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Hans Christian Andersen ANDERSEN'S FAIRY TALES ——The Emperor’s New Clothes、The Tinder Box、 The Traveling Companions、The Ugly Duckling、The Little Match Girl、The Swineherd、Big Claus and Little Claus As a child, Hans Christian Andersen had the kind of impoverished background that we find in so many of his stories. Born in 1805 in Odense, Denmark, he was the son of a shoemaker. His father’s death when he was nine forced him to curtail his education. He worked in a factory while going to school, but was drawn to the stage from an early age. While still a teenager, he ran away to Copenhagen where he joined a theater as an odd-job boy, hoping that he would become an actor. He was singled out for special support by one of the directors of the theater and went back to school and eventually, in 1928, to the University of Copenhagen. He began writing novels and playing with varied success. But it was with his fairy tales that he was to make his name. The first collection, Tales Told for Children, was published in 1835, and included Big Claus and Little Claus and The Tinder Box. Other collections (one titled A Picture Book Without Pictures) appeared in the following years as their popularity grew and Andersen himself became more confident in the genre. Their appeal lay in his particular ability to tell a story, which while it may have a strong element of fantasy, always showed its characters responding with real human feelings.