Horace Walpole turns to the letters and argues that: Walpole's numerous letters are often used as a historical resource. In one, dating from 28 January 1754, he coined the word serendipity which he said was derived from a "silly fairy tale" he had read, "The Three Princes of Serendip". The oft-quoted epigram, "This world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel", is from a letter of Walpole's to Anne, Countess of Ossory, on 16 August 1776. The original, fuller version appeared in a letter to Sir Horace Mann on 31 December 1769: "I have often said,
Russian fairy tale Pushkin wrote several "skazka" in the 1820s and 30s : Between 1855 and 1863, Alexander Afanasyev completed a collection of nearly 600 folk tales and variants in his three volume work entitled "Narodnye russkie skazki" [National Russian Tales] (For translations see Alexander Afanasyev § Works) Russian fairy tale A Skazka – () (Russian fairy tale or Russian folktale) is a Russian word literally meaning "story", but used to mean fairy tale or a fantasy tale. The term can be used in many different forms to determine the type of tale or story being told. A "volshebnaya skazka" [fairy tale] is