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    Andersen's Fairy Tales
    Andersen's Fairy Tales
    Andersen's Fairy Tales
    Audiobook2 hours

    Andersen's Fairy Tales

    Written by Hans Christian Anderson

    Narrated by Erica Johns

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    The world of Hans Christian Andersen is seen through the eyes of children. There is the everyday wonder of an ugly duckling being transformed into a swan; the puffed-up Emperor being fooled by his own importance; the tender tragedy of a little match girl; the upright honesty of John rewarded by his travelling companion. By bringing true feelings to these stories, Andersen’s tales have become part of universal folklore.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherNaxos Audiobooks
    Release dateAug 30, 1994
    ISBN9789629543723
    Author

    Hans Christian Anderson

    Hans Christian Andersen (1805 - 1875) was a Danish author and poet, most famous for his fairy tales. Among his best-known stories are The Snow Queen, The Little Mermaid, Thumbelina, The Little Match Girl, The Ugly Duckling and The Red Shoes. During Andersen's lifetime he was feted by royalty and acclaimed for having brought joy to children across Europe. His fairy tales have been translated into over 150 languages and continue to be published in millions of copies all over the world and inspired many other works.

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    Reviews for Andersen's Fairy Tales

    4/5

    183 ratings6 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Note: The version I read is on DailyLit.com, so this review is for that edition.This is a classic set of short stories by Hans Christian Andersen. While I was vaguely familiar with some of the tales in this set, most were entirely new to me. Thanks to Disney, we tend to think of fairy tales as having “happily ever after” endings, and that is most definitely not the case with Andersen’s stories. A few do, but plenty also end with death or loss. While most are short stories, “The Shoes of Fortune” and “The Snow Queen” are both longer pieces. “Shoes” involves a pair of boots that transports the wearer to wherever and whenever they want to be, including whomever they wish to be. One character visits the moon, another becomes a bird, and another goes back to the Middle Ages. This was easily my favorite story of the whole set.Andersen keeps a playful tone in most of the stories, even the darker ones. In one story, he mentions people reading “a new poem by H. C. Andersen.” I love when authors unabashedly insert themselves into a story. If you’re interested in fairy tales, you should check out this book.
    • 4/5
      Rated: B+Wonderful tales told with a child-like perspective. Many of Disney's classics owe a debt to Andersen.
    • 4/5
      Children's fairy tales but not what has been watered down and added with cutesy animals. Not as graphic as some versions of the old tales, but a good collection of the tales from this master storyteller.
    • 4/5
      Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales are world renowned. Endlessly inventive and quirky, they've sparked countless adaptations and retellings, from Disney animated films to stage plays to choral works to short stories. Some of the tales are better known than others, like "The Little Mermaid," "The Emperor's New Clothes," "The Little Match Girl," and "The Steadfast Tin Soldier." Others are less well known (and some understandably so!), like "The Marsh King's Daughter," "The Wood Nymph," "The Red Shoes," and "The Shadow," to name a few.I was struck by the harshness of some of the stories. I knew going in that Andersen's imagination was informed by a culture very different from our sanitized, politically correct world, back when children knew all about life's grimmer realities. But it's still a bit of a shock. Most of the stories don't end on an entirely happy note. Beyond "Thumbelina" I'm hard pressed to remember any that do, actually.Many of the stories deal with the theme of not being content with your position in life, like the pine tree that wasn't happy in the forest and then had one night of splendor as a Christmas tree before being tossed away to die, or the nymph who traded her natural lifespan for a day as a human. Mortality lurks everywhere in these stories, bittersweet around the edges. The china shepherdess and her china chimney-sweep lover are faithful to one another "until they break." In one story, a man's shadow eventually breaks free of him and arranges his execution... chilling. Always death is peering around the corner; always the good things are tinged with a sense of impermanence.But despite the dark themes, there is a pervasive humor throughout the stories that I found entirely engaging. Much of it comes from personifying household items, like a kitchen pot or gentleman's necktie and poking fun at the absurdity of human vanity. Relationships come in for their fair share of gentle mockery, too — Stork Father and Stork Mother have some amusing insights on one another, and Andersen isn't above wry observations in the narrative.As a Christian, I found the theological aspect of the stories fascinating. Sometimes Andersen gets it right and it's biblical and beautiful — and other times (well, most of the time) his conception of a works-based salvation ruins everything. "The Little Mermaid" was particularly bad in this regard; she's told she can gain an immortal soul if she does good deeds for three hundred years. The three hundred years' span just seemed so arbitrary, I laughed out loud. Maybe this conception of earned salvation is another reason why most of the stories end so sadly...I listened to this on audiobook from Listening Library and was familiar with the readers, Kate Reading and Robert Whitfield, from other audio productions. Both performed these stories admirably (even the tedious ones), alternating back and forth between tales. Though some of the stories dragged out, others were delightful, and I found the unpredictability an enjoyable listening experience. I've read that Tina Nunnally's translation from the Danish is the most accurate to date, and though I can't speak to that, the stories certainly do possess a distinctive tone that one hopes is Andersen's. I'm glad I picked this up, even if just to know these iconic stories as they were originally imagined.
    • 5/5
      Six-word review, nth reread of 1923 edition:Beloved childhood treasure still enchants me.
    • 4/5
      I love fairy tales and these are some of the best and are great classics.