Hans Christian Andersen was the profoundly imaginative writer and storyteller who revolutionized literature for children. He gave us the now standard versions of some traditional fairy tales - with an anarchic twist - but many of his most famous tales sprang directly from his imagination. The thirty stories here range from exuberant early works such as -The Tinderbox- and -The Emperor's New Clothes- through poignant masterpieces such as -The Little Mermaid- and -The Ugly Duckling-, to more subversive later tales such as -The Ice maiden- and -The Wood Nymph-.