90 classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin Books
Many years ago there lived an Emperor who was so terribly fond of beautiful new clothes that he spent all his money on dressing elegantly...
Jewels in storytelling, these magical fairytales by Hans Christian Andersen were inspired by his own life as an outsider. From The Little Mermaid to The Red Shoes, his fables show the ugliest of humanity its power, greed, vanity but also how suffering can lead to beauty.
Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875) was born in Odense, Denmark, son of a shoemaker and a washerwoman. He was the first writer to take the folk tale as a literary genre and create new stories, such as 'The Emperor's New Clothes', 'The Little Mermaid', 'The Ugly Duckling' and 'The Snow Queen'. His influence on children's literature is inestimable, yet his stories work on many levels. He died in Copenhagen in 1875.
