Die kleine Meerjungfrau

Almost every adult interested in literature around the world knows Andersen's heart-wrenching story of the little mermaid who falls in love with a prince, endures pain to become human, has to watch her prince marry another, and ultimately dissolves into sea foam. However, the first ending of the story, also included here, was much more hopeful: in it, the mermaid and her prince are finally united in the afterlife. The letters Andersen wrote to his beloved friend Edvard Collin, which are printed in this magnificent volume, testify to why Andersen considered this fairy tale to be the one that was closest to his heart among all his works: it is the story of his own unfulfilled great love. With the little mermaid, Benjamin Lacombe continues the series of classic texts he has illustrated, each accompanied by a literary analysis from an expert, as seen recently in Lafcadio Hearn's Ghost Stories from Japan or Felix Salten's Bambi.