The Princess and the Pea by Hans Christian Andersen

This was the bed in which the princess was to sleep. Then she put twenty mattresses on top of the pea, and twenty eiderdown quilts on the top of the mattresses. But she said nothing, and went into the sleeping room, took off all the bedclothes, and laid a pea on the bottom of the bed. Picture Book Studio Ltd, 13.95 (25pp) ISBN 978-0-88708-052-4 Long before there were lie detectors, there was the great. 'Well, we shall soon find that out!' Thought the old queen. BUY THIS BOOK The Princess and the Pea Hans Christian Andersen. There stood a princess outside the gate but oh! What a sad plight she was in from the rain and the storm! The water was running down from her hair and her dress into the points of her shoes and out at the heels again. It was fearful! There was a knocking heard at the palace gate, and the old king went to open it. One night there was a dreadful storm it thundered and lightened, and the rain streamed down in torrents.

So he came home again in very low spirits, for he had wanted very much to have a true princess. In every case there was some little defect, which showed the genuine article was not yet found. There were plenty of princesses, but he could not find out if they were true princesses. So he travelled through the whole world to find one, but there was always something against each. There was, once upon a time, a prince who wanted to marry a princess, but she must be a true princess. The prince and the princess duly get married, the pea is put on display in a museum, and that’s the end of this strange little tale. The English text is the Andrew Lang version, from his Yellow Fairy book, first published in 1894. It is short, but sweet, and an enduring favourite. This little gem of a story by Hans Christian Andersen reveals the ultimate test to find out whether or not a girl is a true princess. Several Andersen fairy tale collections tend to group the two tales togetherpartly because The Princess and the Pea is so short, even by fairy tale standards, and partly because the two.

The Princess and the Pea by Hans Christian Andersen