From Hans Christian Andersen's first fairytale found: The Tallow Candle, thought to have been written by schoolboy Andersen, discovered in private archives by Danish historian by Alison Flood:
Experts in Denmark believe they have found the first story written by Hans Christian Andersen.I've had no time to read further about this but had to share before I inadvertently closed the tab forever...
The Tallow Candle was discovered by local historian Esben Brage in the dense private archives of the Plum family, revealed Danish paper Politiken, which printed the story in its entirety today. Brage was in the reading room at the National Archive for Funen in Odense when he stumbled across a small, yellowing piece of paper at the bottom of a box and realised it might be important. Two months later, experts have now confirmed that the story was written by Andersen.
"This is a sensational discovery. Partly because it must be seen as Andersen's first fairytale, and partly because it shows that he was interested in the fairytale as a young man, before his authorship began," Ejnar Stig Askgaard of the Odense City Museum told Politiken. "And I am in no doubt that it has been written by Andersen." Experts Bruno Svindborg of the Royal Library and Professor Johan de Myliu have also agreed the text was written by Andersen.
Hooray for archives! I wish the folks who would like to do away with the Georgia Archives would understand discoveries like this!
ReplyDeleteThe comments are so negative! (Although perhaps I shouldn't be surprised by Guardian snobs...) I don't understand why people are being so judgemental - he wrote it as a child, before he refined his writing! I think its exciting to find something like this, it shows a bigger influence of fairy tales in his life. Plus, there's a certain fairy tale charm about finding a lost story in a stack of old papers.
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