The Little Mermaid (With Original Illustrations) Paperback – February 2, 2014

The Little Mermaid was my favorite Disney movie when I was a child. I heard about the Andersen version when I became an adult but wasn't interested because I assumed Disney made their movie exactly the same as Andersen's story. I found out recently that this was not true; Andersen's version was much darker in that it didn't have a happy ending, and it involved painful sacrifices that can almost be considered self-torture. Having heard this, I became very interested in Andersen's version so I bought the book here on Amazon.I was a bit disappointed when I received it because the book is only 74 pages. It took me an hour and seven minutes to read the entire book. But after having read it, 74 pages really was appropriate. By this I mean Andersen doesn't go too much into detail about most things, (no singing, no comic relief with kitchen utensils mistakenly used as grooming products, no Flounder as a best friend, and the mermaid's name wasn't even revealed - she was referred in pronoun or simply, 'the little mermaid') but doesn't leave anything ambiguous or out of the story that would leave you confused by the end. Now, one could argue that not knowing her name is disappointing more than being confused but it really wasn't important. It really felt like a true classic and sort of mysterious in some way not knowing her name. So 74 pages (give or take a few even) was really enough to convey this great classic.

I grew up watching The Little Mermaid. I loved it. So when I found out that it was kind of inspired the this story, I just had to read it. The story is so much different from the cartoon which is understandable because the cartoon was for kids. Even though this story is dark compared to the cartoon, I actually like this version better. It feels more honest. It is about a mermaid who wants a soul, so she goes on land to get a human to love her in order for him to share his soul with her, she falls for a prince. I won't spoil it, but I will say that the story is about losing yourself to find something and sacrificial love. I recommend this version of The Little Mermaid over the other, hands down.

I enjoyed the short read. Was still a happily ever after story to me because she was still able to obtain what she so passionately wanted.

This was the beautiful and melancholy original telling of the now ubiquitous“little mermaid “ story . I read it for a book club which reads source materials for classic Disney movies . I enjoyed this, especially the visual imagery used to create the underwater settings. It was sad, beautiful , dark and somewhat scary, and I would love to see a gothic -romance style movie adaptation of this version of the story . And I liked how the story did have a happy ending of sorts .

You know I've always loved the little mermaid even as a little kid. Now reading the book the movies were based off is really eye opening cause it is much more detailed. In a way a i wished i was older so i would've read the book first to imagine it myself in the most way and then seen the movies; I think to myself i wonder what i would've imagined. But i would highly recommend this book, loved it.

The story is great. The description says it is with the original illustrations but some of them are so pixelated you can't really tell what some of the objects are. Very disappointed with how the illustrations were handled.

It's very beautiful, but very sad. Children's stories were certainly harsher in the old days. Somehow I feel like it made them more truthful though.

It's exactly what I wanted. Sure, it's not as big as I hoped for but it's still pretty nice.