10 creepy fairy tales for adults

Life would be better if we all had a fairy tale spinning around us. But once we step out of the world of dragons, magic, witches, and boons, a grim reality awaits with things as sinister as taxes, politics, antisemitism, and all sorts of evils that are way worse than any three-headed monster. Hence, time and again, we would want to slip away into the world of fairy tales that take us away from reality. But then, reality makes us judge those non-relatable tales. Here is a list of some fairy tales for adults that have graver contexts and at the same time, provide us with an escape to a land far, far away, with magic and witches.

Image: image4alphacoders

Also known as Arabian Nights, this clever retelling of the classic is a collection of the never-ending stories told by Shahrazad under sentence of death to King Shahrayar. Enraged to find out his wife's orgies, King Shahrayar vowed to marry a virgin every night and kill her in the morning. To survive, his newest wife Shahrazad tells him a story each night, leaving the King in suspense when morning comes, prolonging her life for another day.
Image: Bloomsbury

A book with dark, vivid descriptions to keep us hooked, it takes the reader directly into the strange and mysterious circus that appears without warning, only by night, and has a dreamlike quality of fairy tales, complete Erin Morgenstern with magic that is never quite explained.
Image: Vintage

The book is a modern-day spin on Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream but the four lovers from the original play have been morphed into three, and the setting is a park in San Francisco, with a very terrifying Puck in the lead.
Image: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

A grown-up fantasy like no other, Neil Gaiman’s amazing is both beautiful and very creepy. It's modern take on Sleeping Beauty, with beautiful illustrations, an eerie atmosphere, and a fantastic twist.
Image: Bloomsbury

This brilliant but gory picture book is actually fairytale about war. It is a retelling of the Hans Christian Andersen story “The Tinderbox”, and a reinterpretation of the myth of Prometheus. But no, it has nothing to do with online dating.
Image: Hachette

The book is a skin-crawling, creepy, and grim wonder. The tale follows the love story between a child vampire and a young boy, with gory descriptions and a charming attraction.
Image: Quercus

This bestseller is a perfect mix of eerie, eccentric and grim. The fantasy book combines orphans with special powers, shape-shifters, time travel, remote islands, and World War to produce a spooky horror story with contemporary elements and vintage nostalgia.
Image: Quirk Books

This is a retelling of Noah's Ark for the modern age. The story follows a dark and interesting tale of a children's hospital floating free in a flood that drains the world, a young medical student who discoveries within herself strange powers, and four angels of the apocalypse.
Image: Polygon

This grim tale follows a young boy, grief-stricken after the death of his mother in WWII, finds himself in a kingdom inhabited by twisted fairy-tale characters. It is gruesome, grisly, and quite disturbing, though thoroughly enjoyable.
Image: Hachette

Murphy retells the fairy tale “Hansel and Gretel” during the Nazi occupation of Germany. Renamed Hansel and Gretel to hide their Jewish names, two siblings live with an old woman named Magda — the witch — who tries to hide their identities in a small village.

Image: Penguin Random House