Hans Christian Andersen

Hans Christian Andersen was born in 1805 in Odense, Denmark, the son of a poor shoemaker and a washerwoman. His father, who loved stories and built him a toy theater, died when Hans was eleven. At fourteen he went alone to Copenhagen, hoping to become an actor or singer, and lived in poverty until Jonas Collin, a director of the Royal Theatre, helped him obtain an education at a grammar school, where he was much older than the other pupils. He became known for poems, plays, travel books and novels, beginning with The Improvisatore (1835). That same year he published his first booklet of fairy tales, and over the next four decades he wrote more than 150, including The Princess and the Pea, The Little Mermaid, The Emperor's New Clothes, The Ugly Duckling, The Snow Queen and The Little Match Girl. Many were his own inventions rather than retold folk tales. He traveled widely in Europe and met writers such as Charles Dickens. He wrote his autobiography, The True Story of My Life, and died in Copenhagen in 1875.

Hans Christian Andersen is also an author in the library: author page and works.

Faith: Faith not well documented. Source: Wikipedia