Fairytale fantasy

From there, the literary fairy tale was taken up by the French 'salon' writers of 17th century Paris (Madame d'Aulnoy, Charles Perrault, etc.)

[1] The precise dividing line is not well defined, but it is applied, even to the works of a single author: George MacDonald's Lilith and Phantastes are regarded as fantasies, while his "The Light Princess", "The Golden Key", and "The Wise Woman" are commonly called fairy tales.

Other forms of fantasy, especially comic fantasy, may include fairy tale motifs as partial elements, as when Terry Pratchett's Discworld contains a witch who lives in a gingerbread house, or when Patricia Wrede's Enchanted Forest is rife with princesses and princes trying to fit in their appointed fairy tale roles.

A common, comic, motif is a world where all the fairy tales take place, and the characters are aware of their role in the story,[2] occasionally even breaking the fourth wall.

Authors who have worked with the genre include such various figures as Oscar Wilde, Kathryn Davis, A. S. Byatt, Italo Calvino, Angela Carter, Donald Barthelme, Robert Coover, Margaret Atwood, Kate Bernheimer, James Thurber, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Rikki Ducornet, Robert Bly, and Katie Farris.