Saturday, 22 December 2012

First fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen published online

It was recently reported on Digital Journal that the very first fairy tale written by Hans Christian Andersen, titled "The Tallow Candle", had been discovered. Now the full text has been published in English and is available for reading online.

Digital Journal reported on December 5 that a handwritten book, lost for decades in a dusty box in the Danish National Archives, contained Andersen's "first fairy tale." 
 
Discovered by a local historian, the book was entitled "The Tallow Candle" and experts claim that it is the very first fairy tale written by Andersen.  Ejnar Stig Askgaard of the Odense City Museum, who has been studying the old book, is one of Denmark’s leading Hans Christian Andersen experts. 

Askgaard dubbed the find “sensational,” because it shows the writer’s interest in fairy tales as a young man, before writing became his career. He said, “I am in no doubt that it has been written by Andersen.” Andersen wrote and dedicated the fairy tale as a gift to Madam Bunkeflod, a woman he knew in his childhood, that he both read to, and borrowed books from. 

“It’s a wonderful little document as part of the history of Hans Christian Andersen. The fairy tale was a gift. A gift of thanks to a woman whose home had been very important to him,” Askgaard said. Digital Journal decided to do a follow up, to find out if the book had been published, and not only has it been published online, but it has also been translated to English and can be read in full here.
 
Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/339649

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