Description
Fairy Tales from Hans Christian Andersen – Illustrated by Thomas, Charles and W. Heath Robinson
Fairy Tales from Hans Christian Andersen contains a collection of 38 classic fairy tales by Hans Christian Andersen illustrated by the Robinson Brothers, Thomas, William Heath and Charles.
Hans Christian Andersen (1805 – 1875) was a Danish author. Although a prolific writer of plays, travelogues, novels, and poems, Andersen is best remembered for his fairy tales. Andersen’s popularity is not limited to children; his stories, called eventyr in Danish or “fairy-tales” in English, express themes that transcend age and nationality.
Andersen’s fairy tales, which have been translated into more than 125 languages, have become culturally embedded in the West’s collective consciousness, readily accessible to children, but presenting lessons of virtue and resilience in the face of adversity for mature readers as well. Some of his most famous fairy tales include “The Emperor’s New Clothes”, “The Little Mermaid”, “The Nightingale”, “The Snow Queen”, “The Ugly Duckling”, and many more.
Charles Robinson (1870–1937) was a prolific British book illustrator. Born in Islington in October 1870, London, he was the son of an illustrator and his brothers Thomas Heath Robinson and William Heath Robinson also became illustrators. He served an apprenticeship as a printer and took art lessons in the evenings.
The first full book he illustrated was Robert Louis Stevenson’s A Child’s Garden of Verses (1895) which includes over 100 pen and ink drawings. It was extremely popular, going through many reprints, and generated numerous commissions. He illustrated many fairy tales and children’s books throughout his career, including Eugene Field’s Lullaby Land (1897), W. E. Cule’s Child Voices (1899), Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué’s Sintram and His Companions (1900), Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1907), and Grimm’s Fairy Tales (1910).