Henry's Once Upon a Time Book

"They're not fairy tales... Every story in this book actually happened."

- Henry to his birth mother

The Once Upon a Time Book, commonly referred to as Henry's Book or simply The Book, is a magical item featured on ABC's Once Upon a Time. It first appears in the first episode of the first season.

Trivia

 * -|On-screen Notes=

On-screen Notes

 * The book includes the following fairytales and stories:
 * "The Golden Bird"
 * The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
 * Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
 * "Snow-White and Rose-Red"
 * The Adventures of Pinocchio
 * The Charles Perrault version of "Cinderella"
 * "King Thrushbeard"
 * "The Queen Bee"
 * "The Water of Life"
 * The picture of Dorothy and the Flying Monkeys is "The Monkeys Caught Dorothy in Their Arms and Flew Away With Her", one of W. W. Denslow's illustrations from the first edition of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
 * In "Pilot", the opposite page contained an excerpt from the fairy tale of "The Golden Bird". In "Snow Falls", the text has been replaced with a story about how Prince Charming set the trap for Snow White.
 * The illustration of Alice and the Caterpillar is a colorized version of one of John Tenniel's illustrations from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
 * The same illustration is on the cover of the novel that Will Scarlet steals from the library.
 * Some of the images are illustrations by the famous English book illustrator Arthur Rackham:
 * An illustration from Little Brother & Little Sister and Other Tales By The Brothers Grimm (1917), which depicts a scene from the Grimm fairy tale "Maid Maleen".
 * "He Played Until The Room Was Entirely Filled With Gnomes", published during the late nineteenth century. This image depicts a scene from the Grimm fairy tale "The Gnome".
 * "The Meeting of Oberon and Titania" (1905), from William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.
 * The same picture can be seen in Once Upon a Time Volume II in "A Bitter Draught"; however, the angle makes it very unclear.
 * An illustration from Nathaniel Hawthorne's children's book A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys (1851). It depicts a scene from the story "The Paradise of Children".
 * A 1909 illustration from the fairy tale of "Little Red Riding Hood".
 * "What Did She Find There But Real Ripe Strawberries", also from Little Brother & Little Sister and Other Tales By The Brothers Grimm. This image depicts a scene from the fairy tale of "The Three Little Men in the Wood".
 * "When He Heard Peter's Voice He Popped in Alarm Behind a Tulip, from J.M. Barrie's book Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens (1906).
 * The same illustration is in Isaac's book Heroes and Villains. Both pages also feature the same excerpt from the fairy tale of "The Golden Bird", indicating that the same prop was used for the interior of both books.
 * "Fairies Away! We Shall Chide Downright, If I Longer Stay" (1908). It depicts Titania in a scene from A Midsummer Night's Dream.
 * "Preposterous! Cried Solomon in a Rage", also from Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens.
 * There are some stories that do not exist in the book such as Frankenstein due to unknown reasons. Henry theorized that Dr. Frankenstein's story is not in the book since he does not originate from the Enchanted Forest as the other people in the book do. However, on numerous occasions, images in other realms have been featured such as the Caterpillar as well as Jefferson in Wonderland.
 * The walls and floor on the storybook page with the door, which Henry finds, have the same design as the inside of Jefferson's hat.


 * -|Cultural References=

Lost

 * The storybook page where young Regina is running away, and the page Robin Hood finds, are number XXIII (as Regina points out), a reference to the fifth Lost number, 23.


 * -|Set Notes=

Props Notes

 * When creating the book, the prop department brought in every style and type of book they could find, and picked out an antique accounting book. They aged it up a little, and the art department would press stamps into the cover of the book to change the cover. A book builder made replicas of the finished product. The prop department created many pages with text on them, and added several illustrations.
 * The show does several transitions from the book to live action. If they're lucky, the prop department creates an illustration out of a screen-grab and inserts it into the book. If the prop department's schedule takes before the filming of the main action of the story line, they put a green page in the book, and the visual effects department will make their own illustration.
 * A blank prop replica of the book was signed by Edward Kitsis, Adam Horowitz, Ginnifer Goodwin, Lana Parrilla, Josh Dallas, Emilie de Ravin, Robert Carlyle, Michael Raymond-James and Colin O'Donoghue for a September 2013 Stand Up 2 Cancer charity event.
 * -|Other Notes=

Goofs

 * When Henry is given the storybook in October 2011, he sees a picture of the scene with Geppetto, Jiminy Cricket and Pinocchio right before the Blue Fairy's arrival. However, the story of Pinocchio being sent to the Land Without Magic along with Emma was not in the book until August added it several months later.

Appearances
Note: "Archive" denotes archive footage.