By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
‘The Courtship of Mr Lyon’, which was originally published in the British version of Vogue magazine, is a 1979 short story by Angela Carter (1940-92). The story was later collected in Carter’s 1979 book The Bloody Chamber.
Like most of the stories in The Bloody Chamber, ‘The Courtship of Mr Lyon’ took its inspiration from classic fairy tales. In this case, Carter’s story is a reworking of the ‘Beauty and the Beast’ tale. But precisely how we should approach, and analyse, Carter’s take on this well-known story requires a closer look at the text.