Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen, Illustrated by Kay Nielsen, 1924

Andersen, Hans Christian. Fairy Tales. Garden City: Garden City Publishing Company, Inc. 1924. Illustrated by Kay Nielsen. Octavo. In navy cloth boards, titled and stamped in orange on the front, titled in orange on the spine. Rebacked in matching navy cloth. Purple patterned endpapers. Deckled side and bottom edge. Illustrated with 7 full color plates, numerous black and white in-text illustrations and decorations. New archival navy slipcase with inlay. 

Offered is Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen, featuring beautiful illustrations by Kay Nielsen. This American edition dates to 1924, published in Garden City, New York by Garden City Publishing Company. The compilation includes sixteen cherished children’s stories, including “The Nightingale,” “The Snow Queen,” “The Red Shoes,” “The Real Princess,” and more.  It is illustrated with 7 tipped-in, full color plates and numerous black and white in-text illustrations by the famed illustrator Kay Nielsen. The book is presented in navy cloth boards, titled and stamped in orange, with decorative purple patterned endpaper. It is presented with a new archival cloth slipcase to match. 

After writing short stories, plays, and several novels and poem collections, Hans Christian Andersen’s first foray into fairy tales was a collection of nine fairy tales, Eventyr, fortalt for Børn. Første Samling (trans: Fairy Tales Told for Children. First Collection). Those nine tales were published by C. A. Reitzel in Copenhagen, in a series of three installments between May 1835 and April 1837. Over the following decades, he helped transform the fairy tale from a purely folkloric tradition into a literary art form. Written in a conversational style that drew on everyday speech and idioms, his stories combined imaginative fantasy with reflections on human emotion, morality, and the experiences of the outsider, allowing them to resonate with all ages of readers. Andersen’s fairy tales are among the most widely and internationally translated children's works in literature. 

This edition is especially notable for its illustrations by the celebrated Danish artist Kay Nielsen, one of the leading figures of the early twentieth century’s Golden Age of Illustration. Nielsen’s artwork is distinguished by its elegant, stylized figures, flowing Art Nouveau lines, and compositions that evoke an atmosphere of dreamlike fantasy. Drawing inspiration from diverse artistic traditions, including Japanese woodblock prints and European Symbolism, his illustrations combine strong line work with luminous, soft color to create ethereal images. “Nielsen also designed stage sets and costumes, and this theatrical interest showed itself in his book illustration in exotic, stage-like settings and the use of symbolism” (Walley and Chester 1988, 156). Nielsen illustrated numerous children’s publications, including In Powder and Crinoline (1913), East of the Sun, West of the Moon (1914), Hans Andersen’s Fairy Tales (1924), Hansel and Gretel (1925), and Red Magic (1930). His work for fairy-tales during the 1910s and 1920s established him as one of the great interpreters of the genre, alongside illustrators such as Arthur Rackham and Edmund Dulac.

CONDITION:

Very good condition. Octavo. In navy cloth boards, titled and stamped in orange on the front, titled in orange on the spine. Rebacked in matching navy cloth. Bumping to board corners, light fraying of cloth to tail of spine and top front and back board edge. Deckled side and bottom edge. Purple patterned endpapers. Interior pages with light, even toning. Tight inside margin, sometimes impacting text block. Illustrated with full color plates, missing frontispiece illustration, seven intact. Numerous black and white in-text illustrations and decorations. x, 272 pp.  New archival navy slipcase with inlay. 

Book Dimensions: 8 3/4" H x 6 1/2" W x 1 7/16" D. 

Slipcase Dimensions: 9 1/16 x 6 5/16" W x 1 15/16" D. 

REFERENCES: 

Walley, Joyce Irene, and Tessa Rose Chester. 1988. A History of Children’s Book Illustration. London: John Murray.

Accompanied by our company's letter of authenticity.