Hans Christian Andersen's Complete Fairy Tales (Leather-bound Classics) Leather Bound – October 1, 2014

This is a review of the kindle edition of Hans Christian Andersen's Complete Fairy Tales. I notice that most of the reviews for it are for the hardcover edition. Paper and print quality for this edition were not an issue. The version I had was free of any illustrations except for the cover art.I was reading an older speech or essay by Daisaku Ikeda in either the World Tribune or Living Buddhism a while back in which he referred to a story by Hans Christian Anderson called “The Silver Shilling.” It occurred to me then that not only had I never heard of this particular story before, but I had never read any of Hans Christian Anderson’s stories in their original format. By this, of course, I mean a good translation as they were originally written in Danish. This book has no mention of who the translator was.There are 127 stories in this collection of which I only know about ten or twelve, and not all of them very well. Even of the ones I thought I knew pretty well, some as they are presented here are so different from the frequent retellings you hear most often as to be almost unrecognizable. “The Red Shoes” for example is much different from the version you usually see. “The Fir Tree” is probably the story I know the best. It usually finds its way into Christmas anthologies because of the little fir tree’s experience one year as a Christmas tree. It is substantially the same as the story I know.The designation of fairy tales for these stories is surprising, as fairies are not mentioned in no more than three of them and elves in perhaps as many as five. Much more common are stories featuring birds, flowers, or inanimate objects who talk and act very much like people. In one case there is a bottle neck that has a surprisingly long story. There are also several life stories of pretty much average people; some of them live good lives and end by going to heaven and meeting someone they had lost. Others do not live so well and die very unhappy. There are three or four stories of boys and girls who played happily together as children but were later separated in one way or another. Some of these children were later reunited. Others drift away and never find each other again. Angels feature prominently in some of the stories. Almost all of the stories have a moral of some sort.There is also an unexpectedly large number of stories of the lives of prominent artists or writers, occasionally as viewed by the flowers or birds that lived in their yards. Most of these were Scandinavian artists so I didn’t recognize many of them. They almost invariably died young, however.

I was looking for this book of tales for a gift and I'm glad I purchased it. The book cover it better in person than pictured. Has a great collection of tales.

Purchased as a gift for my granddaughter. Excellent classic stories beautifully bound and printed. She is a real bookworm and I know she will love adding it to her collection.

If you are only interested in simplified versions of the most well--known tales, then this is NOT the book for you. When it says, 'The Complete Hans Christian Anderson' it means that you are getting more stories than you may have ever imagine to be in one volume! And some tales are much much more voluminous than the common versions...but, that being said, if you are someone who enjoys great tales, and perhaps, for example, have read an entire version of Grimm's Fairy Tales, then this is the book for you It is not expensive for a book with a leather cover hard-backed cover, and which has way more stories than you might have ever imagined, many of them quite interesting but seldom seen in the shorter collections of tales. I highly recommend this book for anyone who really loves to read or reread folk tales from various countries. This volume will not disappoint you.

I love the golden pages and how beautiful the cover is. That alone makes you want to open the book!

El libro vino prácticamente en perfecto estado. Solamente tiene una ligera mancha amarilla en la cubierta, como si fuera un libro manchado por el tiempo. No obstante, el resto del libro está impecable, estoy muy satisfecho con él.

Good book

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