A prince looking for his princess in a sea of people who claim they’re something they’re not. This is a classic we're sure most of us have heard of. This fairy tale centres around the Emperor and his ‘new suit’ with an underlying moral that you should speak up if you know the truth. Commonly used as an idiom about logical fallacies to refer to something widely accepted as true, due to an unwillingness of the general population to criticize it or be seen as going against popular opinion. If you’ve heard of the phrase ‘the emperor’s new clothes’ being used in conversation, this is where it originated from. So let’s take a look at some of his magical fairy tales, some you may know some you may not they’re all as wonderful as each other: His brilliant legacy will live on for many more generations to come. Even today, we can still see these fairytales being adapted on-screen and on-paper. Andersen’s stories may have migrated into new media for children (the Disney franchise comes to mind with its animated version of “The Little Mermaid” and with Frozen, inspired by “The Snow Queen”), but they have never lost their hold on adult readers. Although Andersen added the words “for children” (fortalte for Børn) to his early collections of fairy tales (which included “The Emperor’s New Clothes” and “The Princess and the Pea”), he omitted that phrase from later titles. In many ways, Andersen inaugurated a new era in children’s literature, turning away from the morals of nineteenth-century writers and promoting an ethics of empathy that remains a hallmark of children’s literature today. Like the simpletons of fairy tales, his winning naivete shaded into what proved to be real wisdom and true courage, for the determined boy, son of a washerwoman and shoemaker, quickly moved up the social and literary ladder to become what he himself had predicted would be Denmark’s greatest poet. In 1819, at the age of fourteen, he left the Danish provinces with just a few coins in his pocket to seek what he called, in all seriousness, fame and fortune in Copenhagen. Nothing could have been more right, for Andersen’s rapid rise from rags to riches reads exactly like a fairy tale.

When Hans Christian Andersen decided to write his autobiography, he instinctively and without hesitation gave it the title: The Fairy Tale of My Life. So we're taking a look at some of those stories we used to get read to us before bed. With his work still being adapted centuries later, it's fair to say he left his imprint on the world and in our daydreams. As well as being a writer of travelogues, novels, poems and plays, he is best remembered for his magical collection of fairy tales.

This week saw the anniversary of the prolific Danish author, Hans Christian Andersen's death.

Hans christian andersen stories