The fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875) are unique in that they are the product of his own imagination. Some writers, such as the Brothers Grimm, have collected fairy tales as they have been told through generations and set them down exactly as they heard them; others, like Charles Perrault, took the traditional tales and embellished them. Andersen, though, invented his own fairy tales, many of which reflect his own childhood experiences: the new shoes he was given for his first Communion were transformed into the red shoes in the story of the same name,  his mother’s flower-boxes with their flowers and herbs appear in ‘The Snow Queen’, his grandfather became the old woodcarver in ‘Holger Danske’, and his grandmother the good grandmother in all his tales, while the struggles of his childhood, as a weak, ailing and ugly child, transformed themselves into the story of ‘The Ugly Duckling’. Andersen told many of the traditional tales as well, that he had heard from his grandmother, and the attendants of the insane asylum where his grandfather had been institutionalised. These tales include ‘The Tinder Box’, ‘The Flying Trunk’, ‘The Wild Swans’ and ‘The Garden of Paradise’ as well as ‘The Swineherd’ and ‘The Real Princess’. But Andersen’s best tales are those that were the creations of his own mind. Sensitive, delicate, sometimes comical, sometimes melancholy, they touch the heart and leave their mark upon it. Of all these tales, perhaps the most moving is that of ‘The Little Mermaid’ and her tragic and unrequited love for the prince. 

Hans Christian  Andersen was born on April 2, 1805, in the town of Odense, in Denmark. His father, Hans Andersen, was a cobbler. The family were not very well off, and lived in the poorer district of the town. Their home consisted of a single room, which served as his father’s work room , as well as the family’s bedroom and living room, and a kitchen. Though they were not rich, the atmosphere in their house was cheerful, and there were books and music and art to be enjoyed. The cobbler was a self-educated man, with a great love for literature and the theatre, a love that he passed on in full to his son, through the stories of La Fontaine and the Arabian Nights, which he would read to him regularly. In 1812, he enlisted in the army, in the hope that that would give him a better income; but he died in 1816, at the young age of thirty-five.

Young Hans was a sickly, delicate child, who preferred solitude and his own quiet pursuits rather than the company of children his own age, and lived in a world peopled by his own fantasies and dreams. His father’s death affected him greatly: his mother, Anne Marie, married again, and Hans could never accept her new husband in his father’s place. Nor did his stepfather take any interest in the boy.

Hans started school, but his education remained patchy at best, as he moved from one local school to another. His family tried to place him in various trades and occupations, but he was not interested in them. He was passionate only about literature and the theatre. He began writing poems and plays, discovered that he had a gift for singing and elocution, and dreamed of a life far beyond his humble existence. A gypsy fortune-teller read his future, and told him that one day, the town of Odense would honour him with lights. Hans believed in his destiny.

In 1819, when he was fourteen years old, he set off for Copenhagen to become an opera singer: he carried with him a letter of introduction to a well-known opera singer, and his savings, a sum which amounted to less than two pounds. Reality hit him within a few days of his arrival in Copenhagen – the real world was harsh and unlike the wonderful world of his dreams where he commanded instant fame and success. Reduced to starvation, the young boy contemplated suicide. Fortunately, the Danish composer, Christoph Weyse, and the Italian singer Siboni stepped in – they took care of the starving boy, giving him enough money to meet his needs for food and shelter, and Siboni agreed to give him singing lessons. But his voice was not good enough, and he did not have the looks or personality suited to the stage. The poet Guldberg now took him under his wing, giving him lessons in Danish, German and Latin, and enrolling him for dancing lessons. But Andersen proved to be a complete disaster as a dancer and an actor, and it became clear to everyone that he was not suited for a career in theatre or the stage.

He refused to give up – if he couldn’t perform on the stage, he would write for it! So he wrote a tragedy called Alfsol. The play was not accepted, but one of the directors of the theatre felt that Andersen deserved encouragement and support as a writer – and so he was recommended to Jonas Collins, an important, influential, and above all, kind-hearted man. He obtained the King of Denmark’s permission to have Andersen educated at the Latin Grammar School at Slagelse, and also became Andersen’s guardian. Andersen soon became a virtual member of Collins’ family; he remained close to them till the end of his days.

Andersen studied at Slagelse for four years (1822-26), and another year at the Academy of Elsinore. He hated his time at school with a vengeance, but the training that he received here was instrumental in giving his talent for story-telling the shape that it needed. In 1827, he left for Copenhagen, to study privately for two years and then take his university examination, which he cleared with distinction in 1829.

In 1829 also was published his first major work, The Walking Trip, a collection of fantastical tales. It received moderate success, as did the several poems he wrote after this; but six more pieces that he wrote were rejected and criticised so severely that Andersen had a nervous breakdown.

Travelling was another of the passions of his life, and in 1831, he set off on the first of his many journeys across Europe. In 1833, the King awarded him a travelling stipend, and he set off again on a second, longer journey. During this time, while in France, he wrote Agnete and the Merman, a dramatization of a Danish ballad, which was a complete failure. He had begun his first novel while in Italy, and it was published in 1835 as The Improvisatore. This was his first real success.

In 1835, too, appeared the first of the fairy tales which were to make him immortal, in the form of a small booklet entitled Fairy Tales as Told to Children. This included ‘The Tinder Box’ and ‘The Real Princess’. He published a second booklet in 1836, and a third (consisting of ‘The Little Mermaid’ and ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’) in 1837. These three booklets made up the first series of his fairy tales.

While Andersen struggled with his plays and romances, his fairy tales spread throughout the country, finding their way into almost every Danish home. Andersen himself did not consider his fairy tales to be very important, but ultimately, it is these tales which gave him both fame and immortality.

He continued to write his novels and plays, and though they met with reasonable success, Andersen was still financially hard up. In 1838, the King granted him an annual pension, which helped him considerably. Between 1838 and 1848, he published two more series of fairy tales. The first volume in the second series contained ‘The Ugly Duckling’ – this story made him famous around the world, and he was firmly established as a writer of fairy tales beyond compare.

In 1840, he set off once more on his travels, becoming one of the first to travel extensively by the new and upcoming rail network across Europe.  He visited almost every major country in Europe; in 1847 he visited England, where he was given a rousing welcome, and where he met Charles Dickens and formed a lifelong friendship with him.

From 1848 onwards, Andersen concentrated almost exclusively on his  fairy tales, and from 1849 onwards, he also began writing fairy-tale plays for the Copenhagen stage.  Between 1852 and 1862, he published nine volumes of new fairy tales; these were more moralistic in tone than his earlier stories. He published several more volumes in 1865-66, and a final series in 1871-72.

In 1867, he received the freedom of his city of Odense – the gypsy’s prophecy that his city would one day be illuminated in his honour, had come true. Hans Christian Andersen had realised his destiny.

He died on August 4, 1875.