The series of sketches of “What the Moon Saw” arose from the experiences of Andersen, when as a youth he went to seek his fortune in Copenhagen. Uniquely, the story is split into 33 short parts, each describing unrelated scenes witnessed by the Moon as it travels around the world, looking down at its inhabitants over the course of some fifty or so nights. Fittingly for a tale told entirely after sunset, the tone is dark…
Hans Christian Andersen (1805–1875) was a Danish author, poet and artist. Celebrated for children’s literature, his most cherished fairy tales include “The Emperor's New Clothes”, “The Little Mermaid”, “The Nightingale”, “The Steadfast Tin Soldier”, “The Snow Queen”, “The Ugly Duckling” and “The Little Match Girl”. His books have been translated into every living language, and today there is no child or adult that has not met Andersen's whimsical characters. His fairy tales have been adapted to stage and screen countless times, most notably by Disney with the animated films “The Little Mermaid” in 1989 and “Frozen”, which is loosely based on “The Snow Queen”, in 2013.
Thanks to Andersen's contribution to children's literature, his birth date, April 2, is celebrated as International Children's Book Day.
