In mid-May I polled this question and the results were pretty evenly split between Belle, Blue Fairy and Rumple. It looks like we’re no closer to a consensus. Last month, I was convinced BF was the writer– now I’m now sold on Rumple as the writer, and he wrote it before leaving FTL.
1. he has the depth and breadth of knowledge to tell the stories accurately–he witnessed them
2. time and again, he ‘s made remarks that sound like things a writer would care about. He’s especially concerned with the characters’ clothes (Ella and Charming) being “right.”
3. he has motives. The book could be his contribution to the future generations: knowing his dark curse would destroy FTL, maybe he wanted them to have a history of those days. Or it could be his gift to Bae, when he sees him again. Or it may have been created to do exactly what it’s done: lead to Emma’s coming.
4. Mostly, though, I think Rumple wrote it as an homage to love, which he ‘s professed to be a fan of. The theme of every story is: love is the ultimate power, the only power to trust. So maybe the book is meant to sell others on that theory–or to sell himself.
If we could only find out WHEN the book was written, we ‘d have a better chance of finding the author. I’ m a limb -climber, so I ‘m going out on another limb to say not only did Rumple write the book– he wrote some or all of it before the events of the stories happened. So it’s not a book of histories; it’s a book of futures. That explains why his personal stories are left out (if they are): he can’t see his own future Once he knows a character’s name, he can access that person’s future–when Snow told him Emma’s name, he could see Henry as part of her future.
That’s my limb and I’m clinging to it. For now.