Beauty and the Beast

Beauty and the Beast, originally written in French by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve, follows the tale of a beautiful girl, the daughter of a merchant, who chose to live in a palace with a beast in order to save the life of her father. She is treated well by the beast, and eventually, the beast transforms into a handsome prince.

The exact reasons for the beast's transformation, the events leading up to it, and the length of the story varies widely across interpretations and versions--these constitute Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index 425C, aptly named Beauty and the Beast, under the larger category 425, named Search for the Lost Husband or Animal as Bridegroom.

These variations additionally have a wide variety in how active the female protagonist is--some, such as in the German variation "The Singing, Springing Lark", it is by pure chance that the youngest daughter goes, in others, such as the Russian variation "The Scarlet Flower", the daughter takes charge and insists that she goes to meet the beast. In some, even between printed versions, there exist drastic variations, such as reversed roles where the woman is the beast (Hearne). 

The Beauty and The Beast has been told across a vast range of media, across a vast variety of cultures and languages, and we've chosen a select few to investigate.