Alan Dundes, one of the world's leading folklorists, extracts the ground-breaking work of scholars from folklore's earliest days. This collection is recommended.

Nothern Earth

Alan Dundes' superb source book provides material evidence for the long standing and deeply committed scholarly interest in the vernacular expressions commonly referred to as folklore. The often unusual selections range from letters to seminal early articles by scholars in philology, literature, music and psychology-all of whom shared a commitment to folk expressions. The work is of immediate relevance to students of folklore and will serve as a wonderful teaching tool. Anthropologists, historians of science, and scholars within the cultural studies field in general will be equally interested in this work as it offers an instructive view of disciplinary emergence. Dundes' headnotes to each selection are a tour de force coupling individual biographies and disciplinary history.

Regina Bendix, University of Pennsylvania

In this brilliant volume Alan Dundes . . . has taken stock of folkloristic scholarship . . . . Most choices are undisputed, some may be surprising, others are true discoveries and revelations; but in each case Dundes offers deep insights into the workings of folklore and folkloristics and at the same time contributes to 19th and 20th century European and North American intellectual history in the best sense. The volume convincingly portrays and extends folkloristics and will certainly become one of its standard books.

Klaus Roth, Munich University

When the discipline of folklore was achieving its first maturity in the United States, Alan Dundes edited an anthology that gave the profession momentum and purposes. Now in its moment of midlife crisis, Alan Dundes again provides order and direction for the folklorists' craft. His new anthology, a collection of key texts, brilliantly introduced, will become the basic historical textbook for the folklorist. It is a generous gift, a welcome and necessary foundation for thought and action.

Henry Glassie, College Professor of Folklore, Indiana University

Dundes provides an outstanding source book that highlights major thoeries, methods and concepts in the history of folklore, founded upon as he writes 'filedwork in the library'. The twenty chapters highlight work and personae of the most important folklorists.

Herman Tak, Universiteit Utrecht, Focaal No.35, 2000

Alan Dundes highlights major theories, methods, and concepts in the history of folklore. These essays, some recovered treasures making their first appearance in English, others already established classics, are intellectual milestones in a disciplinary attempt to put some of the central ideas that shaped our history in the past two hundred years to a scientific and systematic test. Dundes' biographical, bibliographical, and theoretical introductory comments make this anthology an essential text in any introductory course in folklore and more specifically in a course on the history of folklore studies.

Dan Ben-Amos, University of Pennsylvania; editor of Folktales of the Jews