THE PHANTOM WHITE HARE AND OTHER STORIES <i> by Alexandre Dumas translated by Douglas Munro (Canongate, distributed by David & Charles, Inc.: $13.95) </i>

Five short tales, only two of which previously have been translated into English. Warm, gentle and funny, “The Magic Whistle,” “Peter and His Goose” and “The King of the Moles and His Daughter” recall the stories of Hans Christian Andersen rather than “The Three Musketeers.” As “The Night of the Lepus” demonstrated, rabbits are not generally perceived as frightening animals, yet Dumas manages to make the snowy phantom in the title story a truly baleful apparition. “The Adventures of Seven Stars on Earth,” a jolly fable of Jupiter’s unsuccessful efforts to bring happiness to an ungrateful humanity, evokes the rollicking tone of Dumas’ popular adventure novels.