Author John Thackray Bunce was a senior vice president at the Birmingham and Midland Institute, a pioneer in technical and scientific education for adults, when he attended a Christmas lecture series on fairy tales and mythology in 1877. Bunce enjoyed the series so much, noting that the subject was particularly fascinating to children, that he expanded on the content and turned it into a book, Fairy Tales: Their Origin and Meaning. In Bunce's words, the "aim [of the book] is a very modest one: to furnish an inducement rather than a formal introduction to the study of Folk Lore." Readers will find chapters on the origin of fairy tales as well as stories and characters originating around the world, including Asia, Scandinavia, Ireland, and the Middle East. JOHN THACKRAY BUNCE (1828-1899) was a British author and a senior vice president of the Birmingham and Midland Institute. He was the author of Cloudland and Shadowland (1868), Fairy Tales: Their Origin and Meaning (1878), and Josiah Mason: A Biography (1882), among others.