The Bluebeard reference article from the English Wikipedia on 24-Apr-2004 (provided by Fixed Reference: snapshots of Wikipedia from wikipedia.org)

Bluebeard

Bluebeard is the title character in a famous fairy tale of the Brothers Grimm, based on an earlier story by Charles Perrault. Bluebeard is a homicidal nobleman who marries women and then kills them, hiding their bodies behind a locked door to which he holds the only keys. Although his new wife is forbidden from opening the door, she manages to get the keys away from him and discovers his secret.

Although best known as a fairy tale, the character of Bluebeard was actually based on a real historical personage, Gilles de Rais. The character also appears in the play Saint Joan, by George Bernard Shaw, and is featured in an opera by Hungarian composer Bela Bartok: Duke Bluebeard's Castle (A Kekszakallu herceg Vara), based on a heavily psychosexual play by Bela Belasz.

Bluebeard is also the title of a novel by Kurt Vonnegut.

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