FAIRY TALES by Hans Andersen

London: Hodder and Stoughton, [1924]. First Edition, with the Rare "Announcement" of the Kay Nielsen Exhibition at The Leicester Galleries included at the front of the volume. With 12 very fine tipped-in color plates, numerous black & white illustrations as frontispieces to each tale and additional decoration throughout all by Kay Nielsen. 4to, in the original black cloth featuring a black, metallic silver, and orange pictorial pastedown on the upper cover, the spine lettered and decorated in silver, with decorative endpapers. 280 pp. A very fine copy, internally as pristine and perfect as new, the cloth very bright and fresh with no fading or wear, the upper pastedown pristine, the silver lettering and decorations on the spine with some flaking as is unfortunately the norm. FIRST EDITION OF THE QUARTO PRINTING. This collection of sixteen tales was initiated by Nielsen in 1912, though it was not published until 1924. Andersen's beloved tales were an excellent inspiration for Nielsen who produced some of his finest images for this title.
Sixteen of Andersen's tales are included. Interestingly, 'The Little Mermaid' is not included among them. In 1937 Nielsen went to work for Walt Disney. He was renowned at the Disney studio for his concept art, and he contributed artwork for many Disney films. Around 1940 he produced concept paintings for a proposed adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen's 'The Little Mermaid'. The film, however, was not made within Nielsen's lifetime. The paintings however would remain with the studio for over 40 years and did not go unused, they provided much of the look and style of Disney's 1989 film. That film is given credit for breathing life back into the art of animated feature films and remains one of the studios most popular features to date.