It can be argued, and is surely correct, that Hans Christian Andersen is the greatest and most-inflencial writer of all time.
He wroted the Princess and the Pea, the Ugly Ducking, and the Emperor's New Clothes. He penned the stories upon which the Disney movies The Little Mermaid, Fantasia, The Little Match Girl, and the Red Shoes were based.
He invented the writing of fairy tales. His stories have been translated into more than 125 Languages.
Here's what Lloyd Newell, who has visited Andersen's hometown, had to say about him this morning on Music and the Spoken Word. "Hans Christian Andersen was born in 1805 in Odense, Denmark, about a two-hour drive west of here, the only child of a poor shoemaker and a laundress. Hans rose from poverty to the top of European society through talent and tenacity. . . . Andersen said of these tales: 'Every character is taken from life -- everyone of them -- not one of them is invented. I know and have known them all.' Consider just a few of his fairy tales that give us glimpses into deeper things, the Ugly Duckling, the Princess and the Pea, the Emperor's New Clothes, and, of course, the Little Mermaid. We know these characters, too, because there's a little of each of them in all of us. Like the duckling, we know what it's like to not fit in. Like the princess, we've all seen that something small can make a big difference. We've all been thankful for people like the boy at the emperor's parade, brave souls who declare what they see, or don't see, even when no one else will. And who hasn't,like the little mermaide hasn't faced wonderful opportunities tied to difficult choices. These tales live on, 150 years after Andersen's death, because they aren't just about ducks and mermaids. They tell us something about ourselves."
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