He
built himself a little toy-theatre and sat at home making clothes
for his puppets, and reading all the plays that he could borrow;
among them were those of Ludvig Holberg and William Shakespeare.
Andersen, throughout his childhood, had a passionate love for literature.
He was known to memorize entire Shakespeare plays and recite them
using his wooden dolls as the characters.
King Frederick VI was interested in the strange boy and sent him
for some years, free of charge, to the grammar-school at Slagelse.
Before he started for school, Andersen published his first volume,
The Ghost at Palnatoke's Grave (1822). Andersen, a very backward
and unwilling pupil, actually remained at Slagelse and at another
school in Elsinore until 1827. These years, he says, were the darkest
and bitterest in his life. Collin at length consented to consider
him educated, and Andersen came to Copenhagen.
Life
as an author
In
1829, Andersen had considerable success with a fantastic volume
entitled A Journey on Foot from Holmen's Canal to the East Point
of Amager, and he published in the same season a farce and a book
of poems. Thus, he suddenly came into request at the moment when
his friends had decided that no good thing would ever come out of
his early eccentricity and vivacity. He made little further progress,
however, until 1833, when he received a small traveling stipend
from the king, and made the first of his long European journeys.
At Le Locle, in the Jura, he wrote Agnete and the Merman; and in
October 1834 he arrived in Rome.
Early in 1835, Andersen's first novel, The Improvisatore, appeared,
and achieved real success. The poet's troubles were at an end at
last. In the same year, Andersen published the earliest installment
of his immortal Fairy Tales (Danish: Eventyr). Other parts, completing
the first volume, appeared in 1836 and 1837. The value of these
stories was not at first perceived, and they sold slowly. Andersen
was more successful for the time being with a novel, O.T. (1836),
and a volume of sketches, In Sweden. In 1837, he produced the best
of his novels, Only a Fiddler.
Andersen now turned his attention, with but ephemeral success, to
the theatre, but was recalled to his true genius in the charming
miscellany of 1840, the Picture-Book without Pictures the fame of
his Fairy Tales had been steadily rising; a second series began
in 1838; a third in 1845.
Andersen was now celebrated throughout Europe, although in Denmark
itself there was still some resistance to his pretensions. In June
1847, he paid his first visit to England and enjoyed a triumphal
social success. When he left, Charles Dickens saw him off from Ramsgate
pier (Shortly thereafter Dickens published David Copperfield, in
which the character Uriah Heep is said to have been modeled on Andersen—a
left-handed compliment, to say the least).
After this, Andersen continued to publish much as he still desired
to excel as a novelist and a dramatist, which he could not do. He
disdained the enchanting Fairy Tales, in the composition of which
his unique genius lay. Nevertheless, he continued to write them,
and in 1847 and 1848 two fresh volumes appeared. After a long silence,
Andersen published another novel in 1857, To be or not to be. In
1863, after a very interesting journey, he issued another of his
travel-books, In Spain.
His Fairy Tales continued to appear, in installments, until 1872,
when, at Christmas, the last stories were published. In the spring
of that year, Andersen fell out of bed and severely hurt himself.
He was never again quite well, but he lived until the 4th of August
1875, when he died very peacefully in the house called Rolighed,
near Copenhagen. He is interred in the Assistens Cemetery, in Copenhagen,
Denmark.
In the English-speaking world, the stories of The Ugly Duckling,
The Emperor's New Clothes, and The Princess and the Pea, are cultural
universals; everyone knows them, though few could tell you their
author. They have become part of the common heritage, and, like
the tales of Charles Perrault, are not distinguished from actual
folk-tales such as those of the Brothers Grimm.
Fairy tales
His
best-known fairy tales include:
The Emperor's New Clothes
The Ugly Duckling
The Swineherd
The Real Princess
The Shoes of Fortune
The Fir Tree
The Snow Queen
The Leap-Frog
The Elderbush
The Bell
The Old House
The Happy Family
The Story of a Mother
The False Collar
The Shadow
The Little Match Girl
The Dream of Little Tuk
The Naughty Boy
The Red Shoes, Fairytale
The Little Mermaid
Thumbelina
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