Best Fairy Tales

Uniquely inventive and vivacious in style and with deep insight into children's points of view, Hans Christian Andersen established a new genre in literature.

Part of the Macmillan Collector’s Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition of Best Fairy Tales uses the classic translation by Jean Hersholt and is illustrated by various artists, with an afterword by Ned Halley.

Hans Christian Andersen was a profoundly imaginative writer and storyteller who 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', 'The Little Match Girl' and 'The Ugly Duckling', to more subversive later tales such as 'The Ice Maiden' and 'The Dryad'.

«Hans Christian Andersen's fairytales . . . have captivated generations with their blend of plain language, unbridled imagination and haunting strangeness» - Guardian

«Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales are not fairy tales at all; they're too bittersweet, too knowledgeable about the way of the world for that. What they've done is provide us with many of the archetypes that sustain our Western collective unconscious» - Independent