The Little Mermaid and Other Tales

by Hans Christian Andersen, Unknown Author

An illustrated edition of The Little Mermaid and Other Fairy Tales, which contains four tales - The Little Mermaid / The Tinder Box / Great Claus and Little Claus / The Swineherd - is accompanied by an audio cassette of actress Suzanne Toren reading The Little Mermaid.

128 pages, Hardcover

About the author

Hans Christian Andersen (often referred to in Scandinavia as H.C. Andersen) was a Danish author and poet. Although a prolific writer of plays, travelogues, novels, and poems, Andersen is best remembered for his fairy tales. Andersen's popularity is not limited to children; his stories — called eventyr, or "fairy-tales" — express themes that transcend age and nationality.

Andersen's fairy tales, which have been translated into more than 125 languages, have become culturally embedded in the West's collective consciousness, readily accessible to children, but presenting lessons of virtue and resilience in the face of adversity for mature readers as well. Some of his most famous fairy tales include "The Little Mermaid", "The Ugly Duckling", "The Nightingale", "The Emperor's New Clothes" and many more. His stories have inspired plays, ballets, and both live-action and animated films.

Reviews

[J]

***Although written in mind for young readers, these original stories may contain elements of death, torture and some graphic violence not suitable to sensitive readers. The stories also have a rather strong religious leaning as well***

The Little Mermaid and Other Tales is a collection of fifteen original stories from Hans Christian Andersen. As a result readers will find the majority to be rather familiar: The Little Mermaid, The Emperor's New Clothes, The Ugly Duckling, The Snow Queen, The Princess On the Pea, The Steadfast Tin Soldier, Little Thumbelina and The Little Match Girl while other stories will be rather a bit more obscure to readers not accustomed to these original tales.

Each story is of varying lengths withh some a few pages long and others formed of chapters. What makes this particular version stand out is the publisher includes some notes at the bottom of some pages to help clarify information although there are some containing mentions of what was considered offensive in 2024 and with a reprimand that the reader that such language should not be used in modern language.

The book ends with some discussion questions as well for readers wanting to look deeper into this material thus they can be skipped otherwise.

Some of the stories do include beautiful illustrations, which are unfortunately presented in black-and-white.

All in all if you like older fairytales that have not been Disneyified or sanitized, this pretty little book will make for a nice addition to your library or you can use its included ribbon as a great cat toy as you read to get your napping snuggle bug to interact with you.

[Skylar C. R. Wolf]

Honestly, it was nice to read through fairytales again I encountered as a child and even better to get to know some I did not know from Andersen’s stash of tales.
Sometimes bringing child like wonder back is something I missed in my daily life. And this is one of the things which definitely brought it back for a bit.

[Eren]

İngilizce kitap okumaya bu kitapla başladım, umarım devamını getiririm. Küçüklükten beri bildiğimiz masalları İngilizce okumak da hoş oldu. Keşke biraz daha masal olsaydı ama.
Dili çok anlaşılırdı tüm masalların çünkü kitabın İngilizce seviyesi düşüktü. En beğendiğim masal da Deniz Kızı oldu.