Books with author Hans Andersen.

This book, newly updated, contains the complete Andersen’s 168 fairy tales and stories in the chronological order of their original publication.Hans Christian Andersen was a Danish author and poet. Although a prolific writer of plays, travelogues, novels, and poems, Andersen is best remembered for his fairy tales, a literary genre he so mastered that he himself has become as mythical as the tales he wrote. Andersen's popularity is not limited to children; his stories—called eventyrs, or "fantastic tales"—express themes that transcend age and nationality.During his lifetime he was acclaimed for having delighted children worldwide and was feted by royalty. Andersen's fairy tales, which have been translated into more than 125 languages, have become culturally embedded in the West's collective consciousness, readily accessible to children, but presenting lessons of virtue and resilience in the face of adversity for mature readers as well. They have inspired motion pictures, plays, ballets, and animated films.

Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875) was born in Odense, the son of a shoemaker. His early life was wretched, but he was adopted by a patron and became a short-story writer, novelist and playwright, though he remains best-known for his magical fairy tales which were published between 1835 and 1872. For 150 years his stories have been delighting both adults and children. Packed with a light-hearted whimsy combined with a mature wisdom they are as entrancing as ever. Here are all of Andersen's 168 tales, and among the favourites are The Red Shoes, The Mermaid, The Real Princess, The Emperor's New Clothes, The Tinder Box and of course The Ugly Duckling.

You must attend to the commencement of this story, for when we get to the end we shall know more than we do now about a very wicked hobgoblin; he was one of the very worst, for he was a real demon. One day, when he was in a merry mood, he made a looking-glass which had the power of making everything good or beautiful that was reflected in it almost shrink to nothing, while everything that was worthless and bad looked increased in size and worse than ever. The most lovely landscapes appeared like boiled spinach, and the people became hideous, and looked as if they stood on their heads and had no bodies. Their countenances were so distorted that no one could recognize them, and even one freckle on the face appeared to spread over the whole of the nose and mouth. The demon said this was very amusing. When a good or pious thought passed through the mind of any one it was misrepresented in the glass; and then how the demon laughed at his cunning invention. All who went to the demon's school- for he kept a school- talked everywhere of the wonders they had seen, and declared that people could now, for the first time, see what the world and mankind were really like. They carried the glass about everywhere, till at last there was not a land nor a people who had not been looked at through this distorted mirror. They wanted even to fly with it up to heaven to see the angels, but the higher they flew the more slippery the glass became, and they could scarcely hold it, till at last it slipped from their hands, fell to the earth, and was broken into millions of pieces. But now the looking-glass caused more unhappiness than ever, for some of the fragments were not so large as a grain of sand, and they flew about the world into every country. When one of these tiny atoms flew into a person's eye, it stuck there unknown to him, and from that moment he saw everything through a distorted medium, or could see only the worst side of what he looked at, for even the smallest fragment retained the same power which had belonged to the whole mirror. Some few persons even got a fragment of the looking-glass in their hearts, and this was very terrible, for their hearts became cold like a lump of ice. A few of the pieces were so large that they could be used as window-panes; it would have been a sad thing to look at our friends through them. Other pieces were made into spectacles; this was dreadful for those who wore them, for they could see nothing either rightly or justly. At all this the wicked demon laughed till his sides shook- it tickled him so to see the mischief he had done. There were still a number of these little fragments of glass floating about in the air, and now you shall hear what happened with one of them.

Among the most beloved fairy tales in literature, the stories of Hans Christian Andersen have been delighting children and adults for generations. Their simplicity, humor, imaginative power, and universality have made them classics all over the world. Now readers can enjoy eight favorite tales from the great Danish storyteller: "The Ugly Duckling," "The Red Shoes," "Thumbelina," "The Emperor's New Clothes," "The Steadfast Tin Soldier," "The Little Match Girl," "The Princess and the Pea," and "The Nightingale." Newly reset in large easy-to-read type, these stories invite youngsters to enter a magical kingdom of fable fantasy and adventure. Adults, too, will find much of interest here, for the stories often contain elements only fully appreciated by older readers. In short, as Andersen himself insisted, these tales were written for all ages. Gathered together in this inexpensive volume, they represent hours of enjoyable entertainment in the company of one of the world's great storytellers. Six delightful illustrations by Harriet Golden enhance the text.