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Best remembered for his fairy tales, the Danish author Andersen was also a prolific writer of novels, plays, poems, and accounts of his many travels.

He was born in Odense to a family of meager means. He was to remain an only child. His father was keen to give him an education that nurtured the imagination and read many books to him, including The Arabian Nights. When his father died in 1816, Andersen’s formal education, albeit basic, was disrupted due to the need to find work to support himself and his mother. Ever since his first visit to the theater, aged seven, he had been hooked on the world of the stage, and at the age of 14 he traveled, alone, to Copenhagen, looking for employment as an actor. He was successful in the Royal Theatre as a soprano singer until his voice broke, and the theater’s director, Jonas Collins, took him under his wing and funded his university education.

Andersen wrote a few plays and novels, without much success to begin with, but soon his writing career took off. His first book of tales, Fairy Tales, Told for Children, was published in 1835. It was a compilation of tales from his boyhood memories and stories of his own invention. Further books followed and, as their popularity gradually grew, they were translated into numerous languages.

Among the most famous of Andersen’s tales are “The Little Mermaid” (possibly inspired by the sad love story of the water sprite Undine), “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” “The Princess and the Pea,” “The Wild Swans,” and “The Red Shoes.”