Hans Christian Andersen is the best-loved of all tellers of fairy tales. This collection of over forty of Andersen's most popular stories includes The Mermaid, The Real Princess, The Red Shoes, The Little Match Girl, The Snow Queen, The Tinder Box, The Ugly Duckling and many more. It is delightfully illustrated in black-and white by those remarkable brothers, Charles, Thomas and William Heath Robinson

Hans Christian Andersen was born in Odense, Denmark, in 1805. At the age of 14 he went to Copenhagen to become an actor. He failed and instead went back to school, where he was very unhappy. He published his first book, an account of a walking trip in 1829. From then on he wrote many books, finding his true voice in his original fairy stories, which often had their basis in his life. He died in 1875.