Beauty and the Beast (French: La Belle et la Bête) is a fairy tale
written by French novelist Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve and
published in 1740 in La Jeune Américaine et les contes marins (The
Young American and Marine Tales). Its lengthy version was abridged,
rewritten, and published first by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont in
1756 in Magasin des enfants (Children's Collection) and by Andrew Lang
in the Blue Fairy Book of his Fairy Book series in 1889, to produce
the version(s) most commonly retold. It was influenced by some earlier
Ancient Greek stories, such as "Cupid and Psyche", The Golden Ass
written by Lucius Apuleius Madaurensis in the 2nd century AD, and The
Pig King, an Italian fairytale published by Giovanni Francesco
Straparola in The Facetious Nights of Straparola around 1550.Beauty
and the Beast (French: La Belle et la Bête) is a fairy tale written
by French novelist Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve and
published in 1740 in La Jeune Américaine et les contes marins (The
Young American and Marine Tales). Its lengthy version was abridged,
rewritten, and published first by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont in
1756 in Magasin des enfants (Children's Collection) and by Andrew Lang
in the Blue Fairy Book of his Fairy Book series in 1889, to produce
the version(s) most commonly retold. It was influenced by some earlier
Ancient Greek stories, such as "Cupid and Psyche", The Golden Ass
written by Lucius Apuleius Madaurensis in the 2nd century AD, and The
Pig King, an Italian fairytale published by Giovanni Francesco
Straparola in The Facetious Nights of Straparola around 1550.Variants
of the tale are known across Europe. In France, for example, Zémire
and Azor is an operatic version of the story, written by Marmontel and
composed by Grétry in 1771, which had enormous success well into the
19th century; it is based on the second version of the tale. Amour
pour amour (Love for love), by Pierre-Claude Nivelle de La Chaussée,
a 1742 play based on de Villeneuve's version. According to researchers
at universities in Durham and Lisbon, the story originated around
4,000 years ago.A widower merchant lives in a mansion with his twelve
children (six sons and six daughters). All three of his daughters are
very beautiful, but the youngest, Beauty, is the most lovely, as well
as kind, well-read, and pure of heart; while the two elder sisters, in
contrast, are cruel, selfish, vain, and spoiled. On a dark and stormy
night at sea, all of his wealth was robbed by pirates, who sink most
of his merchant fleet, and forces the entire family to live in a small
barn to work for a living. While Beauty makes a firm resolution to
adjust to rural life with a cheerful disposition, her sisters do not
and mistake her firmness for insensibility, forcing her into doing
household work in an effort to make enough money to buy back their
former home. Beauty and the Beast Top Movies & Young Movies