A Danish Story-Book.

London: Joseph Cundall,, 1846. His earliest English champions First Charles Boner edition, the second appearance of Andersen's fairy tales in English. The British market for Andersen was created in 1846 through the efforts of his first three English translators, Mary Howitt, Boner, and Caroline Peachey. Boner's edition is much rarer than its competitors and had the advantage of its "more easily reproducible illustrations" (Grolier) by the German artist Count Pocci. This edition contains 12 stories translated from German editions. It appeared in February, shortly after Wonderful Stories for Children by Mary Howitt, which contained two fewer stories and was translated directly from the Danish. Two more English translations followed in 1846: Caroline Peachey's Danish Fairy Legends and Tales, also from the German, and then Boner's second collection, The Nightingale and Other Tales. "The earliest collections in Danish are of the utmost rarity; and the English translations in 1846 and 1847 are almost as rare" (Muir, p. 52). Charles Boner (1815-1870), who translated Andersen a number of times, helped form the basis of both the earliest British and American editions. His efforts and those of his contemporaries "immediately naturalized [Andersen] into English children's literature, and was the second great element, after Grimm, in the revival of public enthusiasm for fairy tale and fantasy" (Carpenter & Prichard, p. 22). Andersen's first collection of tales was published as Eventyr, fortalt for Børn, 1835-7. Octavo. Frontispiece, 3 plates, line drawings in the text, all by Count Pocci. Original blue cloth, spine and front cover lettered in gilt in rustic type, frames to spine in gilt and to covers in blind, yellow coated endpapers. Ticket of "Masters" on front pastedown, contemporary gift inscription on front free endpaper. Spine a little darkened, wear to ends and corners, book block a little shaken, small loss to margin of sig. h3, damp stains to plates and final leaves. Overall, a very good copy. See Grolier Children's 100 28B; Keynes, p. 39. Humphrey Carpenter & Mari Prichard, The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature, 1999; Percy Muir, English Children's Books: 1600-1900, 1954.