The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac Author:Eugene Field Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Ill THE LUXURY OF READING IN BED I AST night, having written what you have 1—/ just read about the benefits of fairy literature, I bethought me to renew my... more » acquaintance with some of those tales which so often have delighted and solaced me. So 1 piled at least twenty chosen volumes on the table at the head of my bed, and I daresay it was nigh daylight when I fell asleep. I began my entertainment with several pages from Keightley's "Fairy Mythology," and followed it up with random bits from Crof- ton Croker's " Traditions of the South of Ireland," Mrs. Carey's " Legends of the French Provinces," Andrew Lang's Green, Blue and Red fairy books, Laboulaye's " Last Fairy Tales," Hauff's "The Inn in the Spes- sart," Julia Goddard's "Golden Weathercock," Frere's "Eastern Fairy Legends," Asbjörnsen's "Folk Tales," Susan Pindar's "Midsummer Fays," Nisbit Bain's "Cossack Fairy Tales," etc., etc. I fell asleep with a copy of Villamaria's fairy stories in my hands, and I had a delightful dream wherein, under the protection and guidance of my fairy godmother, I undertook the rescue of a beautiful princess who had been enchanted by a cruel witch and was kept in prison by the witch's son, a hideous ogre with seven heads, whose companions were four equally hideous dragons. This undertaking in which I was engaged involved a period of five years, but time is of precious little consideration to one when he is dreaming of exploits achieved in behalf of a beautiful princess. My fairy godmother (she wore a mob-cap and was hunchbacked) took good care of me, and conducted me safely through all my encounters with demons, giants, dragons, witches, serpents, hippogriffins, ogres, etc. ; and I had just rescued the princess and broken the spell which bound her, and we were about to "live in peace to...« less