Andersen's Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen, translated by Mrs. E. V. Lucas and Mrs. H. B. Paull (circa 1953?)

Being half Danish, I've always had a soft spot for fairy tale-er Hans Christian Andersen. About  a year ago I won a big box of old books through the Forgotten Bookmarks blog (such a fun blog -- definitely worth adding to your reader), and in it was a copy of Andersen's Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen, translated by Mrs. E. V. Lucas and Mrs. H. B. Paull (circa 1953*).

This was an interesting collection because while it featured some familiar stories ("The Ugly Duckling," "The Steadfast Tin Soldier," "The Shepherdess and the Sweep," and one of my all-time favorites "The Snow Queen"), most of the 22 stores in the book were new to me. Many of these feature important (and harsh) lessons on the importance of being humble and kind. We get a lot of inanimate objects (like the tin soldier or the porcelain shepherdess) acting like humans and learning those lessons for us. My favorite new-to-me story in the collection is the rather odd tale "The Old Street Lamp." Do yourself a favor and click on that link -- it will only take a few minutes to read it, and how could you possibly resist a story that begins "Have you ever heard the story of the old Street Lamp? It's really not very amusing, but you might listen to it for once."

Oh, and if you really want to have some fun, click here for some amazing illustrations of Andersen's stories from 1920s Japan. 

* It is hard to pinpoint a publication year on this undated volume, since this translation has been reproduced about a million times. It was originally published in 1945 (although this isn't the first edition since it isn't illustrated), and there is a dedication ("1953 - Carole from Mother"), so this volume must have come out sometime between 1945 and 1953. I think this was originally published as a set with a volume of Grimm's fairy tales. And that's all I had patience to find -- I'm an archivist, not a cataloguer!