Why is the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale so compelling? In a world where we can easily feel like we're going through the motions, a tale that reminds us to "wake up" and begin participating in our own lives seems timelier than ever. Sleeping Beauty also appeals because of its commentary on the transition from childhood to adulthood. It also forces us to reconcile the idea of love being a powerful force with the passivity of waiting to be rescued.
As Maria Tatar points out in The Classic Fairy Tales (Norton, 2017), the very name "Sleeping Beauty" invokes a passive state and is perhaps the most "repellent fairy-tale heroine of all" (117), the target of numerous feminist rewrites to "make her story go away." But she hasn't gone away. In fact, Sleeping Beauty is still enjoying the spotlight as a controversial, thought-provoking character inspiring today's authors to continue making adaptations. Here are a few compelling Sleeping Beauty retellings in recent years:
The first book in the Malice series, Malice reveals the deeper story behind a curse put a line of princesses that sentences them to death unless it is broken by true love's kiss. As the last heir of the Briars, Princess Aurora is exactly the type of leader her realm needs. The only problem is that there's just a year to go before the curse kills her. In a strange twist, only a villain named Alyce who is known for dark and mysterious gifts actually cares enough to throw her full power at ending the curse for good.
In this Sleeping Beauty side story, a girl named Miriam who is not a princess due to her lineage happily welcomes her new baby sister and future princess named Aurora. When dark fae arrive on the day of Aurora's christening to try to curse her, Miriam accidentally discovers her own magical powers. Can she learn to wield them in time to protect her family from the darkness that moves closer to the kingdom with each new day?
In the first book in the Fractured Fables series, a girl named Zinnia Gray celebrates what is expected to be her last birthday after an industrial accident leaves her with an impending death sentence. Nobody with the same condition has ever lived past 21. That's why Zinnia's friends have gone all out with an amazing birthday theme that gives her the full Sleeping Beauty experience! When Zinnia accidentally pricks her finger on a prop, she finds herself falling into a strange world where another "sleeping beauty" is also fighting against fate.
Below is a list of classic Sleeping Beauty prose rewrites for your research and reading pleasure. These literary novels, novellas, and short stories were published in the last 60 years, primarily for adult audiences.
| Title | Author | Themes |
|---|---|---|
| Thorns (1967) | Robert Silverberg | alienation, beauty/ugliness dichotomy |
| Sleeping Beauty (1973) | Ross Macdonald | Noir detective, deception, identity |
| "The Lady of the House of Love" from The Bloody Chamber (1979) | Angela Carter | Vampirism, fate vs. free will, femininity, death/sleep |
| Sleeping Beauty Quartet - a series of four novels (1983-2015) | Anne Rice (as A.N. Roquelaure) | (a range across all four books): eroticism, awakening, taboo, sexuality, power, transformation, authority, community |
| The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars (1987) | Steven Brust | Fairy tale within an artist’s struggle |
| Briar Rose (1992) | Jane Yolen | Holocaust allegory, trauma, memory, identity |
| Enchantment (1999) | Orson Scott Card | Russian folklore, time-slip fantasy, cross-cultural romance |
| Spindle’s End (2000) | Robin McKinley | Magic, destiny, subverting expectations |
| The Sleeper and the Spindle (2014) | Neil Gaiman | Feminism, agency, deception, twisted fairy tale |
| While Beauty Slept (2014) | Elizabeth Blackwell | Historical realism, fate, betrayal, coming-of-age |
| Sleeping Beauties (2017) | Stephen King & Owen King | Gender politics, dystopia, the power of dreams |
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