Hans Christian Andersen
1805-1875 · Danish · Odense, Denmark
For younger readers
Hans Christian Andersen grew up very poor in Denmark. His father mended shoes and his mother washed other people's clothes and could not read. When he was fourteen he went off to the city on his own to be an actor, because he had a beautiful singing voice, and then his voice changed and that was the end of that. Somebody told him he might be a writer instead. School was miserable for him and his teachers told him to stop making up stories. When his first book of fairy tales came out, grown-up reviewers said he was writing them all wrong. He carried on anyway, and now his stories are read in more than 125 languages.
Life
Hans Christian Andersen was born in Odense on 2 April 1805, the son of a shoemaker and an illiterate washerwoman. His father read him the Arabian Nights and died when Andersen was eleven. He was sent to a school for poor children and apprenticed first to a weaver and then to a tailor. At fourteen he went alone to Copenhagen to become an actor, and was taken into the Royal Danish Theatre on the strength of a good soprano voice, which promptly broke. A colleague told him he thought he was really a poet. Jonas Collin, the director of the theatre, arranged for him to be schooled at Slagelse and persuaded King Frederick VI to pay for part of it; Andersen later said those were the darkest and most bitter years of his life, and that the staff discouraged him from writing. His first collection of fairy tales appeared in 1835 and the early reviews were poor, criticising the chatty, informal style as unsuitable for children. He kept going. By the 1840s he was celebrated across Europe. He died on 4 August 1875 at Rolighed, the country house of his friends the Melchiors, with the Danish government paying him an annual sum as a national treasure.
Moments from their life
1805
Born to a shoemaker and a washerwoman
Born in Odense on 2 April 1805. His father Hans was a shoemaker, recorded in the parish register as a twenty-two-year-old shoemaker's journeyman. His mother Anne Marie was an illiterate washerwoman.
1816
His father dies
His father died when Andersen was eleven. Before that he had read the boy the Arabian Nights and had believed, wrongly, that the family was related to nobility.
1819
Fourteen, alone, in Copenhagen
He left for Copenhagen at fourteen to become an actor. He had a good soprano voice and was accepted into the Royal Danish Theatre. Then his voice broke.
1822
The darkest and most bitter years
Jonas Collin sent him to grammar school at Slagelse and persuaded King Frederick VI to pay part of the cost. He lodged at the schoolmaster's house, where he was abused and told it was to improve his character, and the staff discouraged him from writing.
1835
Nine tales, in three thin booklets
Fairy Tales Told for Children appeared in three instalments from May 1835. The first was sixty-one unbound pages containing The Tinderbox, Little Claus and Big Claus, The Princess and the Pea and Little Ida's Flowers. Reitzel paid him thirty rigsdalers.
1836
The reviews were bad
The first Danish reviews were unenthusiastic. Critics disliked the chatty informal style and the apparent lack of moral instruction, on the grounds that children's literature existed to educate rather than to amuse. They advised him to stop.
1843
The Ugly Duckling
Published on 11 November 1843 in New Fairy Tales, with three other stories, to great critical acclaim. Unlike most of his early work it was not based on a folk tale at all.
1857
Five weeks at Charles Dickens's house
He had met Dickens in 1847 and admired him enormously. In 1857 he came to stay at Gads Hill Place and extended a planned brief visit into five weeks, much to the distress of the Dickens family. After he was asked to leave, Dickens gradually stopped answering his letters.
Things you might not know
- His father was a shoemaker and his mother could not read or write.
- He was accepted into the Royal Danish Theatre for his singing voice, and then it broke.
- He said his school years were the darkest and most bitter of his life.
- The first reviews of his fairy tales were bad; critics said children's books should teach, not amuse.
- He was afraid of being buried alive and kept a sign by his bed saying he was only apparently dead.
- He wrote 156 fairy tales, now translated into more than 125 languages.
- His birthday, 2 April, is International Children's Book Day.
In their words
- “It doesn't matter about being born in a duckyard, as long as you are hatched from a swan's egg.”
- “Most of the people who will walk after me will be children, so make the beat keep time with little steps.”
Stories
Ages 4-9
The Ugly Duckling
A large grey bird hatches in a duckyard and is bitten, pecked and pushed about until he leaves. He survives a marsh, a very opinionated cat and hen, and a winter that nearly kills him. At the end he flies at a flock of swans expecting to be killed for daring to come near, and they welcome him, and only then does he look down and see what he is.
11 min readHans Christian AndersenRead itAges 4-9
The Emperor's New Clothes
An emperor who cares about nothing but clothes is sold a suit that only clever, capable people can see. His minister cannot see it. Nor can the emperor. Nor can anybody in the city, and every single one of them decides to say nothing about it, until a small child at the front of the crowd says the obvious thing out loud.
7 min readHans Christian AndersenRead it
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