A Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition of Hans Christian Andersen's famous tales, from award-winning translator Tiina Nunnally

Hans Christian Andersen was the profoundly imaginative writer and storyteller who revolutionized literature for children. He gave us the now standard versions of some traditional fairy tales--with an anarchic twist--but many of his most famous tales sprang directly from his imagination. The thirty stories here range from exuberant early works such as "The Tinderbox" and "The Emperor's New Clothes" through poignant masterpieces such as "The Little Mermaid" and...

Although before him Charles Perrault in France and the Brothers Gimm in Germany had collected and retold folk-tales in ways which found wide popular audiences, it was only with the appearance of Hans Christian Andersen's Eventyr (Fairy Tales) in 1835 that a writer emerged capable of creating new tales equal to those which existed in the folk memory. The grace and simplicity with which Andersen wrote, and his penetrating insight into the human condition, soon won him a wide following, and by the 1840s he was the most famous writer in Europe. Today, tales such as The Ugly Ducking and The...