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Odenser, Denmark, 1811.

An infant school class enjoying their break time.

The children were all playing together.

Apart from one six-year-old boy sitting all alone,

this boy spent much more time making things and playing with puppets

than he did socialising with other children. Now he'd just finished a drawing. He put down his

pencils, smiled. Looking somewhat like a camel and extremely odd and ugly as well. He did have a big

nose. We know he had really big feet and ugly as well. He did have a big nose.

We know he had really big feet and really big hands.

He looked different from a lot of the other kids,

being taller than most.

His parents were too poor to buy him new clothes,

so his long, thin limbs stuck out awkwardly from

his jacket sleeves and trouser cuffs. This unusual-looking boy was called Hans Christian Anderson.

Though he was from a Christian family, the school was Jewish. His mother had sent him there on account

of its enlightened ideas about children.

Anderson had drawn a castle, a place he claimed to see in a recurring dream.

He had no doubt an extremely lively imagination.

He grew up alone.

His parents certainly did not have any time to take care of him or play with him, but he was

very good at imagining up things. Anderson showed his picture to Sarah, a girl slightly older

...