Bluebeard
Bluebeard
Artists
"Bluebeard" is a French folktale, the most famous surviving version of which was written by Charles Perrault and first published by Barbin in Paris in 1697 in Histoires ou contes du temps passé.
The story is of a wealthy and violent man in the habit of murdering his wives and the attempts of one wife to avoid the fate of her predecessors.
The notoriety of the tale is such that Merriam-Webster gives the word "Bluebeard" the definition of "a man who marries and kills one wife after another," and the verb "bluebearding" has even appeared as a way to describe the habit of either killing a series of women, or seducing and abandoning a series of women.
The story is of a wealthy and violent man in the habit of murdering his wives and the attempts of one wife to avoid the fate of her predecessors.
The notoriety of the tale is such that Merriam-Webster gives the word "Bluebeard" the definition of "a man who marries and kills one wife after another," and the verb "bluebearding" has even appeared as a way to describe the habit of either killing a series of women, or seducing and abandoning a series of women.
Bluebeard adapted from Wikipedia and licensed by The Cultural Me under CC BY SA 3.0