The edifying refinement that rests like a blight on Andersen's
stories is, Miss Toksvig says, the work of his English, and we presume Victorian, translators. She has therefore rewritten some of the stories in the easy, colloquial style of the original Danish. Treated in this way Andersen gams in vigour and directness, and the American boys and girls for whom this edition is published will not perhaps share our preference for the arrant bloodthirstiness of Grimm. Reproductions of many of Andersen's own drawings and paper-cuttings add charm to this collection. Indeed, if English children do not object to poor Johannes and the rest counting their inheritance in dollars and cents, we see only one other obstacle, also a financial one, to the immediate popularity of this book, and that is the effect of the rate of exchange on its English price.
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