excellent stories to share with our children and to enjoy as adults.

If republishing books isn’t quite what you’re in the market for, then the images may be more up your (and your audience’s) alley…

Each book has about 8 images on average. When all 20 series are combined you’ll have a wealth of images to use for products or marketing.

A few art samples: