<p>Vladimir Propp is the Russian folklore specialist most widely known outside Russia thanks to the impact of his 1928 book <em>Morphology of the Folktale</em>-but <em>Morphology</em> is only the first of Propp&#39;s contributions to scholarship. This volume translates into English for the first time his book <em>The Russian Folktale</em>, which was based on a seminar on Russian folktales that Propp taught at Leningrad State University late in his life. Edited and translated by Sibelan Forrester, this English edition contains Propp&#39;s own text and is supplemented by notes from his students.</p><p><em>The Russian Folktale</em> begins with Propp&#39;s description of the folktale&#39;s aesthetic qualities and the history of the term; the history of folklore studies, first in Western Europe and then in Russia and the USSR; and the place of the folktale in the matrix of folk culture and folk oral creativity. The book presents Propp&#39;s key insight into the formulaic structure of Russian wonder tales (and less schematically than in <em>Morphology</em>, though in abbreviated form), and it devotes one chapter to each of the main types of Russian folktales: the wonder tale, the 'novellistic' or everyday tale, the animal tale, and the cumulative tale. Even Propp&#39;s bibliography, included here, gives useful insight into the sources accessible to and used by Soviet scholars in the third quarter of the twentieth century.</p><p>Propp&#39;s scholarly authority and his human warmth both emerge from this well-balanced and carefully structured series of lectures. An accessible introduction to the Russian folktale, it will serve readers interested in folklore and fairy-tale studies in addition to Russian history and cultural studies.</p>