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THE STORY-TELLERS
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Hans Christian Andersen
Born in Odensee, Denmark in 1805, he was the son of
a shoemaker and a washerwoman, who grew up in poverty. Somewhat of an ugly duckling himself, he was never very successful
as a businessman or with ladies. Indeed, his own disappointed love with a woman was the inspiration for the tale The
Little Mermaid where neither he nor his heroine of the tale, won their true love. As a story teller, Hans Christian
Andersen discovered his true calling and grew to become beloved by both children and adults alike. Today, his moralistic
tales have lasted for over a hundred years. In Denmark, he is regarded with the utmost respect and has become a symbol
for their country. A statue of The Little Mermaid is a famous landmark in the capital city of Copenhagen. H.C.
Andersen's tales include: The Little Mermaid, The Emperor and the Nightengale, The Emperor's New Clothes, The Princess and the Pea, The Snow Queen, and Thumbelina.
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Carlo Collodi
Carlo Collodi was born Carlo Lorenzini in Florence, Italy in 1826. Taking the last name of
Collodi after his mother's village in Tuscany. Born into the working class, his mother was a cook and his
father a servent. Like most children of the early 1800s, Carlo grew up loving fairy tales, but found a limited
supply of them in his native Italy. Growing up he spent time working as a soldier, a journalist, and later a government
official. He started writing fiction in the 1850s, and his natural love of fairy tales that led him to translate
some of the famous French fairy tales into Italian - which consequently led him into writing some of his own. He decided
on focusing primarily on children's literature because he said he found that adults were simply too hard to please.
And he was a great success at it, with the immortal tale, The Adventures of Pinocchio being his most famous work. To this day he is one of Italy's favorite writers. And there are still hundreds
of vendors on the streets of Italy, selling wooden marionettes of his characters to the thousands of fans.
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
Jacob Ludwig Carl Grimm was born on
January 4, 1785 in Hanau, Germany. His younger brother, Wilhelm Carl Grimm was born on February 24, 1786. The
brothers were two of nine children, and grew up taking care of their mother and younger siblings after their father's death. After
their mother died, both brothers worked as librarians to support their survivng brothers and sister. Their work in the
libraries led them to realize that the hundreds of tales that they had grown to love and had shared with their younger siblings
had never been written down. The two brothers dedicated their lives to collecting and recording all of the tales that
had been passed down from generation to generation. Their first book, Kinder und Hausmaerchen contained 86 folktales.
By the end of their lifetimes, the brothers had written well over a thousand tales and legends, and had both been appointed
to the University of Berlin for their studies and research. Wilhelm Grimm died December 16, 1859, at the age of
73, Jacob on September 20, 1863, at the age of 78. Both were beloved by adults and children alike from all around the
world, at the time of their death, and continue to be so today. Some of their stories include: Briar Rose, The Frog King, Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, The Twelve Dancing Princesses, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and Rumpelstiltskin.
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Andrew Lang
Andrew Lang was born in Selkirk, Scotland on March 31, 1844. After
attending school in both Ediburgh and Glasgow in his native Scotland, he went on to attend Balliol College in Oxford, England
where he graduated in 1868. He continued to stay there as a Fellow of Merton College until 1874, during whichtime
he wrote a great deal. His first publication was The Ballads and Lyrics of Old France (1872). Very
well-respected academically, he gained notoriety for being one of the first persons ever to apply anthropological findings
to the study of myths and folklore. Although he is also widely known for his poetry, he is perhaps most loved for his
translations and adaptations of traditional childrens stories in which he sought to retell classic tales in a way
that was suitable for children. The first of these books was The Blue Fairy Book published in 1889, which proved to
be the first in a very long series. He died in Aberdeen on July 20, 1912. Among his retellings are Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp (which was featured in his retelling of The Arabian Nights) and The Dancing Princesses.
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Charles Perrault
Charles Perrault was born in 1628 in France. Throughout his life he became known as both a
poet and writer, but he is definately best remembered as a teller of fairy stories. His first collection of fairy
tales was published in 1697 under the title Histoires, ou contes du temps passe, avec des Moralitez,
which became famous as The Tales of Mother Goose. It contained eight tales, which were probably from earlier folk
tales. Throughout the ages, it has been questioned whether Perrault wrote his stories, if his son wrote them, or if
the two of them collected folk tales in the same manner of the Brothers Grimm. But in the end, does it really matter?
He was a master story teller, and his work is still widely loved in the twenty-first century. Among Perrault's most
famous tales are: Cinderella, The Sleeping Beauty, Puss in Boots, Beauty and the Beast, and Little Red Riding Hood.
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THE STORIES
Here are the tales as originally written by the authors themselves. Thanks to the size of
this site, I don't have the space to put them all up myself, so I dug around the net and found them all just for you.
Please read them, you'll love them. I promise!
Tales by Hans Christian Andersen:
Tales by Joseph Jacobs:
Tales by The Brothers Grimm:
Tales by Charles Perrault:
Other Tales:
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