Thousands of Years from Now

"In thousands of years they will come on wings of steam, through the air, across the Atlantic! The young inhabitants of America will visit old Europe. They will see the monuments and the disappearing cities."

In this short story from 1853, Andersen gives us a vision of the future, not far from our present. He imagines airplanes flying over the oceans, a tunnel under the Channel and American tourists who want to see all of Europe in eight days.

Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875) was a Danish...