Showing results for "The Red Shoes" in Classics

There was once a poor little girl called Karen. In summer, she walked barefoot and in winter, she wore clogs that hurt her feet. She had no choice, it was all she had. Dame Shoemaker wanted to help her and sewed, as best she could, a pair of red shoes. When she wore them for the first time, Karen’s life took an unexpected turn. - Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875) was a Danish author, poet and artist.

When little Hans dies of the croup, his mother uses all her scant wealth to ensure him a proper burial. She spins the thread for his shroud and has a beautiful little coffin made. But while she is out, the rats gnaw at little Hans's leather slippers and the dead child has nothing for his feet. Hans' mother makes him a pair of shoes from her last loaf of bread. But after the child is buried, the ghostly child reappears night after night weeping. The bread shoes are preventing him from entering heaven. But the local priest comes up with a plan.

Ernest Bramah (1868-1942) was an English author of 21 novels and numerous short stories and features. His humorous works have been ranked with Jerome K. Jerome and W. W. Jacobs, his detective stories with Conan Doyle, his politico-science fiction with H. G. Wells, and his supernatural stories with Algernon Blackwood. In his stories of detection, Bramah hit on the idea of a blind detective, Max Carrados, whose triumphs are all the more amazing because of his disability.