7 /10 1 Votes
Originally published 8 May 1835 Preceded by The Tinderbox | 3.5/5 Goodreads | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Works by Hans Christian Andersen The Tinderbox, The Princess and the P, The Shepherdess and the C, The Flying Trunk, The Swineherd | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Little Claus and Big Claus (Danish: Lille Claus og store Claus) is a tale by Hans Christian Andersen, published in 1835 in the second edition of his tales, translated from German with the Danish title Eventyr fortalte for børn.
The first review, which was published anonymously in Denmark in the newspaper Dannor in 1836, is not very positive:
No one can reasonably claim that the respect of life among children is encouraged by the reading of episodes such as Big Claus killing his grandmother and Little Claus killing him. This is told as if it is about slaughtering a bull.
Furthermore, in Dansk Litteraturtidende, another anonymous reviewer reproached Andersen for not having a sufficiently literary style, making a comparison to the writings of the Danish poet Christian Frederik Molbech, who, unlike Andersen, exposes a lesson in his stories.