The Nightingale

H.C. Andersen’s everlasting tale about the nightingale in English translation. With Esben Hanefelt Kristensen’s extraordinary illustrations accompanying it.

In H.C. Andersen’s classic fairy tale The Nightingale, we meet the emperor of China, who loves the nightingale’s voice. One day, he receives a present from the emperor of Japan: a mechanical bird, filled with diamonds, which can be pulled up to sing all day long – and soon the real nightingale is forgotten. When the emperor of China is on his deathbed, the long-lost real nightingale flies to him, singing – and the song makes him well again!

The entire book is illustrated by the artist Esben Hanefelt Kristensen, who with great excellence makes the classic fairy tale come to life.  Hanefelt Kristensen has also written a prologue to the tale, in which he tells The Story of Creation – especially the part about how the nightingale came to be. The book is concluded with an epilogue about the day, H.C. Andersen saves a nightingale.

The fairy tale is translated by Susannah Mary Paull, the prologue and epilogue by Knud Hanefelt Kristensen.