fortalte for børn , 3 parts in one, each part first edition, first printing , light age-toning, some marking and browning with occasional minor oxidising, contemporary Danish inscription on preliminary blank f., contemporary half mottled calf, spine gilt, worn at extremities and upper fore-corner of upper cover, preserved in modern half morocco cloth drop-back box, gilt, [PMM 299; cf. Morgan 199], 16mo, Copehnagen, C.A. Reitzel , 1837 [1835-37]. The rare first collected edition of Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales related for Children , particularly scarce thus as consistent first printings. These tales (including The Tinderbox , The Princess on the Pea , The Little Mermaid and The Emperor's New Clothes ) were initially issued as three small, separate pamphlets between 1835 & 1837, and then combined as a collected edition in one volume by the author in 1837, with the original title-pages and contents leaves removed and a new, general title, table of contents and preface supplied. Unlike most copies that come onto the market and are normally mixed impressions with the parts from the 1842-46 reissue, this copy comprises the first printing of each part, with the preliminaries cancelled and resultant breaks in the pagination. In the new preface for this edition, Andersen writes: "With this third pamphlet the Fairy Tales are now gathered in one little volume. It will depend on the impression it makes on the public if this is to be the only one. A poet is always a poor man in his own little country. Fame is therefore the golden bird he has to catch! Time will tell if I catch it by telling Fairy Tales." Fortunately, after an admittedly slow start, Andersen's Tales did rapidly gain in popularity, in Denmark and beyond, notably after the publication of The Ugly Duckling in 1843/44, and his tales today are known and loved around the world. "The Tales of Hans Christian Andersen are unique. Unlike Perrault's and Grimm's his stories were original inventions Over and above their intrinsic merit Andersen's stories signalized a new and fundamentally different approach to the writing of books for children. Mawkishness, didacticism and moral proselytizing were totally abjured and he was the harbinger of a new era in this genre." PMM.