Hans Andersen wrote many stories, and these are some of the best. We meet a very, very small child, a bird with a beautiful voice, a mermaid with legs, an ugly duckling with no friends — and an emperor with some very strange new clothes. These stories teach us lessons for life.

Ariel, the fun-loving and mischievous mermaid, is enchanted with all things human. Disregarding her father's order to stay away from the world above the sea, she swims to the surface and, in a raging storm, rescues the prince of her dreams. Determined to be human, she strikes a bargain with the devious seawitch, Ursula, and trades her fins and beautiful voice for legs. With her best friend, the adorable and chatty Flounder, and her reluctant chaperone Sebastian, the Caribbean crab, at her side, Ariel must win the prince's love and save her father's kingdom all in a heart-pounding race against time!

Hans Christian Andersen is the best-loved of all tellers of fairy tales. This collection of over forty of Andersen's most popular stories includes The Mermaid, The Real Princess, The Red Shoes, The Little Match Girl, The Snow Queen, The Tinder Box, The Ugly Duckling and many more. It is delightfully illustrated in black-and-white by those remarkable brothers, Charles, Thomas and William Heath Robinson.