The Ice Virgin

Essential Novellas and Stories

'Paul Binding has given English readers an Andersen of exceptional vividness and scope. These translations convey with rare assurance the beauty of Andersen's descriptions, the subtle rhythms of his prose, and the richness of the worlds he creates. Combining literary elegance with deep scholarship, Binding restores Andersen to his rightful place within European literary history. This new edition marks a significant step in bringing Andersen's wider oeuvre into the twenty-first century and will be welcomed by readers and scholars alike.' Jakob Stougaard-Nielsen

'At once sparkling and frighteningly deep, like the glaciers that cut through the mountain passes of Switzerland in the 1850s . The Ice Virgin marshals both surface and subterranean effects; we feel huge things moving beneath the crust of events. Andersen's writing is a joy. Several times I had to put the book down to recover from his exquisite descriptions' Wall Street Journal

'Striking the perfect balance between fairy tale atmosphere and eerie narrative for the adult reader, Paul Binding's new translation of Hans Christian Andersen's The Ice Virgin vividly depicts the eternal struggle between the forces of nature and the forces within ourselves.' Linda Schenck

A selection of Hans Christian Andersen's short works for adults, uniting imagination, stunning prose and subtle social analysis

In these two novellas and three short stories for adult readers, Hans Christian Andersen displays the imagination and descriptive brilliance familiar from his fairy tales, but turns his eye to subtler social themes: class mobility in a changing Europe; the unfairness with which talents and opportunities are meted out in this world; the struggle between nature's claims on humanity and civilisation's.

The title novella, The Ice Virgin, unites all these ideas in a piece of beautifully structured storytelling considered by some to be Andersen's masterpiece. Rudy is orphaned young, rescued as an infant from a glacial crevasse where his mother fell and died. He lives, but the stunning yet unforgiving mountain landscape of Switzerland may yet claim him. His love for the rich miller's daughter Babette brings out all his bravery and ingenuity - but also his stubbornness and resistance to change. In a masterfully ambivalent climax Andersen makes us wonder what happiness and fulfilment truly mean.

Elsewhere in the collection Andersen turns his gaze to the hostile shores and wooded heights of Denmark's Jutland, where in his time submissive poverty was giving way to feverish social transformation. We meet a shipwrecked youngster struggling to fit into his adopted community, a couple whose wise humility echoes down the wealthy generations that follow with comically unexpected effects, and a steadfast friend whose saintly patience is ill rewarded by the object of her loyalty. Full of irony, enchanting imagery and bravura prose, these stories showcase Andersen's perceptiveness, empathy, and deep engagement with the world around him.

Part of the Pushkin Press Classics series: timeless storytelling by icons of literature, hand-picked from around the globe.

Translation and Afterword by Paul Binding

Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875) was born in Odense, Denmark, the son of a shoemaker and a washerwoman. His father died when he was eleven. He left home for Copenhagen at the age of fourteen and immediately made an impression on the capital's artistic community with his precocious literary talent. He gained sponsorship from the Danish elite and received an education and the opportunity to travel widely throughout Europe. He became one of world literature's most beloved children's authors, celebrated in his lifetime and ever after, and lending his name to the world's most prestigious children's literature prize. As well as his famous fairy stories he wrote novels, novellas, plays, travelogues, autobiographies and verse for readers of all ages.

Paul Binding is a leading British writer on Scandinavian literature and culture. He has also written five novels, four books of poems, the prizewinning memoir St Martin's Ride and the literary-biographical study Hans Christian Andersen: European Witness, which won the Hans Christian Andersen Award as a 'seminal book'. He lives in Bishop's Castle, Shropshire.

Contributor: Paul Binding (Translated by)

Translator: Paul Binding

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