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The
Worlds of Gilbert and Sullivan
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Hans Christian Anderson was born to a very poor family in Odense in Denmark in 1805. His father, a cobbler, died when he was twelve years old. Hans did not go to school for a long time but spent his time playing with toy theatres and dressing dolls for plays. At fourteen he left home and travelled to Copenhagen where, almost starving, he met some friends who persuaded King Frederick VI to send him to grammar school. There he struggled far beyond the normal leaving age. Throughout his boyhood he wrote poetry, and one of his early poems - The Dying Child brought him fame and many friends. His output was prodigious and included romances, plays, and books of travel, but above all he is best remembered for his fairy tales. He once set out on an epic journey to Berlin to meet those other famous writers of fairy tales, the Brothers Grimm. He died in 1875, when he was seventy years old, and all the world mourned the poor Odense cobbler's son who made storytelling a new and popular art-form. Among the many famous tales he wrote were The Mermaid, The Red Shoes, Thumbelisa, The Snow Queen, and The Emperor's New Clothes. We have chosen excerpts from two of the best loved stories: The Little Match Girl, and even more famously The Ugly Duckling. Click to find out more. Hope these whet your appetite, and that you will dig down in that library for others . . . |
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