Fairy Tales - Softcover

Andersen, Hans Christian

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140448934 ISBN 13: 9780140448931

Publisher: Penguin Classics, 2005

Synopsis

Containing an enchanting mix of familiar favourites and hidden gems, the Penguin Classics edition of Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales is translated by Tiina Nunnally and edited with an introduction by Jackie Wullschlager.

The first writer to create timeless, universal fairy tales from his own imagination, Hans Christian Andersen conjured up a world of icy queens, match girls and tin soldiers, rewarded virtue and unfulfilled desire. Rich with popular tales such as 'The Emperor's New Clothes' and 'The Ugly Duckling', this revelatory new collection contains many later, darker and rarely collected stories, such as 'Auntie Toothache' and 'The Shadow', in which a man's shadow slyly takes over his life.

This sparkling new translation captures the eccentric charm of Andersen's original, colloquial Danish style as never before. The introduction vividly describes his changing style and there are notes on every tale.

'Truly scrumptious, a proper treasury ... Read on with eyes as big as teacups'
Guardian

'This translation gives me, for the first time, a real sense of the range and variety of Andersen's style'
A.S. Byatt

'There have been some capable versions in English, but Tiina Nunnally's seems to me the best. Jackie Wullschlager's introduction will be of enormous value'
Harold Bloom

About this title

About the Author:

Jackie Wullschlanger is a literary critic and European Arts Correspondent of the Financial Times. Her biography of Andersen (2000) was published to critical acclaim and great popular success and is now considered the standard life of the writer. Tina Nunnally is known for her many award-winning translations of Nordic fiction, including the PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Prize and the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize in 2003.

Jackie Wullschlanger is a literary critic and European Arts Correspondent of the Financial Times. Her biography of Andersen (2000) was published to critical acclaim and great popular success and is now considered the standard life of the writer. Tina Nunnally is known for her many award-winning translations of Nordic fiction, including the PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Prize and the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize in 2003.

Synopsis:

With this new translation and selection, the unique inventiveness of Andersen's genius is revealed. At a time when children's stories were formal, moral and didactic, Hans Christian Andersen revolutionized the genre, giving an anarchic twist to traditional folklore and creating a huge number of utterly original stories that sprang directly from his imagination. From the exuberant early stories such as "The Emperor's New Clothes", through poignant masterpieces such as "The Little Mermaid" and "The Ugly Duckling", to the darker, more subversive later tales written for adults, the stories included here are endlessly experimental, both humorous and irreverent, sorrowful and strange.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Classics
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0140448934
• ISBN 13: 9780140448931
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 496
• Editor: Wullschläger Jackie