Hans Christian Andersen was born on April 2 in 1805.  He died on August 4, 1875.  His fairy tales, such as The Little Mermaid and  The Little Match Girl, have inspired movies, plays and ballets.

Here are five quick facts about the author that you may not know:

1 – He was born in Odense, Denmark.  His father was a shoemaker and his mother worked as a washerwoman.

2 – Andersen’s father set the stage for his son’s love of literature by reading him Arabian Nights.

3 – Hans Christian Anderson was not lucky in love.  Jenny Lind, the opera singer, was the most famous of his unrequited loves.

4 – In the spring of 1872, Andersen fell out of his bed and was injured.  He never fully recovered. Soon after he started to have signs of liver cancer.  He died on August 4, 1875 in a house near Copenhagen.

5 – An early fairy tale by Andersen called The Tallow Candle was discovered in a Danish archive in October 2012. The story, written in the 1820s, was about a candle who did not feel appreciated. Its existence was unknown for close to two centuries.

Andersen’s fairy tales include:

• The Angel
• The Bell
• The Emperor’s New Clothes
• The Fir-Tree
• The Galoshes of Fortune
• The Happy Family
• The Ice-Maiden
• It’s Quite True!
• The Little Match Girl
• The Little Mermaid
• Little Tuck
• The Most Incredible Thing
• The Nightingale
• The Old House
• The Princess and the Pea
• The Red Shoes
• Sandman
• The Shadow
• The Shepherdess and the Chimney Sweep
• The Snow Queen
• The Steadfast Tin Soldier
• The Story of a Mother
• The Swineherd
• Thumbelina
• The Tinderbox
• The Ugly Duckling
• The Wild Swans