In 1918, a librarian named Frances Jenkins Olcott assembled a book that would sit on nursery shelves for decades. But its contents were anything but childish. The Book of Elves and Fairies collected poems and stories from sources as old as Shakespeare and as recent as Yeats. It gave children a taxonomy of fairykind: elves, brownies, water spirits, and more.
The Book of Elves and Fairies is a 1918 anthology of fairy folklore compiled by Frances Jenkins Olcott, illustrated by Milo Winter. It remains one of the most comprehensive single-volume collections of fairy poetry and prose from the British and Celtic traditions. The book organizes its material by fairy type, drawing on literary sources, traditional ballads, and contemporary poets. It was published by Houghton Mifflin and quickly became a standard children’s gift book, though its contents reach well beyond the nursery.
Who Was Frances Jenkins Olcott?
Frances Jenkins Olcott (1872–1963) was an American librarian and children’s author. She served as head of the children’s department at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, where she pioneered storytelling programs and reading clubs. Olcott believed that children deserved access to the best literature, not watered-down versions. She compiled several anthologies of fairy tales, myths, and legends, including The Book of Elves and Fairies, The Red Indian Fairy Book, and Good Stories for Great Holidays.
Olcott’s method was scholarly for its time. She drew from published collections of folklore, literary fairy poems, and traditional ballads. She credited her sources in an appendix, a practice uncommon in children’s books of the era. The illustrator Milo Winter (1888–1956) provided the color plates and line drawings. Winter was already known for his work on Aesop’s Fables and The Arabian Nights. His fairies wear pointed hats and dragonfly wings, a visual style that defined the look of fairies for a generation of American children.
What the Book Contains: A Fairy Taxonomy
The book is divided into sections, each dedicated to a type of fairy being. Olcott did not invent these categories. She borrowed them from the folkloric classifications that had emerged in the 19th century, particularly the work of British folklorists like William John Thoms and Joseph Jacobs.
The sections include:
- The Elf-Folk: poems about elves, including Shakespeare’s “Queen Mab” and William Allingham’s “The Fairies”.
- The Fairy-Folk: general fairy encounters, such as Robert Herrick’s “The Fairies” and traditional ballads like “Thomas the Rhymer”.
- The Brownie-Folk: household spirits and helpful beings, drawn from Scottish folklore.
- The Water-Folk: mermaids, kelpies, and other water spirits, including Matthew Arnold’s “The Forsaken Merman”.
- The Flower-Folk: flower fairies and nature spirits, a category popularized by Victorian illustrators.
- The Dwarf-Folk: gnomes and dwarves from Norse and Germanic traditions.
- The Goblin-Folk: mischievous and sometimes malevolent beings, such as the goblins of Christina Rossetti’s “Goblin Market”.
Each section opens with a short prose introduction that sets the scene. Olcott then presents poems and stories, often alternating between well-known literary works and anonymous ballads. The result is a layered reading experience: a child can enjoy the rhymes, while an adult recognizes the literary and folkloric sources.
The Book of Elves and Fairies was marketed as a children’s book, but its use extended beyond the nursery. Teachers and storytellers adopted it as a source for classroom readings and library story hours. The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, where Olcott worked, used it in their storytelling programs. The book’s organization by fairy type made it easy to find a poem or story for a specific theme.
For later readers interested in fairy folklore, the book serves as a snapshot of how early 20th-century Americans understood fairykind. It presents fairies as small, benign, and often mischievous. There is no mention of the dangerous fairies of Irish tradition, the abducting fairies of Scottish ballads, or the capricious spirits of folk belief. Olcott sanitized her material for a child audience, but she preserved the core narratives.
Occultists and folk magic practitioners in later decades sometimes turned to the book for inspiration. The poems and stories contain echoes of older beliefs: the fairy queen who grants gifts, the brownie who helps with chores, the water spirit who lures travelers. These archetypes appear in modern fairy witchcraft and neo-pagan traditions. However, the book itself is not a grimoire. It contains no instructions for contacting fairies, no rituals, no spells.
Olcott’s anthology belongs to a tradition of fairy compilations that began in the 19th century. The most famous predecessors are the Brothers Grimm’s Kinder- und Hausmärchen (1812) and Andrew Lang’s Fairy Books (1889–1910). Lang’s collections were international, drawing from European, Asian, and African sources. Olcott’s is narrower, focused on the British Isles and the literary tradition.
A closer comparison is W.B. Yeats’ Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry (1888). Yeats collected oral tales directly from Irish storytellers and included notes on local beliefs. Olcott, by contrast, worked from published books. Yeats’ fairies are dangerous and ambiguous. Olcott’s are safe for children. Yeats’ collection influenced the Irish literary revival. Olcott’s influenced American children’s literature.
Another key collection is Joseph Jacobs’ Celtic Fairy Tales (1891) and More Celtic Fairy Tales (1894). Jacobs was a folklorist who retold traditional tales with scholarly apparatus. Olcott used Jacobs’ work as one of her sources. But where Jacobs aimed at accuracy, Olcott aimed at readability. She cut dialect, simplified language, and removed violent or sexual elements.
The difference matters for researchers. Olcott’s book is a secondary source, a compilation of compilations. It cannot replace the original folklore collections. But it captures how fairy lore was packaged for a mass audience in the early 20th century. That packaging itself is a historical artifact.
It is not a grimoire. Some modern occult readers assume that any book with “elves and fairies” in the title contains magical instructions. It does not. There are no rituals, no invocations, no lists of correspondences. The book is a literary anthology.
It is not a primary source of folklore. Olcott did not collect stories from oral tradition. She took them from published books. The poems and ballads she included had already been edited and translated. For original folklore, one must go to the sources she used: the collections of Joseph Jacobs, Andrew Lang, and the ballad anthologies of Francis James Child.
It is not purely for children. The book was marketed to children, but the content includes complex poetry by Shakespeare, Arnold, and Rossetti. Many adults have treasured their childhood copies and continue to read from them. The illustrations by Milo Winter are themselves collectible.
It does not represent all fairy traditions. Olcott’s fairies are overwhelmingly British and Celtic. She includes almost nothing from Scandinavian, German, or Slavic traditions. The book’s title promises “elves and fairies” but delivers a specific subset: the literary fairies of English-language poetry.
FAQ
Who wrote The Book of Elves and Fairies? Frances Jenkins Olcott, an American librarian and children’s author, compiled it in 1918. She did not write the poems and stories herself but selected them from existing sources.
What types of fairies are included? The book categorizes fairies into elves, brownies, water spirits, flower fairies, dwarves, and goblins. Each section collects poems and stories about that type.
Is it a children’s book? Yes, it was published as a children’s book, but its content includes literary works by Shakespeare, Yeats, and Rossetti that appeal to adults as well.
How does it differ from other fairy collections? Unlike Andrew Lang’s international collections or Yeats’ Irish oral tradition, Olcott’s book is a literary anthology organized by fairy type, with a strong emphasis on poetry and a sanitized, child-friendly tone.
The Book of Elves and Fairies remains a valuable window into how early 20th-century readers encountered fairy folklore. It is not a grimoire, but it preserves the stories and poems that shaped modern fairy imagination. For those studying the evolution of fairy beliefs, it is a key text. Explore our guide to fairy folklore for a deeper look at the traditions behind the poems, and browse our glossary of fairy types for definitions of the beings Olcott cataloged. Return to the faeries hub for more resources.