Beauty and the Beast

Beauty and the Beast (French: La Belle et la Bete) is a traditional fairy tale (type 425C -- search for a lost husband -- in the Aarne-Thompson classification). The first published version of the fairy tale was a meandering rendition by Madame Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve, published in La jeune americaine, et les contes marins in 1740.

The best-known written version was an abridgement of Mme Villeneuve's work published in 1756 by Mme Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont, in Magasin des enfants, ou dialogues entre une sage gouvernante et plusieurs de ses elèves; an English translation appeared in 1757.

Variants of the tale are known across Europe. In France, for example, Zemire et Azor is an operatic version of the story of Beauty and the Beast written by Marmontel and composed by Gretry in 1771. It had enormous success well into the 19th century. It is based on Mme Leprince de Beaumont's version of the tale.