Beauty and the Beast is that rare thing, a fairy story in which the hero and heroine really get to know each other before they fall in love.
The heroine is unusual, too, because she's neither very poor, nor a princess.
As for the hero, though he is understandably cranky at times, he's actually quite a sweet guy. He's not just rich and powerful.
The story was, also unusually, first written down by a woman, Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve (gosh, she must have had a really hard time at book-signings, thank heavens my own name has only nine letters). She wrote the story down in 1740, though the story is probably much older than that.
Beauty and the Beast is a great story with a perfect ending, but, I don't know, my very favourite stories have heroines who are much less inclined to endure everything so patiently.
Never mind. At least she gets to wear lots of really nice frocks while she's suffering.
Word To Use Today: beast. This word came to English in the 1200s from the French beste, which means animal or idiot, and before that from the Latin bestia, which means animal.
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