On 8th May 1835 the first installment of Fairy Tales Told for Children, by Hans Christian Anderson was published by C. A. Reitzel in Copenhagen, Denmark. Two more installments were to follow over the coming months.

The first installment of sixty-one unbound pages was published 8 May 1835 and contained “The Tinderbox“, “Little Claus and Big Claus“, “The Princess and the Pea” and “Little Ida’s Flowers”. The first three tales were based on folktales Andersen had heard in his childhood while the last tale was completely Andersen’s creation and created for Ida Thiele, the daughter of Andersen’s early benefactor, the folklorist Just Mathias Thiele. Reitzel paid Andersen thirty rixdollars for the manuscript, and the booklet was priced at twenty-four shillings. Wikipedia

It didn’t get great reviews which set Anderson back to try his hand at novel writing. Fortunately he was soon back to writing his Fairy Tales.

An author ought to write for the youth of his own generation, the critics of the next, and the schoolmaster of ever afterwards.

F. Scott Fitzgerald