. Hans Christian Andersen
. Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875)1805

Short Chronology - Hans Christian Andersen born in Odense on 2 April. Place of birth unknown. His father was a poor shoemaker and his mother a washerwoman. The family did not have a permanent address until 1807.

1812:
First visit to the theatre in Odense - the boy's fantasies begin to assume shape and direction.

1816:
Father dies of an illness he contracted when he enlisted as a soldier during the Napoleonic Wars in 1812-14. Mother re-marries in 1818.

1819:
A few months after his confirmation HCA travels alone to Copenhagen to try his luck at The Royal Theatre. Under extremely humble conditions he attempts during the following three years to gain a foothold at the theatre as a singer, dancer or actor. Influential people take care of him and arrange for him to get some education, as his schooling has been much neglected.

1822:
As a final, desperate measure, HCA hands in a couple of plays to the theatre. They are turned down, but the management want to soften the blow and arrange for him to go to a school in Slagelse. Theatre manager and financial deputy Jonas Collin becomes his guardian.

1826:
When the Slagelse principal, Simon Meisling, is moved to Elsinore Grammar School, HCA follows suit. Here he writes his famous poem 'The dying Child', under the influence of his highly problematic relationship to Meisling.

1827:
Collin takes HCA's complaints seriously, and takes him away from Meisling's school. HCA is now privately tutored for his upper secondary school leaving examination in Copenhagen. In the same year HCA also gets a number of poems published in the leading literary journal of the day, Kjøbenhavns flyvende Post. 'The dying Child' appears in both Danish and German versions.

1828:
Andersen passes his leaving examination at Copenhagen University and matriculates there. He takes the examination which entitles him to begin his studies (philologicum) and passes his philosophicum examination the following year.

1829:
Makes his official debut with his first prose work, the E.T.A. Hofmannesque fantasy Fodreise (= journey on foot, walking tour), and first play, Kjærlighed paa Nicolai Taarn (= love in Nicholas' tower). Both are a success.

1831:
First important collection of poems; trip to Germany, where he meets the poets Ludwig Tieck in Dresden and Adalbert von Chamisso in Berlin. After his return he publishes his first travel account, Skyggebilleder (= silhouettes).

1832:
Librettos for a singspiel and an opera. Writes his first autobiography, which is destined to remain unpublished (and unknown) until 1926.

1833-34:
Uses a scholarship to travel on his great educative journey via Germany to France and Italy, where, in the colony of artists in Rome, he becomes a close friend of the sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen.

1835:
Publishes his first novel, Improvisatoren (= the improvisatore), and his first two booklets with Eventyr, fortalte for Børn (= fairy tales, told for children). In the following years he wrote a number of plays and two novels, O. T. and Kun en Spillemand (= Only a Fiddler). The novels were soon translated into German - and later into Swedish, Dutch, english and other languages.

1837:
First trip to Sweden, where HCA makes the acquaintance of the authoress Fredrika Bremer. After a visit to Copenhagen, the French homme de lettres Xavier Marmier writes a biographical article on HCA that includes a French translation of 'The dying Child'. The article, 'Une vie de poète', appears in Revue de Paris and has a decisive influence on HCA becoming a known literary figure in Europe, since it is reprinted, translated and quoted in several countries.

1838:
Søren Kierkegaard makes a direct attack on HCA as a novelist in his first book Af en endnu Levendes Papirer (= from the papers of one still living) (a review of Kun en Spillemand). In the same year, HCA's finances are stabilized, as he is granted the standard royal literary scholarship.

1840:
Success at The Royal Theatre with the play Mulatten ( The Mulatto), which is also put on in Stockholm and in his native city of Odense, as well as by privately touring theatre companies. Goes in the same year on a large European and Oriental journey. On his travels he makes the acquaintance of Franz Liszt and Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy.

1842:
His travel account En Digters Bazar (= A Poet's Bazaar), with the famous chapters on the railway and on a concert with Franz Liszt.

1843:
New series of fairy tale booklets begun, this time without the subtitle 'fortalte for Børn'. Falls in love with the Swedish singer Jenny Lind.

1844:
Close friendship with the hereditary GrandDuke Carl Alexander von Sachsen-Weimar, who wants to have HCA installed as a new Goethe in Weimar.

1845:
HCA's novels begin to appear in English translation.

1847:
HCA's collected works begin to appear in Germany, introduced by his first official autobiography. In the same year The True Story of My Life appears in English. First trip to England and Scotland, where HCA is feted everywhere and makes the acquaintance of Charles Dickens.

1848:
First fairy tales are published in French.

1849:
First play put on at the new, popular theatre Casino, where HCA has great, long-running successes in the following years.

1851:
Travel account I Sverrig (= In Sweden), containing his poetical credo (a blend of poetry, religion and science). Is made a titular professor.

1852:
First collection with the title Historier (5 stories) instead of Eventyr.

1853:
The Danish edition of Samlede Skrifter (= collected works) begins to appear. Includes (1855) a revised version of the autobiography Mit Livs Eventyr (The Fairy Tale of My Life).

1857:
Second trip to England, where HCA stays at Dickens' for a month.

1858:
HCA reads aloud from his fairy tales for the first time at the newly-established (middle-class organised) Workers' Association. He appears here about 20 times in subsequent years, often reading to audiences of 500-900.

1862-63:
Trip to Spain. Travel account I Spanien (= In Spain) published in 1863.

1866:
Trip to Portugal. Travel account Et Besøg i Portugal (= A Visit to Portugal) published in 1868.

1867:
Made titular Councillor of State and later Honorary Citizen of Odense. Great celebration of HCA in his native city.

1868:
Publishes the story 'The Dryad' about the world exposition in Paris in 1867. Gets to know the young literary critic Georg Brandes, who writes a major, seminal article about HCA the following year in Illustreret Tidende.

1870:
HCA's sixth (and last) novel, Lykke-Peer (Lucky Peer).

1871:
Trip to Norway.

1872:
Publishes his last fairy tales.

1874:
Is made 'konferensråd' (a high Danish title, now obsolete).

1875:
After several years of serious illness, HCA dies on 4 August at 'Rolighed', the country seat of the Jewish merchant family Melchior. The Melchiors had taken care of him during the final period of his life.

Hans Christian Andersen (2 April 1805 to 4 August 1875) A Short Biographical Introduction - Johan de Mylius - Andersen SDU

Hans Christian Andersen was a product of two towns, two social environments, two worlds and two ages. Both as a man and as a writer he thus continually developed and changed, but was also in constant dialogue with himself and even at times at war with himself. Thus his social rise provides the direct and indirect motif in many of his tales, novels and plays, both as a productive source in his search for a new and more comprehensive identity and as a source of perpetual and unresolved traumas.

The two towns which had such a decisive influence on him were his native town of Odense, and Copenhagen, where he lived and worked for the greater part of his adult life.

As a poor child in the small but self-satisfied provincial centre of Odense, Andersen received throughout the first 14 years of his life impressions and experiences that were to be decisive for his literary production. In the autobiography of his youth, Levnedsbogen (not published till 1926), Andersen emphasised that the way of life in Odense had preserved popular old customs and superstitions unknown in Copenhagen and therefore available to him as a colourful stimulus to his imagination. However, even more decisive were the disturbing social experiences from the lowest ranks of society and his own urge to cast off the trammels of poverty, break with his social inheritance and realise his potential in the only outlet the times provided, the world of art, an urge that became ever more dominant throughout his childhood.

Furthermore, the elderly female inmates at Odense Hospital (the workhouse) told him the folk-tales that were later to provide a starting-point for his paraphrases of the old stories and for the tales he created himself. In this respect Andersen also stands between two worlds: the popular old oral narrative tradition and the modern world with its culture of books and focus on the role of the author.

A decisive factor that determined the direction of Hans Christian Andersen's life and his fantastic flight to Copenhagen in 1819, with the social and literary rise that followed, is the fact that, as the only town outside the capital, Odense had a theatre. In addition to his early escape into the world of reading (his father, the poor shoemaker Hans Andersen, owned books, among them the Bible, Holberg's comedies and the Arabian Nights) there was contact with the theatre (including the chance to see travelling players from the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen) to provide knowledge and direction to Andersen's dreams and aspirations. He left home as a 14-year-old 4 September 1819, a few months after his confirmation, to seek his fortune at the theatre in Copenhagen. Although this venture was unsuccessful, Andersen was tied to the theatre for the rest of his life, as the author of numerous plays and as the translator and adapter of foreign plays. The theatre became his fate, so it can truly be said that if he had been born in any other Danish provincial town, his career would never have been the same.

During Andersen's first years in Copenhagen (1819-22), he fought desperately to gain a foothold in the theatre as a ballet-dancer, actor or singer. Finally, when none of these attempts succeeded, he tried his hand as a playwright; this was also in vain, but resulted in the director's deciding to send him to school so that something proper might be made of him, and this experience was thus as decisive for his later life and work as the Odense years. In Copenhagen he gained access to two families - the Collins and the Wulffs - who were to become his spiritual kin. Here, too, he came to know both the bourgeois upper class of the capital and the very lowest stratum of its proletariat. He came to know the fight for survival at subsistence level and the bitterness of being a supplicant dependent on the good will of others.

Having left Odense and opted for art, Andersen had only one option: to get up and get on. However, this was exactly the point at which he experienced the suffering and humiliation that follow from leaving one world without having quite been accepted by another and higher one, an experience shared by the Little Mermaid (1837) and the protagonists in Andersen's novel O.T. (1836) and his play The Mulatto (1840).

Nevertheless, after his school years in Slagelse and Elsinore, Copenhagen also came to mean something positive in his development: here the proletarian Andersen acquired the culture and education associated with bourgeois circles in the Golden Age that encompassed the last years of absolute monarchy, and Andersen, fundamentally sensitive and sentimental, learned to use the light and ironic Copenhagen wit, particularly the lethal form he knew from the Collin family and from the dominant circle around the dramatist and critic Johan Ludvig Heiberg. Andersen's entire production of tales is, as it were, suspended between these two poles, heart and wit, sensitivity and irony, nature and culture, creating a field of tension that finds its expression as early as in his tour de force, Fodreise fra Holmens Canal til Østpynten af Amager i Aarene 1828 og 1829 (A journey on foot from Holmens Canal to the east point of Amager in the years 1828 and 1829), his first work, which was published in 1829.

Andersen's journey or flight from Odense to Copenhagen was continued as a lifetime of shuttling between Denmark and the rest of Europe, where Germany, in particular, became his second home. At the same time his journeying paved the way for international literary fame. Andersen also felt at home temperamentally elsewhere in Europe, Italy especially leaving him with decisive impressions of nature, popular life and art. Andersen had a very ambivalent relation to Denmark, a country he could not do without, but which he sometimes detested thoroughly for its pettiness. He was the first great victim of what was later to be known as the Jantelov, a victim closely followed by Søren Kierkegaard in the later phases of his work. But in contrast to Kierkegaard, who never travelled further afield than Berlin, Andersen became the most widely travelled Danish writer of his day. Altogether he went on 29 trips abroad and all in all spent over 9 years of his life outside Denmark. Read about HCA's travel books.

With his rise from the bottom of society to the top, Andersen gradually came to be a regular guest at Danish and foreign manor houses and at the residences of kings and princes in Denmark and abroad. Thus Andersen's life became a paradigm for the social mobility that was only really brought about by bourgeois democracy following the signing of the constitution in 1849. Andersen's life and work are firmly rooted in the culture of the last years of absolute monarchy, but as a social outsider, one who had had to acquire the ideas inherent in the culture of the times, he became more modern and progressive in his ideas than the majority of contemporary Danish writers. He had every reason to reject the worship by the Romantics of the past as "the glorious peak, from which we have fallen, but now again seek" (Adam Oehlenschläger), and instead to place all his hopes on future developments. Throughout his oeuvre Andersen put his trust in a movement in the direction of increased humanity and enlightenment (see, for example, chapters VI and IX in his travel book Rambles in the Romantic Regions of the Hartz Mountains, Saxon Switzerland, &c. (1831) and his story "Godfather's Picture Book" (1868)), just as he enthusiastically learned to profit from the revolution with respect to the means of travel (see his ode to the railway in the eponymous chapter in his travel book A Poet's Bazaar (Danish ed. 1842)), communication (the telegraph, which he thought would turn the world into "a single spiritual state", just as we envisage the Internet doing today) and industry (see his article "Silkeborg" (1853)). This article, like the stories "The Ice Maiden" (1862) and "The Dryad" (1868), reveals that sometimes he could view developments more pessimistically. Particularly because everywhere in his work, he appears as a spokesman of "nature" as the great measure of value, particularly in his perception of art and literature (see tales like "The Nightingale" (1843), and "The Bell" (1845).

From a literary as well as a mental and political point of view Andersen thus spans two cultures, two ages, two social systems and two literary periods (Romanticism and the dawn of Realism).

His religious feeling, which provides an undertone to all that he wrote, stems from an undogmatic sort of Christianity, a religion of the heart and the emotions bound to human nature and to the natural world around us as a starting point for the yearning for God (see "The Little Mermaid" (1837) and "The Last Dream of the Old Oak Tree" (1858)). In his religious attitude Andersen was anything but childish or naive (as he has often been accused of being). His attitude can be seen, for instance, in the chapter "Tro og Videnskab. Prædiken i Naturen" (Faith and science. A sermon inspired by nature) in his travel book Pictures of Sweden (1851). This work also contains his statement of belief in the unification of nature and poetry, a belief inspired by his friend H.C. Ørsted, in the chapter "Poesiens Californien" (The California of Poetry). Similar statements can be found in the religious expository novel To Be, or Not to Be? (1857) and the chapter "Cordoba" in the travel book In Spain (Danish ed. 1863). However, Andersen's faith was not unchallenged. Spread throughout his diaries, stories and novels are also many expressions of bitterness, scepticism, existential angst and emptiness, for instance in the novel Only a Fiddler (da. 1837), the fairy tales "The Shadow" (da. 1847), "The Fir Tree" (da. 1844), "Aunty Toothache" (da. 1872), "The Wind Tells about Valdemar Daae and His Daughters" (da. 1859) and the poem "Psalme" ("Hymn", da. 1864), which is now admitted to the danish hymn book.

Andersen's literary fame grew rapidly from the mid-1830's, when his novels enjoyed widespread circulation in Germany. From 1839 onwards it was the fairy-tales that created his quite exceptional reputation in that country. It is from the mid-1840's that we date the great breakthrough in England and America for both tales and novels.

Andersen had only occasionally revisited his native town of Odense since his youth. However, in 1866, when he was made a titular Councillor of State, Odense wished to contribute to the celebration of a famous son and granted him the freedom of the town in December that year. This event brings to an end the annalistic sequel to Andersen's autobiography The Story of My Life (original ed. 1855, the sequel is from 1869).

It contributes to our picture of Hans Christian Andersen that he attached great importance to the fact that he was the first Danish writer to break the ice and accept an invitation to read from his own tales to the newly formed Workers' Association of 1860. Throughout the last 20 to 25 years of his life he read in turn to the Students' Association, the Workers' Association, to the Royal Family, the seamstresses, and the nobility and gentry. In the Workers' Association, he encountered an enthusiastic audience - often 500 to 1,000 people at a time - and he read to them about 20 times. For this reason he was repeatedly acclaimed by the Workers' Association, whose members also - together with the Students' Association - formed a guard of honour at his funeral in the Cathedral of Copenhagen.

Andersen is buried at Assistens Kirkegård in Copenhagen in a burial plot he originally shared with his friend, Edvard Collin, and Collin's wife, Henriette. Around 1920, when certain public criticisms arose concerning the treatment by the Collins of their "adopted son", Andersen, a descendant of the Collin family had Edvard and Henriette's tombstone moved to the family plot, so that Andersen's tombstone now stands alone.

Footnote: Janteloven, derived from a novel by Aksel Sandemose, specifies that you are not supposed to feel superior or exceptional in any way. Back to the text.

Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875) - Kirjasto

Danish writer, famous for his fairy tales, which were not meant merely for children but for adults as well. Andersen used frequently colloquial style that disguises the sophisticated moral teachings of his tales. Before achieving success as a playwright and novelist, Andersen was trained as singer and actor. Many of Andersen's fairy tales depict characters who gain happiness in life after suffering and conflicts. 'The Ugly Duckling' and 'The Little Mermaid' are Andersen's most intimate works.

"He now felt glad at having suffered sorrow and trouble, because it enabled him to enjoy so much better all the pleasure and happiness around him; for the great swans swam round the new-comer, and stroked his neck with their beaks, as a welcome." (from 'The Ugly Duckling')

Hans Christian Andersen was born in the slums of Odense. His father, Hans Andersen, was a poor shoemaker and literate, who believed he was of aristocratic origin. Andersen's mother, Anne Marie Andersdatter, worked as washerwoman. Although she was uneducated and superstitious, she opened for his son the world of folklore. Later Andersen depicted her in his novels and in the story 'Hun duede ikke'. Anne Marie declined into alcoholism and died in 1833 in a charitable old people's home. Andersen's half-sister Karen Marie may have worked as a prostitute for a time; she contacted her famous brother only a few times before dying in 1846.

Andersen received little education. As a child he was highly emotional, suffering all kinds of fears and humiliations because of his tallness and effeminate interests. Andersen's hysterical attacks of cramps were falsely diagnosed as epileptic fits. Encouraged by his parents he composed his own fairy tales and arrange puppet theatre shows. His father loved literatuire and took Andersen often to the playhouse. "My father gratified me in all my wishes," wrote Andersen in The True Story of My Life (1846). "I possessed his whole heart; he lived for me. On Sundays, he made me perspective glasses, theatres, and pictures which could be changed; he read to me from Holberg's plays and the Arabian Tales; it was only in such moments as these that I can remember to have seen him really cheerful, for he never felt himself happy in his life and as a handicrafts-man."

In 1816 his father died and Andersen was forced to go to work. He was for a short time apprenticed to a weaver and tailor, and he also worked at a tobacco factory. Once his trousers were pulled down when other workers suspected that he was a girl. At the age of 14 Andersen moved to Copenhagen to start a career as a singer, dancer or an actor - he had a beautiful soprano voice. The following three years were full of hardships although he found supporters who paved his way to the theatre. Andersen succeeded in becoming associated with the Royal Theater, but he had to leave it when his voice began to change. When he was casually referred as a poet it changed his plans: "It went through me, body and soul, and tears filled my eyes. I knew that, from this very moment, my mind was awake to writing and poetry." He then began to write plays, all of which were rejected.

In 1822 Jonas Collin, one of the directors of the Royal Theatre and an influential government official, gave Andersen a grant to enter the grammar school at Slagelse. He lived in the home of the school headmaster Meisling, who was annoyed at the oversensitive student and tried to harden his character. Other pupils were much younger, 11-year-olds, among whom six years older Andersen was definitely overgrown. His appearance drew also unvanted attention - he had a long nose and close-set eyes.

Collin arranged in 1827 a private tuition for Andersen. He gained admission to Copenhagen University, where he completed his education. In 1828 Andersen wrote a travel sketch, Fodreise fra Holmens Kanal Til Østpynten af Amager, a fantastic tale in the style of the German Romantic writer E.T.A. Hoffmann. Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm's Children's and Household Tales had appeared between 1812 and 1815, but they were based on original folktales. Andersen's poem 'The Dying Child', was published in a Copenhagen journal and the Royal Theatre produced in 1829 his musical drama. PHANTASIER OG SKISSER, a collection of poems, was born when Andersen fell in love with Riborg Voigt, who was secretly engaged to the local chemist's son. "She has a lovely, pious face, quite child-like, but her eyes looker clever and thoughtful, they were brown and very vivid," Andersen remembered in The Book of My Life. Riborg married the chemists's son, Poul Bøving, in 1831. A leather pouch containing a letter from Riborg was found round Andersen's neck when he died. Also Edvard, Jonas Collin's son, and Henrik Stempe in the 1840s were for Andersen other objects of unfulfilled dreams.

"I do wish that I were dead," Andersen said to one of his friends in 1831, expressing not his feelings about his failed love for Riborg but also echoing the melancholy of Goethe's Werther from The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774). Andersen never met Goethe, who was still alive when Andersen made his first journey to Germany. The visit inspired the first of his many travel sketches. From 1831 onwards he travelled widely in Europe, and remained a passionate traveller all his life. Andersen wrote sketches about Sweden, Spain, Italy, Portugal, and the Middle East. During his journeys Andersen met in Paris among others Victor Hugo, Heinrich Heine, Balzac, and Alexandre Dumas. A Poet's Day Dreams (1853) Andersen dedicated to Charles Dickens, whom he met in London in 1847. And in Rome he met the young Norwegian writer Björnson.

As a novelist Andersen made his breakthrough with The Improvisatore (1835), using Italy as the setting. The story was autobiographical and depicted a poor boy's integration into society, an Ugly Duckling theme of self-discovery in which Andersen returned in several of his works. The book gained international success and during his life it remained the most widely read of all his works. E.B. Browning wrote warmly to her future husband of the novel and her last poem was written for Andersen in 1861, shortly before her death. Only a Fiddler (1837), Andersen's novel, was attacked by the philosopher Søren Kierkegaard in his book Af En endnu Levendes Papirer (1838, From the Papers of a Person Still Alive, Published Against his Will). "The joyless struggle that is Andersen's in real life now repeats itself in his writing," he wrote. Kierkegaard, the 'Ugly Duckling' of Danish philosophy, used a number of pseudonyms, none of whom 'agreed' with one another. A little later, Andersen took his revenge with the play En Comedie i det Grønne (1840), which included an unpractical philosopher.

Andersen's fame rests on his Fairy Tales and Stories, written between 1835 and 1872. Tales, Told for Children, appeared in a small, cheap booklet in 1835. In this and following early collections, which were published in every Christmas, Andersen returned to the stories which he had heard as a child, but gradually he started to create his own tales. The third volume, published in 1837, contained 'The Little Mermaid' and 'The Emperor's New Clothes.' Among Andersen's other best known tales are 'Little Ugly Duckling,' 'The Tinderbox,' 'Little Claus and Big Claus,' 'Princess and the Pea,' 'The Snow Queen,' The Nightingale,' and 'The Steadfast Tin Soldier.' With these collections, inspired by the great tradition of the Arabian Nights on the other hand, and Household Tales, collected by the brothers Grimm, Andersen became known as the father of the modern fairytale. Moreover, Andersen's works were original. Only 12 of his 156 know fairy stories drew on folktales.

Andersen broke new ground in both style and content, and employed the idioms and constructions of spoken language in a way that was new in Danish writing. When fairy tales at his time were didactic, he brought into them ambiguity. Children and misfits often speak truth; they serve as Andersen's mouthpiece in moral questions: ""But he has nothing on at all," said a little child at last. "Good heavens! listen to the voice of an innocent child," said the father, and one whispered to the other what the child had said. "But he has nothing on at all," cried at last the whole people. That made a deep impression upon the emperor, for it seemed to him that they were right; but he thought to himself, "Now I must bear up to the end." And the chamberlains walked with still greater dignity, as if they carried train which did not exist." (from 'The Emperor's New Suit,' 1837) Ugliness of the hero or heroine often conceals great beauty, which is revealed after misfortunes. In psychoanalysis this kind of figure is sometimes interpreted as a symbol of the inner self of soul, which has to be released from its prison.

Andersen's identification with the unfortunate and outcast made his tales very compelling. Some of Andersen's tales revealed an optimistic belief in the triumph of the good, among them 'The Snow Queen' and 'Little Ugly Duckling', and some ended unhappily, like 'The Little Match Girl.' In 'The Little Mermaid' the author expressed a longing for ordinary life - he never had such. In the story the youngest of six mermaid precesses longs after the land above the sea, but the fulfillment of the dream causes her much pain. "She knew this was the last evening she would ever see him for whom she had forsaken her kindred and her home, given up her lovely voice, and daily suffered unending torment - and he had no idea of it. This was the last night she would breathe the same air as he, or look upon the deep sea and the starry blue sky; an everlasting night without thoughts or dreams waited her, for she had no soul and could not gain one." (trans. L.W. Kingsland) Andersen's tales were translated throughout Europe, with four editions appearing in the UK in 1846 alone. His works influenced among others Charles Dickens ('A Christmas Carol in Prose,' 'The Chimes,' 'The Cricket on the Hearth.' 'The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain'), Willam Thackeray and Oscar Wilde ('The Happy Prince,' 'The Nightingale and the Rose,' 'The Fisherman and His Soul'), C.S. Lewis, Isak Dinesen, P.O. Enquist, whose play, Rainsnakes, was about Andersen, Cees Noteboom, and a number of other writers. Elias Bredsdorff has complained in his book Hans Christian Andersen: The Story of His Life and Work (1975), that Andersen's tales have been bowdlerized and sweetened by Victorian British translators.

Andersen's last unfilled love was the Swedish opera singer Jenny Lind, whom he met first time in 1840. Jenny was the illegitimate daughter of a schoolmistress. According to her own words, she was at the age of nine "a small, ugly, broad-nosed, shy, gauche, altogether undergrown girl". At eighteen, she had made her breakthrough as a singer with her powerful soprano. 'The Ugly Duckling' become Jenny's favorite among Andersen's stories. However, 'Andersen's 'The Nightingale' is considered a tribute to Jenny, or "the Swedish Nightingale" as she was called. "Farewell," she wrote him in 1844, "God bless and protect my brother is the sincere wish of his affectionate sister, Jenny." Andersen never married.

Between the years 1840 and 1857 Andersen made journeys throughout Europa, Asia Minor, and Africa, recording his impressions and adventures in a number of travel books. He wrote and rewrote his memoirs, The Fairy Tale of My Life, but the standard edition is generally considered the 1855 edition. During his travels abroad, Andersen was able to be more relaxed and take more liberties than in Copenhagen, where everybody knew him. At the age of sixty-two Andersen went to Paris, where he visited a brothel - it was not his first visit or last. "Then went suddenly up into a meat market - one of them was covered with powder; a second, common; a third, quite the lady. I talked with her, paid twelve francs and left, without having sinned in deed, though I dare say I did in my thoughts. She asked me to come back, said I was indeed very innocent for a man." (from Hans Christian Andersen: The Life of a Storyteller by Jackie Wullschlager, 2001) Andersen died in his home in Rolighed on August 4, 1875. Edvard Collin and his wife were later buried with Andersen. However, their family members moved the Collins' bodies after some years to the family plot in another cemetery.

For further reading: Hans Christian Andersen by Rumer Godden (1955); Hans Christian Andersen: The Story of His Life and Work 1805-75 by Elias Brendsdorff (1975); H.C. Andersen by Erling Nielsen (1983); The Kiss of the Snow Queen: Hans Christian Andersen and Man's Redemption by Woman by Wolfgang Lederer (1986); The Amazing Paper Cuttings of Hans Christian Andersen by Beth Wagner Brust (1994); Hans Christian Andersen: Danish Writer And Citizen Of The World by Sven Hakon Rossel (1996); Hans Christian Andersen: The Life of a Storyteller by Jackie Wullschlager (2001); Hans Christian Andersen: A Biography by R. Nisbet Bain (2002) - See: Project Gutenberg / H.C. Andersen's Fairy Tales - Suom.: Kaikki Andersenin tunnetuimmat sadut ovat suomennettu, kuten Keisarin uudet vaatteet, Lumikuningatar, Pieni merenneito, Pieni tulitikkutyttö, Ruma ankanpoikanen, Satakieli, Tulukset. Suomentajista mainittakoon mm. kirjailija Maila Talvio. - See also: Robert Louis Stevenson

Selected works:

* DIGTE, 1829, 1832, 1850
* FODREISE FRA HOLMENS KANAL TIL ØSTPYNTEN AF AMAGER I AARENE 1828 OG 1829, 1829 - A Walk from Homen's Canal to the East Point of Island of Amager in the Years 1828 and 1829
* KÆRLIGHED PAA NIKOLAJ TAARN, 1829
* PHANTASIER OG SKIZZER, 1831
* SKYGGEBILLEDER AF EN REJSE TIL HARZEN, 1832
* AARETS TOLV MAANADER, 1833
* VIGNETTER TI DANSKE DIGTERE, 1833
* AGNETE OG HAVMANDEN, 1834
* IMPROVISATOREN, 1835 - The Improviser
* EVENTYR, FORTALTE FOR BØRN, 1835-37 - Tales, Told for Children
* O.T., 1836
* KUN EN SPILLEMAND, 1837 - Only a Fiddler
* EVENTYR, 1837
* MULATTEN; MAUERPIGEN, 1840 - The Mulatto
* EN NAT I ROSKILDE, 1840 - Yökausi Lahdella (suom. Paavo Cajander)
* BILLEDBOG UDEN BILLEDER, 1840 - A Picture-book Without Pictures - Kuvaton kuvakirja (suom. Larin-Kyösti)
* EN DIGTERS BAZAAR, 1842 - A Poet's Bazaar
* FUGLEN I PÆRETRAEDET, 1842
* LYKKENS BLOMST, 1844
* KONGEN DRØMMER, 1844
* DEN NYE BARSELSTUE, 1845
* NYE EVENTYR, 1844-45
* DAS MÄRCHEN MEINES LEBENS OHNE DICHTUNG / SÄMTLICHE WERKE I, 1847 - The True Story of my Life
* AHASVERUS, 1847
* DE TO BARONESSER, 1848 - The Two Baronesses - Kaksi paroonitarta (suom. Aukusti Simojoki)
* MEER END PERLER OG GULD, 1849
* SAMLEDE EVENTYR, 1849-50
* OLE LUKØIE, 1850
* HYLDEMOR, 1851
* I SVERRIG, 1851 - Pictures of Sweden
* HISTORIER, 1852 (2 vols.)
* SAMLADE VAERKER, 1854-79 (33 vols.)
* MIT LIVS EVENTYR, 1855 - The Fairy Tale of My Life
* H.C. ANDERSENS HISTORIER, 1855
* AT VÆRE DELLER IKKE VÆRE, 1857 - To Be or Not to Be
* NYE EVENTYR OG HISTORIER, 1858-72 - New Fairy Tales and Stories
* I SPANIEN, 1863 - In Spain
* HAN ER IKKE FØDT, 1864
* ET BESØG I PORTUGAL, 1866 - A Vistit to Portugal
* LYKKE-PEER, 1870 - Lucky Peer
* NYE EVENTYR OG HISTORIER, 1872
* H.C. ANDERSENS LEVNEDSBOG 1805-1831, 1926
* BREVVEKSLING MED EDVARD OG HENRIETTE COLLIN I-VII, 1933-37
* MIT EGET EVENTYR UDEN DIGTNING, 1846/1942 - The True Story of My Life - Elämäni tositarina (suom. Sirkka Heiskanen-Mäkelä)
* BREVVEKSLING MED HENRIETTE HANCK. ANDERSIANA IX-XIII, 1941-46
* ANDERSIANA, 1933-46
* BREVVEKSLING MED JONAS COLLIN DEN AELDRE OG ANDRE MEDLEMMER AF DET COLLINSKE HUS I-III, 1945-48
* ANDERSEN OG HORACE E.SCUDDER. EN BREVVEKSLING, 1948
* MIT LIVS EVENTYR I-II, 1951
* ANDERSEN OG HENRIETTE WULFF. EN BREVVEKSLING I-III, 1959-60
* BREVE TIL CARL B. LORCK, 1969
* DAGBØGER 1825-1875, 1971-77 - The Diaries of Hans Christian Andersen (ed. by Patricia L. Conroy, Sven H. Rossel)
* Andersen's Fairy Tales, 1988
* ANDERSENS ALMANAKKER 1833-1837, 1990