Customer Reviews

Hans Christian Andersen: Fairy Tales

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4 star:		(2)
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I've read several versions of many of Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales; since I also read Danish, I can confirm that this is definitely the closest to his style of any translation I've ever seen. Nothing is added, nothing is omitted, and all his unique strangeness shines through in English at last.

Andersen was the first Danish author to break out of the mold of both neoclassicism and romanticism which preceded him, and his genius lay in writing as if he were telling the stories out loud to a group of children -- in the earlier, simpler tales -- and in capturing all the sorrow and joy of life in his later tales for adults. You may think you know these stories (no, there are no singing crabs in "The Little Mermaid," one of the more painful stories you will ever read), but you're in for a big surprise. Finally a translator who dares NOT to rewrite, explain, and simplify Hans Christian Andersen! Truly a magnificent edition in celebration of the author's bicentennial on April 2, 2005. (Read the biography by Jens Andersen too, it's a real eye-opener.)

We just got this book for my 8 year old daughter and I've been reading the stories to her. This book shows what a truly great story teller Hans Christian Anderson was! His stories sparkle! When I first got the book I was disappointed because the pictures are not at all spectacular. Upon reading the stories, the pictures don't matter at all. Anderson paints the pictures in your mind and you are just transported into his stories. The words are the pictures. My daughter and I are both enjoying this wonderful literature! I highly recommend the book to anyone wanting to introduce their child to truly wonderful classics.

This translation of the original Danish seem to match well the stories I grew up to like back in Scandinavia. If you want to get close to the mind of HC Andersen, this is a good bet.

For younger children some of the stories may be inappropriate. For example, "the Red Shoes" has a girl getting her feet chopped off for her sins. In general, HC didn't necessarily believe in happy endings, so be aware. This is a non-Disney fairy tale book.

The book's binding and pages are a bit stiff, but not overly. It is not too heavy either, so it works well when reading loud in bed.

Tiina Nunnally's translation of a selection of Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales leaves all the adult insinuations intact and doesn't sweeten the endings with sugar-coating. Above all, she captures the poetic sensibility of HCA.

These are probably not stories to be read out to children just before they sleep. The stories ached with the sadness of lost innocence and unrequited--both heterosexual and homosexual--love.

The omnipresent narrator tells his stories from the vantage point of a hawk in the sky and mole-rat burrowing beneath the surface of the earth. Like all good stories, they tell us something about the human condition, and like the best of them, they do so without telling us exactly what it is.

From my childhood I knew only a few [and those in "retold" versions] so it was a delight and an adventure to read his stories in this new collection. Many of these tales originally were deemed "unsuitable" for children, and there is often death and sometimes grusome details. Not all the children are nice either!

Fantastic to hear these stories read (with a British accent) by these two delightful narrators -- it makes you realize what it must have been like to listen to Andersen tell them to children and adults in 19th-century Denmark in the drawing rooms of his wealthy patrons. Too bad we can't see him doing his simultaneous paper cuttings to illustrate the stories!