Fairy Tales

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