Oh my. A book that sounds interesting in principal... but lacks editing, spell check, organization, or anything else that makes a good book. But - I persevered. Reading a few pages each night - Sometimes an entry would need to re-read a number of times just to understand what it is about. On top of it, there is no consistency about entries. It might have been interesting to group the entries by culture or location or type, rather than alphabetically. Also, for groups such as named Naenids, Better to have one entry than listing all 100 or so entries. There was no distinguishing factors between them, so why individual entries?

As for which fairies were listed. Strange, seeing as how it is titled " Encyclopedia of Fairies in World Folklore and Mythology... it is very light on non-European fairies. A few entries from Maori, African, Native American, or Tibetan Cultures, but not many. These are cultures that have a very large pantheon of fairies.

A number of the entries in this book included beings I wouldn't have considered fairies. Between the fictional characters, such as fairies listed from Midsummers Night Dream by Shakespeare and creatures I would have considered Gods- It makes for a very odd read.

About the only good thing, is that everything is well sourced. I haven't checked any of the sources - but I suspect you can use this book to find books in this subject. ( )

Very in depth book about Fairies from different mythological standpoints. There is a ton of information in the book if you are researching this topic. I am also writing mythology related stories, and this is a good reference book for that. ( )

I received this book from LibraryThing as an Early Reviewer book.

This is a pretty great resource. There's a very broad definition of "fairy" being used, which means that just about any kind of magical creature you can imagine makes an appearance. There is a definite British bias, but there are examples from a wide variety of cultures of creatures that fall broadly under the "fairy" umbrella. The focus is on human-shaped creatures, but there are a few others in there as well. I wouldn't use this as the only source for non-European creatures, but it does offer an excellent starting point.

The entries themselves are clear and concise, varying in length from a couple of sentences for minor examples to a page or more for large subjects (the entry for "Fairy" is six and a half columns of text, including the long list of variant names). Sources are offered at the end of every entry, which is extremely valuable for judging the relevance of the information to whatever use you're putting it. The entries are written as though discussing actual entities, not literary constructions - but the citations help mitigate the bias that introduces.

The index is wonderful, allowing you to look up creatures by name, type, origin, or role. It does seem a little redundant to list every entry in the index when they're also simply listed alphabetically in the text itself, but that's a small quibble. The index also lists variant names, particularly useful for those Celtic creatures with so many different appellations it's impossible to keep them all straight. The introduction is nice, but not particularly enlightening.

My biggest complaint really is format. I'd love this to be bound in hardcover with a spine that will lay flat - a tight perfect binding is hard to use as a reference resource. Still, that's a small thing compared to the contents of the book, which are quite good. This will go straight into my writing reference collection, and I expect to make good use of it. ( )

I received this book from LibraryThing as an Early Reviewer book.
I have read through much of it but I am still going through this since it is an encyclopedia. I have to say that I am really enjoying it. The structure is done well, allowing for easy reference. You have the name of each fairy with a small description, which I find justifies each fairy properly. I figure when I come across a particular fairy that I want to know more in-depth, I can research it online. I have also learned about many fairies that I have never heard of! So interesting. I think this is a good book for fairy, folklore and mythology lovers alike! Thank you for the opportunity to read this. It's been a fantasy vacation. ( )

This encyclopedia lists fairies by name alphabetically with a short description of the fairy. In addition the fairies are also indexed. I like that there are references for each entry as well as a bibliography; this makes it very easy to read more on a particular fairy. This book is a useful reference if you are looking for a short introduction about a certain fairy and if you want to find more literature on that fairy.

I would have liked to see some artistic renderings of at least a few these beings throughout the encyclopedia and many of the descriptions could have been lengthier. I understand that this would make the book much longer, but I would expect that with it being termed an encyclopedia. ( )