Dato: 17. februar 1869
Fra: Horace E. Scudder   Til: H.C. Andersen
Sprog: engelsk.

Riverside, Cam bridge, Mass. U. S. America 17 February 1869

Dear Mr. Andersen,

Many thanks for your very kind letter of Jany. 5th with its enclosure of "Luck may lie in a Pin" and the New Y ear' s gift of your picture which I shall treasure highly. Let me hasten to say how mortified am that I should have been so misled by your countryman and have allowed him to say what I now see clearly must have annoyed you. The truth is our people are so eager to learn anything about "Andersen" that I yielded where my own taste would have led me to keep silent. I hope that you will not again have occasion to be thus troubled.

I am very glad to have you write freely in Danish. I do not yet read Danish script but I have a good friend whom I can trust and who will interpret your letters to me until I am myself able to read them. I have a Danish lexicon and with your books before me have begun to read a little.

I am pleased that you are satisfied with the translation of your stories. I have them put into an exact English version and then go over them myself with great care, endeavoring to give those touches and quaint turns of expression which a long study of your writings has made me acquainted with. I find a great difference in the translations which have been made of your stories; without reading Danish I have frequently said-this is not like Andersen: it is fine sounding when he is simple and direct. In the forthcoming Edition of your stories I hope to do something toward restoring in the translation those happy forms of expression which I feel sure are in the original; oftentimes a certain diminutiveness of expression where toys, for example, are speaking, as if you had caught exactly their tone of voice. "Luck may lie in a Pin" is now in type and will appear in the next (April) number of the magazine. The March number, just issued and sent to you contains "Which was the Happiest." This you sent me in the lllustrated newspaper. I have been reserving it in case fresher stories failed. Put the white pin in your mouth when these stories appear here! I enclose a printed announcement such as within a week will be published freely in the journals throughout the United States. We hope to push forward the volumes now as rapidly as may be. You will observe that the original plan of collecting the whole into two volumes has been abandoned. It was faun d that the books would be clumsy and we have preferred to publish the set in perhaps eight volumes, according as the material can be used to the best advantage.

I hope you are pleased with the disposition of "The Dryad." It was translated in great haste and published at once, and has been widely read. It seems to me to illustrate very finely the various sides of your genius in writing.

The four concluding volumes reached me safely a few days since and their arrival has enabled us to perfect our arrangements for publishing the new edition. y our letters I regard as strictly private and an no account suffer them to go out of my hands. I trust I may hear from you soon, and am now, as always,

Faithfully Yours

HORACE E. SCUDDER

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