I read Andersen from an early age and love his tales whether familiar like Thumbelina or The Little Mermaid or those that are less well known.
His world is the quotidian world of cobblers, ploughmen, fir trees and darning needles. It is this that makes Andersen's universe such a vital one. For, unlike the Brothers Grimm who collected German folk tales that had been sitting deep in the culture for centuries, Andersen made his stories up from scratch. Naturally he called on the trolls, tricksters and ice creatures who were part of the oral tradition of his peasant background, but much of what he did with them came directly out of his own sad, fertile brain. Instead of the Grimms' timeless forests and wicked step-mothers, Andersen gives us soldiers returning from war, the Round Tower of Copenhagen, rocking horses and a Lutheran deacon. While the Grimms' world is elegiac, Andersen's is fast, loud and crackling with the busyness of now. And they are filled with names of young people like Hans and Gretchen who might be living in your neighborhood. The tales live for me today just as they did when I was a boy. ( )

If you love fairytales then this is the book for you. A complete -I think- eddition of all Hans Christian Andersen's work. Some were a little boring, but you get to see the english translation of his original work. ( )