The story of Hans Christian Andersen's life begins in Odense, capital of Fyn, an island of central Denmark, where he was born on April 2, 1805.

Hans lives with his mother, Anne Marie, and his father, a young but disgruntled shoemaker also named Hans, in a oneroom home in the poorest part of town.

Although they are poor, Anne Marie fills her humble home with love, and young Hans knows a joy there never paralleled later in life. After his father dies prematurely and his mother remarries, Hans, age fourteen, sets off alone to seek fame in the theater in Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark. Copenhagen remains Hans's home until his death, yet he travels to Germany, France, Switzerland, Italy, Greece, Turkey, England, and America.

Denmark is portrayed in this book as a somewhat magical land, pastoral and practical: a country where castles and cobbled streets coexist with good schools...