A Book of Wizards

infobox Book |
name = A Book of Wizards
title_orig =
translator =
author = Ruth Manning-Sanders
cover_artist = Robin Jacques
illustrator = Robin Jacques
country = United States
language = English
series =
genre = Fairy Tales
publisher = E. P. Dutton
release_date = 1967
media_type = Print (hardcover)
pages = 127 pp

A Book of Wizards is a 1967 anthology of 11 fairy tales from around the world that have been collected and retold by Ruth Manning-Sanders. It is one in a long series of such anthologies by Manning-Sanders.

In the book's foreword, Manning-Sanders writes: "Every country in the world has stories to tell about wizards. There are Red Indian wizards, and Chinese wizards, African wizards, English wizards, Celtic wizards, Greek, Italian, Arabian and Persian wizards. You will even find wizards in the Bible..."

There are tales of good and bad wizards within the book. Of the good ones, the author writes: "The good wizards often go about disguised as poor old beggars, to test men's characters, and find out who has a kind heart and who a hard one." And, of the bad ones, the author writes: " [E] vil-minded wizards, clever as they may be, are never quite clever enough. Some little thing they overlook, and that little thing defeats them. ... And this, of course, is all as it should be; because, as every fairy tale assures us, there is that in evil which brings about its own ruin; and in the fairy tale world, at any rate, wickedness never pays."

This book was first published in the United Kingdom in 1966, by Methuen & Co. Ltd.

Some of tales from this book are recollected in "A Choice of Magic" (1971) by Manning-Sanders. And some of tales from this book are recollected in "Folk and Fairy Tales" (1978) by Manning-Sanders.

Table of contents

*1. Aniello (Sicily)
*2. The Two Wizards (Africa)
*3. Long, Broad and Sharpsight (Bohemia)
*4. Gold (Tyrol)
*5. Farmer Weathersky (Norse)
*6. Aladdin (Arabia):i. The Idle Boy:ii. The Underground Palace:iii. The Slave of the Lamp:iv. The Princess:v. New Lamps for Old:vi. The Slave of the Ring
*7. Jack and the Wizard {Wales)
*8. The Silver Penny (Hungary)
*9. Kojata (Russia)
*10. Rich Woman, Poor Woman (Flanders)
*11. Cannetella (Italy)

ee also

*Wizard (fantasy)