Join author Nicholas Jubber for a deep dive into the history behind fairy tales around the world, from the medieval Indian collection known as The Ocean of the Streams of Story through to the stories of Hans Christian Andersen in the mid-19th century, revealing some of the tragic and fascinating characters who passed down, re-tooled and collected both classic and lesser-known tales, and showing how ideas about fairy tales developed over the centuries, and in different cultures. In this illustrated talk you will meet, among others, a Neapolitan courtier-poet who turned his back on a soldier's life to collect magical tales; the bankrupt housekeeper who wrote the first version of 'Beauty and the Beast'; and the Russian revolutionary who collected tales about the fearsome witch Baba Yaga.