Matchless

Every year, NPR asks a writer to compose an original story with a Christmas theme. In 2008, Gregory Maguire reinvented the Hans Christian Andersen classic The Little Match Girl for a new time and new audiences.

When it was first translated from Danish and published in England in the mid-nineteenth century, audiences likely interpreted the Little Match Girl's dying visions of lights and a grandmother in heaven as metaphors of religious salvation. Maguire's new piece, entitled Matchless, reilluminates Andersen's classic, using his storytelling magic to rekindle Andersen's original intentions, and to suggest transcendence, the permanence of spirit, and the continuity that links the living and the dead.

About the Author

Gregory Maguire is the bestselling author of Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, Lost, Mirror Mirror, and the Wicked Years series that includes Wicked, Son of a Witch, and A Lion Among Men. Wicked is now a beloved classic and the basis for the hit West-End musical of the same name. Maguire has lectured on art, literature, and culture both at home and abroad.