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 8 May 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
12 tales
