In 1833 and 1834 Andersen visited France, Switzerland, and Italy, where he set his first successful novel, The Improvisatore (1835). He began writing fairy tales in the folk tradition and published them as Fairy Tales Told for Children ( 1835) , a volume that included “The Princess on the Pea” and “Little Claus and Big Claus.” The same year he produced a second installment of stories including “Thumbelina.” Thereafter, for the rest of his life he published a new volume of tales every year or two. Among the best known are “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” “The Steadfast Tin Soldier,” “The Nightingale,” and “The Little Match Girl.” He also published several travelogues, dozens of plays, six novels, and three autobiographies.
For inspiration, Andersen drew on the people he knew as well as on traditional folk tales. His unique style—his inventive, entertaining stories appeal to children and adults alike—at—tracted many admirers, including the Danish king, who, when Andersen was a young man, granted him a royal annuity. Andersen was an international celebrity, and the royalties from his books made him wealthy. An avid traveler, he made frequent sojourns throughout Europe, most frequently to the cultured city of Weimar, Germany. Hans Christian Andersen died on August 4, 1875, in Copenhagen.
The World of Hans Christian Andersen and His Fairy Tales
1805 Hans Christian Andersen is born on April 2, in the Danish city of Odense. His father, Hans Andersen, is a cobbler ; his mother, Anne Marie Andersdatter, works as a washerwoman. 1812 Hans Andersen Sr. leaves his family to serve in the Danish army at a time when Denmark is an ally of Napoleon. Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm publish the first volume of Children ’s and Household Tales. 1813 Danish philosopher and theologian Soren Kierkegaard is born. 1814 Hans Andersen Sr. returns to Odense, suffering from an illness contracted while he was in the army. Denmark cedes control of Norway to Sweden. 1815 The Grimm brothers publish the second volume of Children’s and Household Tales. 1816 Hans Andersen Sr. dies. Young Hans takes a factory job to help support the household. 1818 Anne Marie remarries, but the family’s financial situation does not improve. Endowed with an exceptional singing voice, Hans earns money singing in the salons of the town’s educated middle class. 1819 Young Hans leaves Odense and travels to Denmark’s capital, Copenhagen, where he pursues a career as a singer, dancer, and actor. He solicits leading figures in the city’s arts establishment before winning the patronage of composer C. E. F. Weyse, among others; he is provided with singing lessons and a small stipend. 1820 His stipend depleted, a desperate Andersen joins Copenhagen’s Royal Theater choir and lands several minor roles with the company. 1822 A play written by Andersen is rejected by the theater. With the help of one of the theater’s directors, Jonas Collin, Andersen obtains a scholarship that allows him to attend a private school in Slagelse, 50 miles from Copenhagen. The Grimms publish a third volume of Children’s and Household Tales. German Romantic author E. T. A. Hoffmann dies.1827 Returning to Copenhagen and still under the patronage of Jonas Collin, Andersen begins dining with the cultured families of the cosmopolitan city and develops a lifelong friendship with his patron’s son, Edvard Collin. He publishes his first work, a poem called “The Dying Child.” 1829 Andersen passes entrance exams for the University of Copenhagen but does not enroll. He publishes his first book, A Walking Tour from the Holmen Canal to the Eastern Point of Amager. His first play, Love at St. Nicholas Tower, is performed at the Royal Theater.1831 He makes his first major trip to Germany and meets many important authors and writers, including Ludwig Tieck, a German writer of fairy tales. 1832 Andersen writes The Book of My Life, the first of three autobiographies he will produce; it will not be published until 1926. The second part of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Faust is published posthumously.1833 Andersen’s mother, overcome by alcoholism, dies. During this year and the next, Andersen travels to Germany, Paris, Switzerland, and Italy. Slavery is abolished in the British Empire. 1835 The Improvisatore, an autobiographical novel set in Italy, is so successful that it is immediately published in German . Andersen’s first booklet of fairy tales, Fairy Tales Told for Children, is published in May; the volume includes “The Tinderbox,” “Little Claus and Big Claus,” and “The Princess on the Pea.” In December he publishes a second booklet of Fairy Tales that includes “Thumbelina” and “The Naughty Boy.” American novelist1836 Andersen’s second autobiographical novel, O. T.: Life in Denmark, is published. Charles Dickens’s The Pickwick Papers begins to be published in monthly installments.1837 A third booklet of Andersen’s Fairy Tales is published, this one containing “The Little Mermaid” and “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” A third autobiographical novel, Only a Fiddler, is published.1838 The King of Denmark awards Andersen an annual grant that allows him to concentrate on writing. He publishes the first booklet of a new collection of Fairy Tales Told for Children that includes “The Steadfast Tin Soldier” and “The Wild Swans.” Dickens’s Oliver Twist is a best-seller in England. Naturalist and artist John James Audubon completes publication of the four volumes of The Birds of America. 1839 The second booklet of the new Fairy Tales collection, including “The Flying Trunk” and “The Storks,” is published . 1840 Andersen’s plays The Mulatto, which dramatizes the evils of slavery, and The Moorish Maiden debut at the Royal Theater. During this year and the next, he travels to Italy, Greece, and Turkey.1842 Andersen publishes the third booklet of the new collection of Fairy Tales; it includes “The Rose Elf” and “The Swineherd.” He publishes the travel book A Poet’s Bazaar.1843 Dickens publishes A Christmas Carol. German poet Friedrich Holderlin dies. English critic John Ruskin publishes the first volume of his critical work Modern Painters. The Tivoli Gardens open in Copenhagen.1844 New Fairy Tales, a collection of tales containing “The Ugly Duckling” and “The Nightingale,” is published. Andersen makes his first visit to Weimar, Germany, a cultured city to which he will return repeatedly in the years that follow.1845 He publishes a second collection of New Fairy Tales, which includes “The Snow Queen” and “The Spruce Tree,” and a third collection, which includes “The Red Shoes” and “The Shepherdess and the Chimney Sweep.”1847 He produces a third volume of New Fairy Tales; it includes “The Shadow.” Andersen’s second autobiography , The True Story of My Life, is published in German and is shortly translated into English. Andersen visits England and meets Dickens.1848 He publishes a fourth volume of New Fairy Tales, which includes “The Little Match Girl,” and a patriotic novel, The Two Baronesses. Frederick VII becomes the Danish king. Denmark goes to war with Germany and Prussia over control of the region Schleswig-Holstein. German political theorist and revolutionary Karl Marx produces his Communist Manifesto. 1851
