Back in England I co-wrote, with Diesel Balaam, a book of short stories called Black Confetti: New Fairy Tales for an Old Country, which was exactly what the title implies: New fairy tales. It was while researching the origins of the stories by the brothers Grimm-;and they are GRIM!-;and also Hans Christian Anderson (Suspected of being a fairy himself), that I became fascinated by how sexually perverse the old fairy tales were. In the 9th century Chinese version of Cinderella she was having an incestuous relationship with her father-;Disney left that part out. For the true fairy tales I recommend the works of Angela Carter, Stephen Sondheim’s Into The Woods, and my hot pick this week: White As Snow by Tanith Lee, a dark re-telling of the Snow White story.