Friday 15 December 2017

Research into the evolutions of the books

I have started to research further into the history of the 3 books I that I am designing the covers for; Aladdin, The Lion King and Cinderella. The three stories have evolved and changed extremely throughly throughout the years, transitioning from stories based on tragedies, slavery, fortunes, responsibilities, wealth etc to fairytales and love stories.

The original film Aladdin is a folk tale, said to have been from the Middle Eastern origin. It is one of the tales in The Book of One Thousand and One Nights ("The Arabian Nights"), and one of the best known—but it was not part of the original Arabic text, it was in the 18th century by a man named Antoine Galland from France.

The original story follows how Aladdin went from being a poor young no-good, dwelling in one of the cities of China to how he finds himself trapped in a cave after the sorcerer successfully attempts to betray him; the sorcerers motive was to persuade young Aladdin to retrieve a wonderful oil lamp from the booby-trapped magic cave. However, Aladdin still has on a magic ring that the sorcerer has lent him. When he rubs his hands in despair, he coincidently rubs the ring which makes the genie appear; the genie releases him from the cave so that he can return to his mother...however the genie and lamp comes with evil; a second far more powerful genie appears. This leads to Aladdin becoming rich and powerful and marrying Princess Badroulbadour, however Aladdin manages to summon the lesser genie when the sorcerer tricks his wife and takes the lamp.

The story line still remains similar but it is now more of a dramatic love story based fairytale. It follows the story line of how he frees a genie from a lamp, and finds his wishes granted, along with evil within the lamp he still finds his real wish to be with Princess Jasmine granted. The book/film follows the story of how Aladdin and Princess Jasmine cannot be together as he is street-rat and she is a princess, he finds himself having to change who he is (pretending to be a prince) in the end the truth comes out about his real identity.


The story of The Lion King hasn't changed much throughout the years as it is not as old as Aladdin and Cinderella. The Lion King is a 1994 American animated epic musical film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures. Its original songs were written by composer Elton John and lyricist Tim Rice, and original scores were written by Hans Zimmer. 

The Lion King tells the story of Simba, a lion cub who is to aim for his fathers role within the kingdom, Mufasa, as King of the Pride Lands; however, after Simba's uncle Scar (Mufasa's jealous younger brother), murders Mufasa, Simba is manipulated into thinking he was responsible for his fathers death and flees into exile. When Simba flees into the desert he meets two friends; Timon and Pumbaa, a meerkat and warthog, who are fellow outcasts, they become his new family through maturation. 

Simba is then given some valuable perspective when his childhood friend Nala manages to find him, as well as his shaman, Rafiki. In addition, when Nala and Simba reunite they fall in love, and she urges him to return home. Simba then returns to challenge Scar to end his tyranny and take his place in the Circle of Life as the rightful King, successfully following in his fathers foot steps.


Cinderella or The Little Glass Slipper, is a folk tale similar to Aladdin, symbolising a myth-element of cruel prejudice and successful reward; the story is about a young woman (Cinderella) living in unfortunate circumstances; being treated as a slave by her step mother and two step sisters, that are suddenly changed to remarkable fortune; falling in love with the Prince.

The story of Cinderella has many variations and changes from when it was first told till now. The first story was the story of Rhodopis, recounted by the Greek geographer Strabo way back in 7 BC, about a Greek slave girl who marries the king of Egypt. The first literary European version of the story was published in Italy by Giambattista Basile in his Pentamerone in 1634; the most popular version was published by Charles Perrault in Histoires ou contes du temps passé in 1697, and later by the Brothers Grimm in their folk tale collection Grimms' Fairy Tales in 1812

Rhodopis is a story about a female Greek slave, this story is about how slave Rhodopis became Egyptian Pharaoh’s wife. It is the story of how an eagle snatched one of her sandals from her maid and carried it to Memphis; and while the king was managing justice in the open air, the eagle, when it arrived above his head, flung the sandal into his lap; and the king, stirred both by the beautiful shape of the sandal and by the strangeness of the occurrence, sent men in all directions into the country in quest of the woman who wore the sandal; and when she was found in the city of Naucratis, she was brought up to Memphis, and becomes the wife of the king. The story has now changed thoroughly to the tale of how Cinderella secretly goes to the ball with the help of her fairy god mother. The fairy godmother transforms her from a slave (she is kept as a slave by her evil step mother and step sisters after her mothers death her father re-marries) into a beautiful princess. At the ball, she catches the princes eye but unfortunately has to leave before midnight to avoid getting caught by her step family, however her glass slipper falls off as she is leaving. The prince then makes it his mission to find Cinderella by making every woman in town try the slipper on, and of course it only fits Cinderella.


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