H. K. Andersen is famed as one of the world’s greatest writers of fairy tales. He was born in Dense, Denmark, the son of a shoemaker and his superstitious and virtually illiterate wife. He was the only child and the family was very poor. His parents could give him nothing more than their big love. Love against books and studying learned his father.
When Andersen was 11, his father died. After that gifted boy, who was called ‘little William Shakespeare’, left home and set out to find fame and fortune in Copenhagen, possibly in a career on the stage. Five years he worked as a supernumerary of the Royal Court Theatre, but later he was taken up by one of the theatre’s directors, who secured him to attend the grammar school and later the University of Copenhagen.…
