Hans Andersen's Fairy Tales. Second Series

This essential collection gathers twenty-nine of Hans Christian Andersen's most celebrated fairy tales, ranging from lyrical nature parables to epic romances and razor-sharp social satire. A mermaid trades her voice for legs and her life for love. A princess endures a pea beneath twenty mattresses to prove her worth. An emperor parades naked through his capital while every courtier pretends to admire his invisible clothes—until a child cries out the truth. Andersen's unmistakable voice—tender, ironic, and suffused with longing for the divine—animates humble daisies, enchanted objects, cursed royals, and cunning peasants alike, weaving each tale into a meditation on pride, grace, and what it means to have an immortal soul.