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The Enchanted World

    (Time-Life, 1984-1987)

The Enchanted World was a series of twenty-one books published in the time period 1984-1987. each focusing on a different aspect of mythology, fairy tales or folklore. Their overall editor was Ellen Phillips and their primary consultant was Tristram Potter Coffin, a Guggenheim Fellowship Award-winning University of Pennsylvania Professor Emeritus of English. The volumes in the series were known for their art and the extensive research used by their respective authors retold stories, and were executed as gold imprinted, cloth bound hardcover books, with a glued-on cover illustration. When a series subscription was taken out, a set of gypsy fortune telling cards was received as a bonus gift.

A unique part of the series was that its books were written as stories, taking place from an "in-universe" perspective, presenting its subjects as real people, places, and things. Related to such things having once been real, a common thread through several of them was its documentation of the alleged decline of magical things from "when the world was young" to the modern day. The subjects - dragons, dwarfs, giants - are presented as being potent and strong at the dawn of time, but it is explained that magical creatures grow weaker and eventually disappear as humans spread and demystify the world, though there is always the promise that the magic will return once again.
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