Beauty and the Beast
Overview
 
Beauty and the Beast is a traditional fairy tale
Fairy tale
A fairy tale is a type of short story that typically features such folkloric characters, such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, dwarves, giants or gnomes, and usually magic or enchantments. However, only a small number of the stories refer to fairies...

. The first published version of the fairy tale
Fairy tale
A fairy tale is a type of short story that typically features such folkloric characters, such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, dwarves, giants or gnomes, and usually magic or enchantments. However, only a small number of the stories refer to fairies...

 was a rendition by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve
Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve
Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve, French author , influenced by Madame d'Aulnoy, Charles Perrault, and various précieuse writers....

, published in La jeune américaine, et les contes marins in 1740. The best-known written version was an abridgement of her work published in 1756 by Jeanne-Marie Le Prince de Beaumont
Jeanne-Marie Le Prince de Beaumont
-Life:She was born in Rouen and died in 1780. She lost her mother when she was only eleven but wrote that she did not mourn her passing. The family was very poor and several of her siblings had to be sent away for adoption. She wrote that her mother had suffered terribly at not being able to...

, in Magasin des enfants, ou dialogues entre une sage gouvernante et plusieurs de ses élèves; an English translation appeared in 1757.

Variants of the tale are known across Europe.
Quotations

[growls] There's a stranger in here.

So, you've come to stare at the BEAST, have you?!?

Oh, it's no use. She's so beautiful, and I'm...Well, look at me!

She'll never see me as anything...but a monster. It's hopeless.

[To Mrs. Potts, Lumiere, and Cogsworth] But she is being so difficult!

[singing] She glanced this way, I thought I saw. And when we touched, she didn't shudder at my paw. No, it can't be. I'll just ignore. But then she's never looked at me that way before.

[said while dying in Belle's arms] You- You came back.

[singing] Little town, it's a quiet village. Everyday like the one before. Little town, full of little people, waking up to say...

[singing] There must be more than this provincial life!

 
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