"Beauty and the Beast" is a fairy tale written by the French novelist Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve. It was published anonymously in 1740 in a book called La Jeune Américaine et les contes marins (The Young American and Marine Tales).

Villeneuve's original story was shortened and revised by the French novelist Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont. This version was published in 1756 in a book titled Magasin des enfants (Children's Collection) and became the most widely retold version of the tale. Later, in 1889, Andrew Lang included a version of the story in The Blue Fairy Book, which is part of a series called Fairy Books.

The fairy tale was influenced by other stories, including the tale of Petrus Gonsalvus and ancient Latin stories such as "Cupid and Psyche" from The Golden Ass, written by Lucius Apuleius Madaurensis in the second century AD, and "The Pig King," an Italian fairy tale published by Giovanni Francesco Straparola in The Facetious Nights of Straparola around 1550.

Different versions of the story are known across Europe. In France, for example, Zémire and Azor is an operatic version of the tale. It was written by Jean-François Marmontel and composed by André Grétry in 1771. This version was very popular during the 19th century. Another version is Amour pour amour (Love for Love), a play written by Pierre-Claude Nivelle de La Chaussée in 1742, based on Villeneuve's original version.

According to researchers at a university in Lisbon, the story originated about 4,000 years ago.

Plot

Chapter 1: There Was Once a Merchant

A merchant who has lost his wife lives in a large house in a city with twelve children: six sons and six daughters. All of the daughters are very beautiful, but the youngest, named Beauty, is the most lovely. Beauty is also kind and has a good heart. Her older sisters, however, are not kind. They are selfish and jealous of Beauty.

The merchant and his children become poor when their house burns down and their ships are lost. The family of thirteen must move to a small house in the countryside and work on a farm. Beauty adjusts to country life with a happy attitude, but her sisters are unhappy and become even more jealous of Beauty when neighbors visit and praise her.

Two years later, the merchant learns that one of his ships has returned. Before leaving to collect it, he asks his children what gifts they want him to bring back. His oldest daughters ask for expensive clothes and jewelry, while Beauty asks for a rose.

When the merchant returns six months later, he is sad to learn that his friends thought he had died in the fire and sold the ship’s cargo. He cannot buy the gifts for his daughters. During his journey home, the merchant gets lost in a heavy snowstorm and finds shelter in a hollow tree.

Chapter 2: The Palace of the Beast

The day after the snowstorm, the merchant arrives at a palace surrounded by statues that look like real people. Seeing no one is home, the merchant enters and finds tables filled with food and drink, which seem to have been left for him. The merchant eats and spends the night there.

The next morning, the merchant is about to leave when he sees a bush of roses and remembers to give Beauty one. He picks a rose, and a large, ugly creature named the Beast appears. The Beast threatens to punish the merchant for taking the flower. The merchant pleads for his life, explaining his promise to Beauty. The Beast agrees to let the merchant go home, but only if he brings one of his daughters to live with the Beast. The merchant is upset but agrees.

The next morning, a flying horse takes the merchant home. He gives Beauty the rose and tells his children about the deal with the Beast. The merchant’s sons vow to kill the Beast, but he stops them. His oldest daughters urge Beauty to go to the Beast’s palace because she asked for the rose. Beauty agrees to go, and her father remembers a fortune-teller’s prediction that Beauty would bring luck to their family.

A month later, a flying horse takes Beauty and her father to the Beast’s palace. When they arrive, Beauty is greeted with a fireworks display.

Chapter 3: Beauty Meets the Beast

Beauty meets the Beast and is frightened at first. The Beast allows the father and daughter to spend one last night together and tells the merchant to leave the next morning and never return. Beauty helps her father pack gifts for her siblings.

The next morning, two flying horses take the merchant and the gifts away, leaving Beauty with the Beast. That night, Beauty dreams she is in a garden where she meets a handsome young man named the Unknown, who says he loves her. A lady also appears and warns Beauty not to be tricked by appearances.

Beauty wakes up and explores the Beast’s palace. She finds a bracelet with the Unknown’s face and a portrait of him. That night at supper, the Beast asks Beauty to let him sleep with her, but lets her say yes or no. Beauty says no, and when she dreams of the Unknown, he looks sad.

Chapter 4: Beauty Explores the Palace

For several months, Beauty lives comfortably at the Beast’s palace. She explores more rooms, each filled with new delights, including tamed songbirds, talking parrots, and monkeys who become her friends. One room has windows that show plays and operas.

Every night, the Beast asks Beauty to let him sleep with her, and she always says no. Every time she sleeps, she dreams of the Unknown, whom she has fallen in love with. Beauty feels torn between her thanks to the Beast and her love for the Unknown.

One night, Beauty is sad and tells the Beast she is homesick. He allows her to leave but tells her to return in two months. He gives her a magical ring that lets her return to her family’s home instantly.

Chapter 5: Beauty Returns Home

Beauty wakes up in her family’s new house. Her father and brothers are happy to see her, but her sisters are not. When Beauty tells her father about her dreams and the Beast’s proposal, he encourages her to let the Beast sleep with her and to listen to the lady’s warning. During the two months, Beauty no longer dreams of the Unknown.

Her five older sisters become jealous when their suitors stop visiting them and start courting Beauty instead. Beauty tries to turn them away, but they refuse to leave. When the two months are up, her father and brothers ask her to stay longer, and she agrees.

That night, she dreams of the Beast dying alone in the palace. She returns to the palace despite her brothers’ protests. When she arrives, she finds the Beast near death in a cave. She realizes she loves him and uses water from a spring to help him recover.

The next night, when the Beast proposes, Beauty agrees. A magical fireworks show lights up the sky, and the Beast falls asleep beside her.

Chapter 6: Beauty Meets the Prince

When Beauty dreams of the Unknown again, he and the lady tell her the truth will be revealed when she wakes up.

In the morning, Beauty finds the Beast has changed into the Unknown, showing they are the same person. A Queen and the Fairy visit Beauty. The Fairy explains that the Unknown is a prince whose mother is upset that he is marrying a merchant’s daughter instead of a princess. When the prince wakes up, the Fairy tells Beauty she is actually a princess: the daughter of the Queen’s brother, the King of the Fortunate Island, and the Fairy’s sister. The Queen apologizes, and the Fairy and Queen leave the couple.

Chapter 7: The Beast’s Story

The prince tells Beauty about his life and how he became a Beast.

He explains his father died before he was born, and his mother fought an enemy to protect the kingdom. His mother left him in the care of his Evil Fairy Godmother, who tried to seduce him when he turned fifteen and helped his mother win the war.

After the war, the Evil Fairy asked the prince to marry her, but he refused. His mother thought she was too old, and the Evil Fairy, angry, turned the prince into a Beast. She warned his mother and him that only a true act of love from a maiden could break the spell, and if anyone else learned of it, the prince would remain a Beast forever.

After the Evil Fairy left, the Good Fairy arrived. She turned the palace servants into stone to keep the secret and promised to protect the prince’s mother. She also summoned her genie servants to keep the prince company while he waited.

Analysis

The story is listed in the Aarne–Thompson–Uther Index as type ATU 425C, titled "Beauty and the Beast." It is connected to the broader category ATU 425, "The Search for the Lost Husband," and its subcategories.

In a study about the myth of Cupid and Psyche, Danish folklorist Inger Margrethe Boberg suggested that "Beauty and the Beast" was an older form of the animal husband narrative. She also stated that subtypes 425A, "Animal as Bridegroom," and 425B, "The Disenchanted Husband: The Witch's Tasks," were later versions that included certain story elements.

Variants

Emmanuel Cosquin collected a version from Lorraine called The White Wolf (Le Loup blanc), where the youngest daughter asks her father to bring her a singing rose when he returns. The father cannot find a singing rose and refuses to go home until he does. When he finally finds the roses, they are in the castle of the white wolf. The wolf wants to kill the man for taking the roses but agrees to let him live if he gives the wolf the first living thing that greets him when he returns home. This turns out to be the youngest daughter. In the castle, the girl learns the wolf is enchanted and can change into a human at night, but she must keep this secret. Later, her two older sisters visit and pressure her to share the secret. When she does, the castle collapses, and the wolf dies.

Henri Pourrat collected a version from Auvergne called Belle Rose (Lovely Rose). The story’s heroine and her sisters are the daughters of a poor farmer, named after flowers: Rose, Marguerite (Daisy), and Julianne. The Beast has a mastiff jaw, lizard-like legs, and a salamander body. The ending is similar to versions by Villeneuve and Beaumont, where Rose returns to the castle and finds the Beast dying by a fountain. When she tells him she knows he cannot live without her, the Beast turns into a human. He explains he was cursed for mocking a beggar and could only be freed by a kind-hearted poor girl. Unlike Beaumont’s version, the story does not mention the sisters being punished.

Scholars Gianfranco D’Aronco and Renato Aprile note that the tale is popular in Italy. Christian Schneller collected a version from Trentino called The Singing, Dancing, and Music-making Leaf (La foglia, che canta, che balla e che suona), where the Beast appears as a snake. The heroine must take the snake to her sister’s wedding. During the dance, she kicks the snake’s tail, and it transforms into a young man who is the son of a count.

Sicilian folklorist Giuseppe Pitrè collected a version from Palermo called Rusina ‘Mperatrici (The Empress Rosina). Domenico Comparetti collected a version from Montale titled Bellindia, where the heroine’s name is Bellindia, and her sisters are Carolina and Assunta. Vittorio Imbriani included a version titled Zelinda and the Monster (Zelinda e il Mostro), where Zelinda asks for a rose in January. Instead of visiting her family and returning to the Monster’s castle to find him dying, the Monster shows Zelinda a magic mirror showing her dying father. Zelinda must say she loves him to save him, and the Monster turns into a human who reveals he is the son of the King of the Oranges. Both Comparetti’s and Imbriani’s stories were included in Sessanta novelle popolari montalesi by Gherardo Nerucci.

British folklorist Rachel Harriette Busk collected a version from Rome called The Enchanted Rose-Tree, where the heroine has no sisters. Antonio De Nino collected a version from Abruzzo also called Bellindia, where the heroine asks for a golden carnation instead of a rose. Bellinda learns about her father’s condition through a tree called the Tree of Weeping and Laughter, whose leaves change based on her family’s happiness.

Francesco Mango collected a Sardinian version called The Bear and the Three Sisters (S’urzu i is tres sorris), where the Beast appears as a bear. Italo Calvino included a version titled Bellinda and the Monster in Italian Folktales, inspired by Comparetti’s story but adding elements from De Nino’s version, like the Tree of Weeping and Laughter.

Manuel Milá y Fontanals collected a version titled The King’s Son, Disenchanted (El hijo del rey, desencantado). In this tale, the youngest daughter asks for the hand of the king’s son, and her father orders his servants to kill her. They spare her, and she hides in the woods, where a wolf brings her to a castle. To break the spell, she must kill the wolf and throw his body into a fire. From the wolf’s body, a pigeon and an egg appear. When the girl breaks the egg, the king’s son emerges. Francisco Maspons y Labrós translated and expanded the story into Catalan, including it in Lo Rondallayre.

Maspons y Labrós also collected a version from Catalonia titled Lo trist, where the youngest daughter asks for a coral necklace instead of roses. She is warned by a garden (a muddy spring and a withered tree) when family members are sick. After her third visit to her family, she returns to the garden and finds her favorite rosebush withered. When she plucks a rose, the Beast appears and turns into a young man.

A version from Extremadura titled The Bear Prince (El príncipe oso) was collected by Sergio Hernández de Soto. It follows a similar introduction to Beaumont’s and Villeneuve’s versions, where the heroine’s father loses his fortune after a shipwreck. When the merchant recovers his wealth, the youngest daughter asks for a lily. The bear appears, saying only she can fix the damage the merchant caused. The girl heals the bear by restoring the lily, and he turns into a prince. This version was translated by Elsie Spicer Eells as The Lily and the Bear.

Aurelio Macedonio Espinosa Sr. collected a version from Almenar de Soria titled The Beast of the Rose Bush (La fiera del rosal), where the heroine is the daughter of a king instead of a merchant. Aurelio Macedonio Espinosa Jr. published a version from Sepúlveda, Segovia titled The Beast of the Garden (La fiera del jardín), where the heroine has a stepmother and two stepsisters and asks for an unspecified white flower.

In the Basque language, Beauty and the Beast is called Ederra eta Piztia. In a Portuguese version collected by Zófimo Consiglieri Pedroso, the heroine asks for “a slice of roach off a green meadow.” The father finds this in a castle and is told to bring his youngest daughter. While the heroine is in the castle, birds inform her about her family. When she visits her family, the master of the…

Broader themes

Harries notes that in the 18th century, two main types of fairy tales were popular: romantic stories with magical elements meant for adults and instructional stories designed to teach lessons to children. The story Beauty and the Beast is unique because it connects these two types. In Villeneuve’s version, the tale was written as a story for adults, often shared in social gatherings. In Beaumont’s version, the tale was created as an instructional story for children.

Commentary

Tatar (2017) compares the story to a common theme in folklore called "animal brides and grooms," noting that the French tale was created to help prepare young girls in 18th century France for arranged marriages. The story begins in an urban setting, which is unusual for fairy-tales, as the characters are neither royalty nor peasants. This may show the social changes happening during that time.

Hamburger (2015) explains that the Beast’s design in the 1946 film adaptation by Jean Cocteau was based on the portrait of Petrus Gonsalvus, a man from Tenerife who had a condition called hypertrichosis, which caused extra hair to grow on his face and body. He was protected by the French king and later married a beautiful woman named Catherine from Paris.

Modern uses and adaptations

The story has been adapted in many ways for movies, plays, books, and television over many years.

• The Scarlet Flower (1858), a Russian fairy-tale by Sergey Aksakov.
• Beauty and the Beast… The Story Retold (1886), by Laura E. Richards.
• Beauty: A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast (1978), by Robin McKinley.
• "The Courtship of Mr. Lyon" (1979), from Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber, based on Madame Le Prince de Beaumont's version. "The Tiger's Bride" in the same book is a different version of the tale.
• Beauty (1983), a short story by Tanith Lee, a science fiction version of Beauty and the Beast.
• Fashion Beast, a 1985 screenplay by Alan Moore, adapted into a graphic novel in 2012.
• "A Grain of Truth" (1993), a short story by Andrzej Sapkowski in The Last Wish.
• Lord of Scoundrels (1995), by Loretta Chase, a Regency romance and retelling of Beauty and the Beast.
• The Fire Rose (1995), by Mercedes Lackey.
• Rose Daughter (1997), by Robin McKinley.
• Beauty (1997), a modern retelling by Susan Wilson.
• The Quantum Rose, by Catherine Asaro, a science fiction version of Beauty and the Beast.
• Beastly (2007), by Alex Flinn, a version that sets the story in modern-day Manhattan.
• Bryony and Roses (2015), by T. Kingfisher (pen name of Ursula Vernon).
• Belle: An Amish Retelling of Beauty and the Beast (2017), by Sarah Price.
• A Court of Thorns and Roses (2015), by Sarah J. Maas.
• A Curse So Dark and Lonely (2019), by Brigid Kemmerer.
• Vow of Eternal Night (2026), by Lily Crozier.

• La Belle et la Bête (1946), directed by Jean Cocteau, starring Jean Marais as the Beast and Josette Day as Beauty.
• Beauty and the Beast (1962), directed by Edward L. Cahn, starring Joyce Taylor and Mark Damon.
• Panna a netvor (1978), a Czechoslovak film directed by Juraj Herz.
• Beauty and the Beast (1987), a musical live-action version directed by Eugene Marner, starring John Savage as Beast and Rebecca De Mornay as Beauty.
• Blood of Beasts (2005), a Viking period film directed by David Lister, also known as Beauty and the Beast.
• Spike (2008), directed by Robert Beaucage, a dark version of the fairy-tale updated to modern times.
• Beauty and the Beast (2009), an Australian fantasy reimagining of the tale, starring Estella Warren.
• Beastly (2011), directed by Daniel Barnz and starring Alex Pettyfer as the Beast (named Kyle) and Vanessa Hudgens as the love interest.
• Beauty and the Beast (2014), a French-German film.
• Beauty and the Beast (2017), a live-action adaptation of the 1991 Disney animated film, directed by Bill Condon, and starring Emma Watson and Dan Stevens.

• The Scarlet Flower (1952), an animated film based on the fairy-tale.
• The Scarlet Flower (1952), an animated film based on the fairy-tale.
• The Scarlet Flower (1952), an animated