Stories that have delighted children and fascinated adults for over a century are the heritage of Hans Christian Andersen. This collection has been selected and translated with the growing audience of adults--both students and general readers--in mind, and displays the full range of Andersen's authorship, from parable to science fiction.

In this fresh, contemporary translation Rossel and Conroy have endeavored to "preserve for the English-speaking audience the engaging duplicity of Andersen's style, the tension of play between his sympathetic conversational tone and his use of the...