Hans Christian Andersen had every right to think of his life as a fairy tale. He came from the lowest strata of society in the then little provincial town of Odense, went to Copenhagen at the age of 14, made his own way there and rose to the highest levels of European society as the friend of kings and princes. In his autobiography, the story of his "fairy-tale life", he gives a vivid account of the Danish provincial life he knew as a child, of life in Danish aristocratic circles and in European high society. He met all the leading authors and composers of his time and was one of the most widely travelled writers of his day. His travels took him as far east as Constantinople, and as far north as Loch Lomond, and his account of all this includes sketches of many of the leading figures of 19th-century Europe. Today he must surely be the most famous Dane of all time.