I love Hans Christian Andersen. His stories are part of the cultural subconscious, but he isn’t often read directly. This story, which inspired a Powell and Pressburger film and a Kate Bush album, is particularly dark and terrifying – I don’t think a lot of writers read him or take him seriously because he is from a lower class background.
First published as ‘De røde sko’ in Nye Eventyr. Første Bind. Tredie Samling, Reitzel, 1845. Variously translated, including by Tiina Nunnally in Fairy Tales, Penguin Classics, 2005
A Personal Anthology 