Best Fairy Tales: Macmillan Collector's Library

Hans Christian Andersen was born in Odense, Denmark, in 1805. He endured a lonely, impoverished childhood consoled by little more than his own imagination. He escaped to a theatre life in Copenhagen aged fourteen, where the support of a powerful patron enabled him to complete his scant education, and to write. His poetry, novels and travel books became hugely popular. But it was his Fairy Tales, the first children's stories of their kind, published in instalments from 1835 until his death in 1875, that have immortalized him. Translated into more than a hundred languages and adapted for every kind of media, they have made Andersen the most important children's writer in history.

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'.