The "king of fairy tales," author of The Little Mermaid
A Danish writer, the world’s most famous master of the fairy tale. Born poor, he wrote more than a hundred tales — The Little Mermaid, The Little Match Girl, The Ugly Duckling, The Emperor’s New Clothes. His stories seem written for children, yet beneath lies a sorrow and compassion only adults grasp: a mermaid who turns to foam for love, a little girl frozen on New Year’s Eve. He made the fairy tale no longer a mere bedtime story but a vessel able to hold the suffering and tenderness of life.
Two swindlers claim to have woven cloth "visible only to the wise," and the whole court, high and low, dares not admit it sees nothing — until a child cries out, "He isn’t wearing anything!" With this story Andersen pricks the lie that the world colludes in out of cowardice and vanity — one child’s word worth more than a whole city’s silence.
Below are how modern works borrow or reinterpret this name or story — not the original material. The two differ, so keep them apart.