Here are Classic tables trom around the world — traditional tales by Grimm and Aesop, stories from the Bible and Arabian Nights, from English history and folklore, the Arthurian legends, Greek mythology, Eastern European folk tales — retold for our time in words and pictures with Handelsman’s own novel and brilliantly witty morals.

Never again will such stories as ‘St George and the Dragon’, ‘The Three Wise Men’, The Sleeping Beauty’, ‘Ali Baba’ or ‘The Trojan Horse’ seem quite the same.

Freaky Fables have been appearing weekly in Punch since 1977, and J.B. Handelsman is also a regular contributor to The New Yorker and Playboy.