For other uses, see The Robber Bridegroom (disambiguation)

The Robber Bridegroom (disambiguation)

The Robber Bridegroom may refer to:* The Robber Bridegroom , a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm* The Robber Bridegroom , 1942 novella, inspired by and loosely based on the Grimm fairy tale...

The Robber Bridegroom is a 1942 novella

Novella

A novella is a written, fictional, prose narrative usually longer than a novelette but shorter than a novel. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Nebula Awards for science fiction define the novella as having a word count between 17,500 and 40,000...

 by Eudora Welty

Eudora Welty

Eudora Alice Welty was an American author of short stories and novels about the American South. Her novel The Optimist's Daughter won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973. Welty was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, among numerous awards. She was the first living author to have her works published...

.

The story, inspired by and loosely based on the Grimm fairy tale

Fairy tale

A fairy tale is a type of short story that typically features such folkloric characters, such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, dwarves, giants or gnomes, and usually magic or enchantments. However, only a small number of the stories refer to fairies...

 The Robber Bridegroom

The Robber Bridegroom (fairy tale)

The Robber Bridegroom is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm, tale number 40. Joseph Jacobs included a variant, Mr Fox in English Fairy Tales, but the original provenance is much older; Shakespeare alludes to the Mr. Fox variant in Much Ado About Nothing, Act 1, Scene 1:It is...

, is a Southern folk tale set in Mississippi

Mississippi

Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...

. At the opening of the novella, the legendary Mike Fink

Mike Fink

Mike Fink called "king of the keelboaters", was a semi-legendary brawler and boatman who exemplified the tough and hard-drinking men who ran keelboats up and down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers....

 meets gentleman robber Jamie Lockhart, and Lockhart comes out on top. The story follows Clement Musgrove back to his home on the Natchez Trace

Natchez Trace

The Natchez Trace, also known as the "Old Natchez Trace", is a historical path that extends roughly from Natchez, Mississippi to Nashville, Tennessee, linking the Cumberland, Tennessee and Mississippi rivers...

, where he lives with his daughter, Rosamund, and second wife, Salome. Lockhart kidnaps Rosamund, and the two quickly fall in love.

The novel utilizes aspects of the Cupid and Psyche

Cupid and Psyche

Cupid and Psyche , is a legend that first appeared as a digressionary story told by an old woman in Lucius Apuleius' novel, The Golden Ass, written in the 2nd century CE. Apuleius likely used an earlier tale as the basis for his story, modifying it to suit the thematic needs of his novel.It has...

 myth

Mythology

The term mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths. As examples, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece...

. It was adapted by Alfred Uhry

Alfred Uhry

Alfred Fox Uhry is an American playwright, screenwriter, and member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers. He is one of very few writers to receive an Academy Award, Tony Award and the Pulitzer Prize for dramatic writing....

 and Robert Waldman

Robert Waldman

Robert Waldman is an American composer, musical arranger, and orchestrator.Waldman has collaborated with Alfred Uhry twice, on Here's Where I Belong, the disastrous 1968 adaptation of John Steinbeck's East of Eden that closed on opening night, and the considerably more successful The Robber...

 into a musical of the same name

The Robber Bridegroom (musical)

The Robber Bridegroom is a musical with a book and lyrics by Alfred Uhry and music by Robert Waldman. The story is based on the 1942 novella by Eudora Welty of the same name, with a Robin Hood-like hero; the adaptation placed it in a late 18th century American setting...

in the early seventies and opened for a short run on Broadway in 1976.