Andrew Lang's 12 Coloured Fairy Books are some of his best known works.In
The Crimson Fairy Book
, the eighth in the series, Lang includes 36 stories from Hungary, Russia, Finland, Iceland, Tunisia, the Baltic, and elsewhere.In the Preface to the third volume, Lang expressed the view that it would be "probably the last" of the collection. Their continuing popularity, however, demanded a further 4 collections after this one.