"The Ugly Duckling"  is a literary fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen. Andersen lavished great care on this story, spending a year perfecting it. It was first published in 1844.  A mother duck hatches six pretty little ducklings. A seventh bird is hatched. He is homely. The other ducks abuse him. He runs away. He is given a home by an old woman. Her cat and hen do not like him. He runs away again. Winter comes and a kind farmer gives him a home. The little bird almost dies. Spring comes. The "ugly duckling" has grown into a beautiful swan. The other swans welcome him as their own. They bow to him. He is happy for the first time in his life. The moral of the tale: "it does not matter if you were born in a duck yard if you have lain in a swan's egg."  Andersen considered the story "a reflection of my own life."  Hans Christian Andersen (1805–1875) was a Danish author. Although a prolific writer of plays, travelogues, novels, and poems, he is best remembered for his fairy tales. Andersen's fairy tales, consisting of 156 stories across nine volumes, have been translated into more than 125 languages. They have become embedded in Western collective consciousness, accessible to children as well as presenting lessons of virtue and resilience in the face of adversity for mature readers.
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