Hans Christian Andersen

Hans Christian Andersen often referred to in Scandinavia as H. C. Andersen; 2 April 1805 – 4 August 1875) was a Danish author. Although a prolific writer of plays, travelogues, novels, and poems, Andersen is best remembered for his fairy tales. Andersen's popularity is not limited to children; his stories, called eventyr in Danish, express themes that transcend age and nationality.

Andersen's fairy tales, which have been translated into more than 125 languages,have become culturally embedded in the West's collective consciousness, readily accessible to children, but presenting lessons of virtue and resilience in the face of adversity for mature readers as well.Some of his most famous fairy tales include "The Emperor's New Clothes", "The Little Mermaid", "The Nightingale", "The Snow Queen", "The Ugly Duckling", "Thumbelina" and many more.

His stories have inspired ballets, animated and live-action films and plays.

Early life

Hans Christian Andersen was born in the town of Odense, Denmark, on 2 April 1805. He was an only child. Andersen's father, also Hans, considered himself related to nobility. His paternal grandmother had told his father that their family had in the past belonged to a higher social class, but investigations prove these stories unfounded.A persistent theory suggests that Andersen was an illegitimate son of King Christian VIII, but this theory has been criticised.

Andersen's father, who had received an elementary education, introduced Andersen to literature, reading to him Arabian Nights.Andersen's mother, Anne Marie Andersdatter, was uneducated and worked as a washerwoman following his father's death in 1816; she remarried in 1818. Andersen was sent to a local school for poor children where he received a basic education and was forced to support himself, working as an apprentice for a weaver and, later, for a tailor. At 14, he moved to Copenhagen to seek employment as an actor. Having an excellent soprano voice, he was accepted into the Royal Danish Theatre, but his voice soon changed. A colleague at the theatre told him that he considered Andersen a poet. Taking the suggestion seriously, Andersen began to focus on writing.

He later said his years in school were the darkest and most bitter of his life. At one school, he lived at his schoolmaster's home. There he was abused in order "to improve his character", he was told. He later said the faculty had discouraged him from writing in general, causing him to enter a state of depression.
 

Hans Christian Andersen

Fairy Tales and Stories

English Translation: H. P. Paull (1872)

Original Illustrations by
Vilhelm Pedersen and Lorenz Frølich

Below is the complete list of Andersen’s 168 tales, in the chronological order of their original publication. Title variations and Danish equivalents may be found in the cross reference.

Andersen’s tale “Danish Popular Legends” was first published in The Riverside Magazine for Young People, Vol. IV, pp. 470-474, New York, October 1870. It has never been published in Denmark. The hypertext is based on an etext found in the Andersen Homepage of the Danish National Literary Archive.

It may be somewhat surprising to learn that a number of Andersen’s tales were published in America even before being published in Andersen’s native Denmark. According to Jean Hersholt’s introduction to The Andersen-Scudder Letters, University of California Press, 1949, ten tales were published by Horace Elisha Scudder, Andersen’s American editor, publisher and translator, in the above mentioned Magazine, in the years 1868-1870. After the Magazine closed down, Scudder published four other tales, in the years 1871-1873, in Scribner’s Monthly, an illustrated magazine for the people: “Lucky Peer” (in four installments), “The Great Sea-Serpent”, “The Gardener and the Manor”, and “The Flea and the Professor”. The hypertext of these four tales is based on the images found in the Making of America collection of Cornell University Library.

127 more tales are given in a hypertext rendition of Mrs. Paull’s nineteenth century translation, now in the public domain. Four more tales, contributed by Mike W. Perry and marked by a (*), are digitized from Fairy Tales and Other Stories by Hans Christian Andersen, revised and partly re-translated by W.A. and J. K. Craigie, Oxford Univ. Press, London, 1914. Mike also contributed the three tales marked by (**), from Wonder Stories Told for Children, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1900. The remaining 29 tales are given in title only, using Jean Hersholt’s translation, published in three volumes in 1942-49 by The Heritage Press, and now collectors’ items.

The 30 most popular tales are marked by a . 30 more tales, which Elias Bredsdorff, in his book Hans Christian Andersen: The Story of His Life and Work: 1805-75, published in 1975 by Phaidon Press and republished in 1994 by Noonday Press, considers most characteristic and representative, are marked by a . All these tales, and the 99 marked by a , may be found in the book The Complete Hans Christian Andersen Fairy Tales, edited by Lily Owens, published in 1981 by Avenel Books and republished in 1993 by Grammercy Books.

Highly recommended contemporary translations of Andersen’s tales may be found in the following omnibus editions: Hans Christian Andersen: The Complete Fairy Tales and Stories, translated by Erik Christian Haugaard (1974, 156 tales); Eighty Fairy Tales, translated by R. P. Keigwin (1976, 80 tales); Hans Christian Andersen: Fairy Tales, translated by Reginald Spink (1960, 51 tales); Andersen’s Fairy Tales, translated by Pat Shaw Iversen (1966, 47 tales); Tales and Stories by Hans Christian Andersen, translated by Patricia L. Conroy and Sven Hakon Rossel (1980, 27 tales); Hans Andersen’s Fairy Tales: A Selection, translated by L. W. Kinsland (1959, 26 tales); The Stories of Hans Christian Andersen : A New Translation from the Danish, translated by Jeffrey Frank and Diana Crone Frank (2003, 22 tales).

All the above books, and other books in English by or about Hans Christian Andersen, may be found in our virtual bookstore. Books in French may be found in our librairie virtuelle.