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Ink and watercolor portrait of a thin-faced man with dark swept-back hair, in a dark blue coat, pale waistcoat and patterned bow tie, before a cloudy sky.

Hans Christian Andersen

1805–1875

Hans Christian Andersen (1805–1875) was born in Odense, the son of a shoemaker and a washerwoman who could not read, and at fourteen he left for Copenhagen to become an actor. The Royal Danish Theatre took him on for his singing voice, and then his voice broke.

The tales came afterwards. The first booklet appeared on May 8, 1835, and held four of them: The Tinderbox, Little Claus and Big Claus, The Princess and the Pea, and Little Ida’s Flowers. He wrote a hundred and fifty-six in all, and they have since been translated into more than a hundred and twenty-five languages.

He is often described as having invented every one of them. That is not quite right: three of the four in that first booklet rest on folk tales he had heard as a child, and only Little Ida’s Flowers was entirely his. What he did invent was a way of writing that appears to address children and is in fact addressed to everyone.

Tales by Hans Christian Andersen

14 tales