Sister Anne

Baron Bluebeard has had seven wives and acquired several fortunes but no heir. He marries his eighth — Fatima, a young heiress — and brings her to a castle high above the sea. Five days later she sends for her sister Anne. The castle holds a secret. The keys are left within reach. The one-eyed porter, Wolfram, sings songs about a violin and the bones it was made from. "What did he do with her tongue so rough? Unto the violl it spake enough!"

The story is Beatrix's gothic retelling of the Bluebeard fairy tale by Charles Perrault — but seven times longer, and far stranger. She had originally planned it for The Fairy Caravan, found it too long, and offered it to Alexander McKay in America as a standalone book. She removed all the Caravan characters except, by accident, three storyteller mice in the preface — whom she promptly forgot about for the rest of the book.

The illustrations are by Katharine Sturges, an American artist, because Beatrix was approaching sixty-six and felt the strain. "The illustrations are fine; Katharine Sturges has conveyed the sense of giddy height so well in the out-door subjects; and the black backgrounds give an effective air of mystery." The book was never published in England — only unbound sheets, submitted for copyright. It was the last of Beatrix's stories to be published during her lifetime.

The cover shown is the original edition. Amazon carries the copies in print today.

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