Happy birthday Hans Christian Andersen!

Did you know that the story of Frozen is inspired by Hans Christian Andersen's classic fairy tale The Snow Queen?
Photograph: Disney/©2013 Disney

Portrait of Hans Christian Andersen by Karl Hartmann. The Danish writer was born on 2 April 1805 and published 168 tales, including classics The Little Mermaid, The Emperor's New Clothes, The Ugly Duckling, The Snow Queen and The Red Shoes.
Photograph: Archivo Iconografico, S.A./CORBIS

A haunting image of The Snow Queen, from Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, illustrated by Joel Stewart (translated by Naomi Lewis) and published by Walker Books.

Illustration reproduced by permission of Walker Books Ltd
Photograph: ©Joel Stewart

The Little Mermaid is Hans Christian Andersen's most famous tale. Here's a still from the 1999 Disney movie version starring Ariel the little mermaid and her friends Sebastian the crab and Flounder the fish...
Photograph: Alamy

In the original versions of Hans Christian Andersen's fairy stories, there is usually a very dark side. Do you remember the hideously creepy Ursula from the 1999 Disney film? Pure evil!
Photograph: Allstar/Cinetext Collection/Sportsphoto/Allstar/Cinetext Collection

Here is the Little Mermaid (when she got her legs obviously) as imagined by illustrator Joel Stewart from his book The Tales of Hans Christian (translated by Naomi Lewis) and reproduced by permission of Walker Books Ltd
Photograph: ©Joel Stewart

A still from the film Ponyo by Japanese anime master Hayao Miyazaki. If you've seen the film (and if you haven't you really should!) did you notice it is a reshaped and retooled version Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid? Photograph: PR

This film still is from The Red Shoes, which has been called the world’s greatest ballet movie. It was made in 1948 and is one of those stories within a story type films. It tells the tale a ballet dancer called Vicky who gets the lead in a new ballet called The Red Shoes, based on Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale. The film, like the fairy tale, ends tragically… Photograph: Ronald Grant Archive

Needless to say Olaf the snowman (seen here in Frozen by Disney) did not appear in the original story of The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Andersen. But isn't he cute?!
Photograph: Allstar/DISNEY/Sportsphoto Ltd./Allstar

Another gorgeous illustration by Joel Stewart, this time a scene from The Tinderbox, from Tales of Hans Christian Andersen (translated by Naomi Lewis). Reproduced by permission of Walker Books Ltd
Photograph: ©Joel Stewart

Here the Royal Ballet perform Swan Lake, one of the most loved ballets in the world and (of course!) based on a Hans Christian Andersen’s story: The Wild Swans. What many people don’t know is that Hans Christian Andersen fancied himself as a bit of a ballet dancer – even if he wasn’t a very good one. He once auditioned for one of the most famous ballerinas in the world Anna Margrethe Schall. Sadly he failed the audition and Anna Margrethe Schall thought his dancing was so terrible that she had him thrown out of her house. Ah well... maybe we wouldn't have all these amazing stories if he'd aced it!
Photograph: Tristram Kenton