A. COMPLETE HANS ANDERSEN.*
ON opening this volume and turning to the introductory note we were agreeably excited to learn that the collection contains many stories by the Danish wizard not previously translated into English. Andersen, it seems, was writing his fairy stories —or, more properly speaking, his ironical, humorous, or tender apologues, for he had no traffic with fairies—from 1825 to 1872, and the complete series make a book of 1140 pages with an average of four hundred words to the page—such as only the use of the Oxford India paper could get legibly between two covers. That so long a period should have elapsed and anything written by Andersen for children be left still un- translated into English seemed very odd, so firm is his place both in the hearts of young and old ; but on glancing at some of the unfamiliar matter our surprise diminished, and the instinct of previous translators who picked and chose was justified. For it appears that even Andersen could write too much, and the gulf between his best and his worst is a wide one. There are stories in this book— Mr. and Mrs. Craigie unfortunately do not indicate the new material—which for more reasons than one were not worth the English setting. Sometimes they are merely flat, sometimes they are a little too bitter. Andersen was an odd, capricious creature, with a ready store of sub-acidity to flavour even his gayest fables; while, being often at loggerheads with the world, he did not at times hesitate to get level with it even in a story nominally meant to entertain those children whom, at any rate in theory, he adored. Hence the complete Andersen is not such a boon as one had hoped. And bibliographically it is of little value, since no dates have been appended and nothing is said of the original publications. Nor are the old woodcuts of such a quality that they will compensate children for the loss of more modern pictures. It is not as if they were the work of the great Richter, although they are in his convention.
Turning over the pages, we find that the best stories come early. The first of all is "The Tinder Box" (with a very inferior soldier and a dog with ordinary-sized eyes); the second is "Great Claus and Little Claus," that most satis- fying of symmetrical farces ; the third is" The Princess and the Pea," as one has always thought of it but now, we imagine, more accurately, although less happily, rendered "Time Princess on the Pea." Such a beginning needs some sustain- ing. The second half of the volume yields few old friends, but at the very end is that charming series which we know as "What the Moon Saw," but which seems to have been pub- lished under the title "A Picture Book without Pictures." There are thirty-three of the moon's stories in all, some not too suitable for children; and the last of them, completing the book, is the exquisite nursery scene in which the child interpolates "and plenty of butter on it" in the Lord's Prayer.
What is Andersen's best story P To four persons has the question been put in the past few days, and each differs. One says "The Goloshes of Fortune," one "Time Tinder Box," one "The Snow Queen," and one " The Nightingale." "The Nightingale" certainly requires some beating, for all its author's qualities are represented in it. But, for our park we say "The Brave Tin Soldier."
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