A much beloved author recently fell from favor after horrific allegations were leveled against him. During the many discussions that followed among fans of mythic fiction, I often saw references to the author Tanith Lee, several of whose books I read long ago. It was time revisit her work, especially given how often people suggested that her stories directly influenced (some use a less generous word to describe it) that other author's writing.

Some of her books that used to be in my collection fell to a general purge several years ago, before I had to pack everything up and move it all across county lines. I still have a few, however, and the first I pulled from my shelf was Red as Blood, or Tales from the Sisters Grimmer, a collection of nine short stories that take a new look at some classic fairy tales.

Here we have "Paid Piper," "Red as Blood," "Thorns," "When the Clock Strikes," "The Golden Rope," "The Princess and Her Future," "Wolfland," "Black as Ink" and "Beauty." Some, I suspect, will immediately suggest the stories that inspired them, while others are less well known. Only one of the stories is more than 30 pages long.

For the record, the hardback copy I purchased back in the mid-1980s had a much less provocative cover than the one currently in print. I actually prefer the older, more demure artwork (at right), which is much more suggestive of classic fairy tales than the witchy pinup at left that has nothing to do with the stories inside. For what it's worth.

Anyway, it's what inside the book that matters most. Lee interprets familiar stories with a strong hand, making each very much her own. And, while the stories in their original (pre-Disney) form are without question dark and foreboding, Lee adds a sinister, at times sensual touch.

She also has a poetic touch to her prose that makes these stories lovely to read. Consider this passage from "Thorns":

It was the most beautiful city he had ever seen, perhaps because it was empty and desolate. The wind curled itself about the slim white towers and funneled down the colonnades, and the stars glittered on fragments of colored glass still spiking in the narrow windows. At its center rose a low hill that seemed to be covered by a wood of some sort, he couldn't be sure, for the moon had slunk behind clouds -- perhaps the place was a park or garden run wild.

Can you see it?

Of course, there's always a twist to Lee's version of events, and she will make readers reconsider who the hero and who the villain of each piece really is. Did the Pied Piper really steal away the town's children out of malice? Was Snow White's stepmother really so bad? (If you are familiar with another writer's short story that reimagined Snow White as a vampire ... well, he might have gotten the idea here.)

My favorite tales in this collection are "Wolfland," with its lush, gothic vibe and a distinctly different take on the Red Riding Hood legend, and "Beauty," a futuristic, alien-flavored interpretation of "Beauty and the Beast." "The Princess and Her Future," which recasts "The Frog Prince" with a demonic twist, has perhaps the harshest ending.

You won't come away from this book with "happily ever after" vibes. But you will come away knowing you read something worthwhile.

Oh, if you haven't already guessed, Lee's fairy tales aren't really appropriate for young readers.