A TREASURY OF HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN

Garden City, NY: Nelson Doubl, 1974. Book Club (BCE/BOMC), First Thus . Hardcover. Near Fine/Good. Text/NEW & Bright.Vintage 1974 Book Club Edition. Bicolor boards w/silver spine lettering/NF. Illustrated DJ/VG; intact w/nips, chips, & small losses to leading edges and surfaces & soil spots to back. Collection of 72 fairy tales told by Danish poet, novelist, & travel writer Hans Christian Andersen (1805 - 1875). Ranked with Brothers Grimm, who collected & retold folklore, Andersen is a storyteller that adopts the traditional form of oral literature. Though written in Danish, many of the stories first appeared in Germany, and some in England & America, before in his native land. A postscript to the volume is Andersen's 1837 preface in which we learn The Little Mermaid, Inchelina, and Little Ida's Flowers are entirely his own, and credits The Emperor's New Clothes to an old 13th century Spanish tale. The preface concludes with "In a little land like ours, the poet is always poor; honor, therefore, [is] the golden bird he tries to grasp. Time will tell whether I can catch it by telling fairy tales" --- Andersen did indeed have a golden bird perched upon his shoulders. Fine copy in a tired dust jacket.