/ Rare Book Room Rare Book Room > Rare Books Features

Rare Books

Welcome to the Rare Books Room


Hans Christian Andersen, born in 1802 in Odense, Denmark, is known around the world for his beloved fairy tales. Andersen wasn't always a writer - he started his career as a singer and actor - but his true love was writing. Later in his career Andersen became known as the father of the modern fairy tales. Among Andersen's best known tales are The Ugly Duckling, The Tinderbox, Little Claus and Big Claus, Princess and the Pea, The Snow Queen, The Nightingale, and The Steadfast Tin Soldier. All of Andersen's works were original and only 12 of his 156 known fairy stories drew on folk tales.

Here is a selection of some of the most collectible and rare books by Hans Christian Andersen found at AbeBooks.

-

Hans Christian Andersen

Other titles by Hans Christian Andersen:

The Tinderbox

The Snow Queen

The Steadfast Tin Soldier

To Be or Not to Be? A NovelTo Be or Not to Be? A Novel
Hans Christian Andersen

London: Richard Bentley, 1857. First edition in English (published in Copenhagen in the same year). Inscribed by Andersen in Swedish on the front endpaper. Signed boldly and in full. Last name of recipient cut away. Publisher's plum straight-grain morocco cloth, covers decoratively blocked and panelled in blind, gilt spine lettering, yellow-coated endpapers. Binder's ticket on rear pastedown. Minimal joint and extremity wear, else an exceptional copy. Housed in a quarter morocco clamshell case. $9,500.00
All Editions

 

The Little Mermaid and Other Stories
Hans Christian Andersen

New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons & London: Lawrence & Bullen. 1893. 24.6x 18cm, first (American) edition?, xxiii, 384p., numerous plates and illustrations, in the original pictorial and decorated gilt and red stamped green cloth, some slight foxing on the preliminaries, original endpapers are acidic, a very good to fine copy, rare. $1,278.23
All Editions

 

The Nightingale
Hans Christian Andersen

1898. First of this edition. Arranged and printed by D. B. Updike at the Merrymount Press. Issued by Updike under his own imprint in 1896 (Smith, 1934, Bibliographical List of Books Printed at the [Merrymount] Press, no. 19). Intense black-and-white illustrations by Mary Newill of the Birmingham Guild of Handicraft. Boards with dust wrapper over. Small chip at top of spine, otherwise about fine. $200.00
All Editions

The Improvisatore; or Life in Italy
Hans Christian Andersen
Recommended by Richardson Books, Netherlands

1845. 1st English edition. Published by Richard Bentley, London. Although this book was first published in Denmark in 1835, the first English edition translated by Mary Howitt wasn't published until 1845. 2 volumes. Contemporary Blue cloth with ms paper labels on spine. $116.77
All Editions

 

The Wild Swans And Other Stories
Hans Christian Andersen

Raphael Tuck & Sons Ltd London circa 1905 1st edition. Small 4to. 58 + (2)pp. 2 colour plates + numerous bw drawings. Publisher's brown printed arts & crafts style paper covered boards, black lettering on front & spine, black illustrations in corners + colour plate stock down on front girl in long dress with swan sitting on beach. White eps. Covers : scuffs top/bottom of spine, slight shelf knock bottom of spine, 5cm crimp in paper rear, faint rubs corners, slight rubs to plate around edges. Contents : clean, tight & unfoxed. Plates very clean. $350.59
All Editions