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While the original Snow White and the Seven Dwarves is a charming traditional tale for children, adult readers are likely to find it too simplistic for their taste. Were the characters really so black-and-white as they are drawn? Is it credible that the king, the new queen and Snow White were the only players in the drama, in an era when royal courts seethed with political intrigue? There must have been many others involved; what were their roles, motives and agendas?
The fact is, the real Story-Behind-the-Story has long remained a secret. Now at last the truth can be revealed, how the new Queen Irma and her crafty kinsman Count Drakenstein plotted from the outset to seize power. After tricking the king into drug dependency and imprisonment, Snow White’s wicked stepmother banishes the little princess to a life of drudgery in the royal kitchens, while planning to have her murdered, and the crime disguised as a hunting accident. When the huntsman has a change of heart and spares her life, a strange woodland creature guides Snow White through the dangers of the forest to the home of the Seven Dwarves in the remote Duchy of Mandragua, where she finds refuge. Learning of this by means of the Magic Mirror, Queen Irma orders her henchman, Black Bart, Usurper of the Duchy, to do her dirty work for her.
But this evil plan does not prosper either. Snow White is saved by the intervention of Prince Hal, the true successor to the Dukedom, whose foresters rout the Usurper’s forces. Meanwhile friends loyal to the deposed king conspire to raise the standard of resistance in his support, under the leadership of the aged Marshal, Lord Dransky and the lovely Lady Elaine, Snow White’s godmother and once Lady-in-Waiting to the former Queen. In the palace itself a plot is hatched to liberate the king. Cast in an unexpectedly heroic role is Snow White’s friend the little kitchen maid Elvira, who embarks on a perilous journey to carry a message to Lord Dransky. She is destined later to play a pivotal role in the drama.
Learning that Black Bart has failed, Queen Irma takes matters into her own hands. As is well known, she penetrates Snow White’s refuge in the guise of an old peddler woman and offers a poisoned apple.
At this point the story diverges radically from the traditional tale. Mysteries and improbabilities are clarified. The Wicked Queen’s supposed demise in a fatal fall, as told in the original, is exposed as a fraud. Her subsequent history is much more interesting, as are the histories of the other main characters that are drawn together at the end into a credible conclusion. Good triumphs over evil, crime gets its just deserts, Love blossoms in all directions and the good guys are rewarded with general felicity.