My love story with fairy tales—and with myths, their sometimes cousins, sometimes siblings, sometimes one and the same (depending on who you ask, and quite possibly the weather)—is long and convoluted. I was enthralled by them pretty much from the moment I learned to read, thanks to an early diet including Italo Calvino’s Italian Folktales , Edith Hamilton’s Mythology , and Lloyd Alexander’s The Chronicles of Prydain , and the fascination lasted throughout (and in many ways, shaped) my years at university.

And the older I got, the more fascinated I became by the way these stories change.…