page_title: The Most Incredible Thing
section_title: Plot summary
hierarchical_section_title: The Most Incredible Thing / Plot summary
caption_attribution_description: Book digitized by Google from the library of Harvard University and uploaded to the Internet Archive by user tpb.
context_page_description: “The Most Incredible Thing" is a literary fairy tale by Danish poet and author Hans Christian Andersen. The story is about a contest to find the most incredible thing and the wondrous consequences when the winner is chosen. The tale was first published in an English translation by Horace Scudder, an American correspondent of Andersen's, in the United States in September 1870 before being published in the original Danish in Denmark in October 1870. "The Most Incredible Thing" was the first of Andersen's tales to be published in Denmark during World War II. Andersen considered the tale one of his best.
context_section_description: When the tale begins, a contest has been proclaimed in which half the kingdom and the hand of the princess in marriage will be the rewards of he who can produce the most incredible thing. A poor young man creates a magnificent clock with different lifelike figures — Moses, Adam and Eve, the Four Seasons, the Five Senses, and others — which appear at the stroke of the hour. All agree the clock is the most incredible thing and its creator is named the winner.  Suddenly, another man smashes the clock and all then agree that this act is even more incredible than the creation of the beautiful clock.  The destroyer is to wed the princess, but at the wedding, the figures of the clock magically reappear, defeat him, and then vanish. All agree that this is the most incredible thing, and the princess and the young creator of the clock marry.
caption: Illustration from the first US publication, in The Riverside Magazine for Young People, September 1870
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