Customer Reviews

H Andersens Fairy Tls

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I have been slowly (so veeeerrry slooooowlllly) working my way through all the Hans Christian Andersen books available for kindle. This is the only one I would suggest reading.

Not only does this version have an active table of contents and lack any of the distracting misplacement of page numbers and illustration names that several of the others have (although it's still not illustrated), but it contains what appears to be every story ever written by Hans Christian Andersen!

Long stories (The Ice Maiden), short stories (The Princess and the Pea), well-known stories (The Little Mermaid), unknown stories (She was Good for Nothing) and dozens of others are all contained within these e-ink pages!

They are also readable! This is not the case with some of the other HCA books on kindle. The stories are still really boring, occasionally tedious, generally depressing and often religious, but yet I can read them without wanting to scream and pull my hair out as I did with What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales. Instead they are somehow magically more approachable and I can almost remember why I loved Hans Christian Andersen so much as a child (selected stories from, at least).

So if you, like me, are determined to try and re-visit your childhood via fairy tales written by Hans Christian Andersen no matter what, at least take pity on yourself--or pity on your children if you're trying to read the stories to them--and read this version.

I had looked at several of Andersen's books on kindle. This is the best one I could find. It's free and very comprehensive (and long, goes past location 14000) There is an active table of contents, even though table of contents is grayed out on menu.

I do not have much to add to the foregoing reviews except that the active Table of Contents has the stories in alphabetical order so that you can easily get to your favorites. Access was very easy and quick. Don't waste your time on any other Kindle version of this book.

The very short 1981 edition currently before me features black and white illustrations by Philip Gough, and was translated by Naomi Lewis.

There's been a trend lately for fantasy authors to take traditional fairy tales and retell them, either as novels (as in Mercedes Lackey's case, or Peggy Kerr's _The Wild Swans_) or short stories (Tanith Lee did this even before Terri Windling came along). Hans Christian Andersen's little gems *aren't* traditional folk tales - he did the work - but quite often serve to fuel such fires anyway.

The translator, Naomi Lewis, has included a brief introduction discussing Andersen's life and career, and a few pages of notes at the end of the book discussing the original publication and origins of each story herein.

"The Princess and the Pea", "Thumbelina", "The Emperor's New Clothes"

"The Little Mermaid" - If you're only familiar with the Disney version, I warn you that they discarded much of what makes this story truly great. When evaluating a translation of this story, a quick test is to check the last scene between the mermaid and her prince to see how well the translator captures the actions and feelings of the characters.

The youngest of the seven mer-princesses has always been more fascinated by her grandmother's tales of the world above than any of her sisters, but she has the longest to wait for her first trip to the surface on her fifteenth birthday. Since mer-folk turn into seafoam at the end of their 300 years of life and have no immortal souls, she is especially curious about her grandmother's tales of how humans, when they die, can rise into a higher world just as the merfolk rise to the ocean surface, but one the merfolk can never reach, save through a human's love. (Oscar Wilde once turned this upside-down in "The Fisherman and the Soul", a very good story in which a fisherman fell in love with a mermaid and magically cut himself free of his soul to join her in the sea.)

As each of the sisters in turn makes her first journey, we see the world through their eyes, and since each has a different temperament and their birthdays fall at different times of the year, each sees and seeks out different sights. But when the youngest princess' turn finally comes (her name is never given), she has experiences that even the 3rd sister (the most adventurous of the lot) never had: a prince's birthday celebration at sea is struck by a great storm, foundering his ship before her eyes.

"The Steadfast Tin Soldier" - A toy story.

"The Nightingale" - Try Lackey's _The Eagle and the Nightingales_.

"The Ugly Duckling"

"The Snow Queen" - Check out Joan D. Vinge's novel of the same name.

"The Shepherdess and the Chimney Sweep" - They're porcelain figures who have fallen in love, but when her grandfather arranges a marriage for her with a mahogany carving instead, they decide to run away together.

"The Happy Family" - One of Andersen's lesser-known stories, of a little family of snails who know that they're the most important people in the world. :)

"The Goblin at the Grocer's" - The poet rescued an old book of poetry from the grocer who was using it as scrap paper, and the household goblin took offense at what was said. But when he entered the poet's room to play him a spiteful trick, he got more than he bargained for.

"Dance, Dolly, Dance" - Very short story about a poem written for little Amalie and her dolls.

This is an extremely readable selection of 26, out of about 156, of Hans Andersen tales. As the brief but very fine and helpful introduction by Naomi Lewis points out, these tales are perhaps more for adults than children, as Andersen himself wanted them to be. Most of them have a darker side. I also believe that the eminent literary critic, Harold Bloom, includes Andersen in his select list of short story writers qualified to be part of the Western canon. I did prefer some of the collection's early and middle tales, such as "Little Claus and Big Claus," "The Travelling-Companion," and "The Little Mermaid" to a handful of the later ones like "She was Good for Nothing," or "The Family and the Gardener." It seems that Andersen's true imaginary gifts shine best where his writing is least in step with the real world.

And I say "beware of the version published by General Books LLC " because this particular publisher specializes in taking copyright-free books (such as this) and recreating them using OCR technology, then selling them at a highly inflated price.

Within Amazon, books are generally grouped by the same title regardless of whether there are multiple publishers - which there are for this book, as it's now copyright free. Consequently, when one of these books with multiple publishers is reviewed, you will see the reviews of other publishers versions associated with it. And as a result you need to be very careful to make sure you've bought a decent version. The version available from General Books LLC is NOT what I would call a decent version. To be quite frank, it's awful. Full of mistakes (OCR does that, when there's no actual editing to catch the software-generated mistakes), tiny font (verging on the unreadable), no table of contents, no index. By now you should get the idea.

General Books LLC puts together books using an OCR automated scanning device which can miss complete pages. There are many many Typos and no table of contents. There books receive NO EDITING of any kind, also, the OCR scanning is done by a robot (which the publishers website outright says can miss pages and which does not scan in images). This is all stated on the publishers web site (google them and read for yourself to get all the details). And with this particular book, you can't do the "Look Inside" thing for the General Books LLC version to see what you're getting. (And when General Books LLC does let you do this, you'll see something like the following - "Just so you know...This view is of the Paperback edition (2009) from WLC. The Paperback edition (2010) from General Books LLC that you originally viewed is the one you'll receive if you click the Add to Cart button at left.."

They do this because if you saw the actual reproduction of their version, you'd NEVER buy the thing..... Enough said! General Books LLC are flooding Amazon with these low quality publications (450,000+ listed so far) and, unfortunately, many of them have the reviews associated with the original or with better quality imprints associated with them. For the buyer that's not aware of this publisher this can result in a rather unfortunate purchasing decision.

A good rule of thumb for these Print on Demand publishers is to take a look at the cover - if it's a good quality illustration that reflects the content, there's a table of contents, and when you do the Look Inside thing there's no disclaimer saying you're looking at another book, and they've stated that they used facsimile reproduction technology (rather than OCR), it's usually a pretty safe bet. Conversely, if any of these are missing, you're taking a chance on the quality. I've bought a few based on my selection criteria above and they've been good quality. General Books LLC however, is a publisher to steer clear of at all costs.

If you have been unfortunate enough to buy the General Books LLC version by mistake, you can return to Amazon for a full refund (but check Amazon's return policy and process first).

All that said, I loved this book as a kid, still have my old illustrated copy that's almost in pieces, and it's a tragedy to see it being descecrated by a "Publisher" like General Books LLC. Basically, they're scamming people.

And in response to the two Comments below criticising this review: Gentlemen, I suggest you check how Amazon publishes reviews and then READ MY REVIEW. Amazon does NOT allow you to publish a review for a book from a specific Publisher - Amazon groups a book with numerous different publishers together. This is why buyers get caught out by books published by General Books LLC - they rely on people inadvertantly buying from them for the bulk of their sales. Do a bit of checking for yourself before criticising.

Please Note that I said:

"Within Amazon, books are generally grouped by the same title regardless of whether there are multiple publishers - which there are for this book, as it's now copyright free. Consequently, when one of these books with multiple publishers is reviewed, you will see the reviews of other publishers versions associated with it. And as a result you need to be very careful to make sure you've bought a decent version." Lest you do not understand, let me reiterate in a more simplified version:

(1) Amazon groups books by title. This means different versions from different publishers are grouped together. Review one, review 'em all. You CANNOT differentiate by Publisher

(2)This is unfair to reputable publishers who do a good job. Which is why I explain this, something you seemed to miss. I'm not sure I can make it any more clear.

(3) This review is by way of a warning. Use it or not, as you wish. Others have been caught out. Make sure you buy the version you want from a reputable publisher.

That's it!

I have read and re-read this book so many times the binding has completely fallen apart. I can't imagine a better collection of stories and illustrations, perfect for any age!

Actor Robin Field reads the fairy tales by Danish author Hans Christian 'Andersen (1805-1875). According to Charles W. Elliot (editor of The 'Harvard Classics), Andersen "was the son of a poor cobbler who died 'when Hans was eleven. . . . His literary career began in 1829 with his 'humorous extravaganza A Journey on Foot from Holm Canal to the East 'Point of Amager, which was followed by plays, poems and descriptions of 'travel, and in 1835 by his first novel The Improvisatore, which was an 'immediate success. In the same year he found his real forte in the 'first volume of Fairy Tales. . . ." NOTE: Due to the advanced 'vocabulary and dramatic content of these stories, they are not 'recommended for the very young. The reading is nearly seven hours long 'on six Audio CDs.
The twenty tales in this collection are:'

The Ugly Duckling'
The Swineherd'
The Emperor's New Clothes'
The Elfin Mound'
The Constant Tin Soldier'
The Little Sea-Maid (Mermaid)'
The Red Shoes'
The Wild Swans'
The Nightingale'
The Garden of Paradise'
The Daisy'
The Storks'
The Darning-Needle'
The Shadow'
Little Ida's Flowers'
The Angel'
The Flying Trunk'
The Tinder-Box'
The Buckwheat'
The Bell

Hans Andersen's Fairy Tales, by Puffin Classics, is a collection of 26 of Andersen's Fairy Tales. The stories include The Ugly Duckling, Thumbelina, and the Emperor's New Clothes. Translated by Naomi Lewis, this collection of wonderful stories is told in a clear and concise format, as Puffin books tend to be. Hans Andersen's stories often include mythical creatures like such as the Snow Queen, the Mermaid Family, and even a Goblin. Many of the other characters are talking animals or figures. Of course, there are people, and there is even a one inch high girl. At about 200 pages long, the book is perfect for any child who can read and an even an adult might enjoy the stories.
One of the stories tells the story of a one inch high girl and her voyage through the world and her rescue of a swallow, another tells the stories of porcelain figures and such that come to life at night. Even yet another story tells the story of a goblin who discovers the wonders of poetry but cannot give up his Christmas bowl of porridge that the grocer he lives with gives him, and so never fully enjoys the magic and wonder of the poetry book.
Hans Andersen wrote some of the best stories of all time and readers are guaranteed to love them.

I really loved the stories in this book. I was surprised about the endings in some of them, but in a good way. I would highly suggest this book to anyone over 18 who loves fairy tales with twisted endings.