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Just As Well I'm Leaving: To the Orient with Hans Christian Andersen By Michael Booth (Jonathan Cape, pounds 12.99)
By all accounts Hans Christian Andersen was an odd character. A tall, lonely figure, he drifted through life without a home or a lover, an inveterate wanderer haunted by terrifying phobias. Afraid of being burned or buried alive, he travelled with a coil of rope to escape from fire, and at night he placed a note beside his bed with the words: "I only appear...