SEVEN CLASSIC HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN FAIRY TALES, WITH SIX STORIES APPEARING IN ENGLISH FOR THE FIRST TIME

ANDERSEN, Hans Christian. The Dream of Little Tuk and Other Tales. Translated by Charles Boner. London: Grant and Griffith, 1848 [i.e., December 1847]. 12mo, original blind- and gilt-stamped navy cloth, all edges gilt. $2350.

First edition of Boner's translation of these seven famous stories by Hans Christian Andersen—six of them appearing in English for the first time—illustrated with four plates by Franz Graf von Pocci.

"Hans Christian Andersen was the world's first great fantasy storyteller" (Clute & Grant, 27). His first fairy tales appeared in 1835. "With the passing of each year, Andersen's genius brought forth new 'wonder stories,' and the fame had so desperately craved and striven for became a reality" (Jean Hersholt Collection, 27). "Selections of Andersen's stories first appeared in English in 1846… Andersen's work was immediately naturalized into English children's literature, and was the second great element, after Grimm, in the revival of public enthusiasm for fairy tale and fantasy" (Carpenter & Prichard, 22). This book was the fourth of four English collections of Andersen's tales "translated from the German [as opposed to the original Danish] by Charles Boner, who lived in Germany and commissioned the drawings from [Count] Pocci… There were plain and colored editions of all of them" (Muir, Victorian Illustrated Books, 246). The lithographic plates in this copy are tinted, not colored. The volume includes Andersen's famous tale of "The Little Match-Girl" (first published in Danish in 1845) and six other stories (all first published in Danish in 1847 except for "The Naughty Boy," first published in Danish in 1835). Of the stories gathered here, only "The Naughty Boy" had appeared previously in English translation (in translator Mary Howitt's Wonderful Stories for Children, 1846). "The earliest collections in Danish are of the utmost rarity; the English translations in 1846 and 1847 are almost as rare" (Muir, 52). With 16 pages of publisher's advertisements at rear. Bredsdorff, 122. Booklabel. Owner stamp.

Interior fine, slight rubbing to cloth. A handsome near-fine copy.