Mailly, Jean, chevalier de
Mailly, Jean, chevalier de (?–1724),French writer. A military officer and godson of Louis XIV, Mailly published widely, including a collection of 11 fairy tales, Les Illustres Fées, contes galans (The Illustrious Fairies, Galant Tales, 1698). (It is uncertain whether or not he contributed to a later collection, Nouveau recueil de contes de fées (New Collection of Fairy Tales, 1730).) In The Illustrious Fairies Mailly displays a wide knowledge of the literary (and perhaps folkloric) sources of the 17th‐century French ‘vogue’ of fairy tales. For example, at least three of the tales in this volume (‘Fortunio’, ‘Blanche Belle’ (‘White Beauty’), and ‘Le Prince Guerini’) are versions of stories found in Straparola's Pleasant Nights; the plots of ‘White Beauty’ and ‘Guerini’ are also retold by his contemporaries
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