FIRST PRINTING OF ANDERSEN'S FIRST FAIRY TALE

ANDERSEN, H.C.

Digte.

Kjöbenhavn (i.e. Copenhagen), 1830.

Simple contemporary black half cloth. Internally only light scattered brownspotting. An excellent copy.

The rare first edition of the first published collection of Andersen's poetry - Andersen's third published book (at the age of 25) - containing, at the end, the first printing of any of his fairy tales, being also his very first fairy tale, "Dødningen, et fyensk Folke-eventyr" (i.e. "The Ghost" (also sometime "The Spectre"), "A Folk- Fairy Tale from Funen"). This is the first time that Andersen uses the term "Eventyr" (fairy tale), the term which came to denote the genre for which he received world-wide fame as one of the most important writers of all time.

"The Ghost" was later rewritten and published for the second time in Andersen's first fairy tale collection, "Eventyr fortalte for Børn" (PMM 299), 1835, under the title "The Travelling Companion". As Andersen would later explain, his first fairy tale was based upon a folk tale from Funen he had heard as a child. This seminal publication lays the foundation for Andersen's activity as an author of fairy tales.

This collection furthermore contains 46 poems, 20 of which are published here for the first time (the rest were published separately in various periodicals).

BFN 51.

Order-nr.: 52078