"It does not matter in the least having been born in a duckyard if only you come out of a swan's egg." -- "The Ugly Duckling" Hans Christian Andersen, the only child of a poor shoemaker and an ...

For most adults, the name Hans Christian Andersen evokes a benign Dane, devoted to spinning cheery fairy tales for rapt children. That image is wrong on every count except his nationality, as ...

Biography Hans Christian Andersen: European Witness Paul Binding Yale; hdbk, €25, 384 pages Hans Christian Andersen On June 11 1857, Hans Christian Andersen arrived at Charles Dickens's house, having ...

HANS Christian Andersen was a sweet old man who wrote fairytales for kids. He was also really strange. Here’s what you never knew about the beloved children’s author. Well, for a start, quite a few ...

Collections of children's classics pay homage to the best of children's literature, folk and fairy tales. Timeless tales continue to thrill each new generation in The Stories of Hans Christian ...

Hans Christian Andersen: The Life of a Storyteller Jackie Wullschlager 528pp, Penguin/Allen Lane £20 Buy it at BOL 'You certainly do your best to wear out your friends ... and all because of the ...

Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Hans Christian Andersen, the "greatest of Danes" (as recently voted by his countrymen in a poll that gave new meaning to the term ...

Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales (he soon dropped the designation "for children") have captivated generations with their blend of plain language, unbridled imagination and haunting strangeness.