But how is it possible to know the reality of Andersen’s life when he consciously concealed many vital facts and incidents in the three autobiographies he wrote? How is it possible to relate his unusual, autobiographical tales to his life when they are so fantastic and can be interpreted in many different ways and on many levels? Andersen appears to defy definition and categorization, and it may not even be necessary to know something about his life to appreciate his tales. Yet because he wove himself so imaginatively into his narratives and because there are so many misunderstandings about his life and the meanings of his tales, it is crucial to attempt to sort through the myths about him and investigate how his tales came into existence so that we can have a fuller and clearer appreciation of the difficulties he overcame to achieve the success he did. Moreover, it is important to realize how diverse his stories are, for they were not all fairy tales about his life. Nor were they written for children. Nor did they always end happily. There is something uncanny and often chilling about Andersen’s tales, a bitter irony that makes us wonder whether the pursuit of happiness and success is worth all the effort.

Andersen’s immense desire to become a famous writer or actor drove him to transcend his poor start in life and his social status. In 1819, when he was only fourteen, he convinced his mother to allow him to travel to Copenhagen to pursue his dreams. But once he arrived, he again faced one trial after the next. At that time Copenhagen was a relatively small port city of 120,000 inhabitants, and Danish society, dominated by the aristocracy and upper-middle class, was highly stratified. Armed with a letter of introduction from Mr. Iversen, an Odense printer, to Madame Schall, a renowned solo dancer at the Royal Theater, Andersen made numerous attempts to impress people with his talent, but he was too raw and uncouth to be accepted into the art world. To rectify the situation he took singing and acting lessons and even had a bit part as a troll in a play performed at the Royal Theater in Copenhagen. In addition he tried to write plays that he continually submitted to the theater management, which always rejected them. Then a wealthy legal administrator, Jonas Collin, took him under his wing and sent him to a private boarding school to fine-tune him for polite society. From 1822 to 1827, Andersen was indeed trained and re-tooled, largely by a neurotic taskmaster named Simon Meisling, first in Slagelse, a provincial town 50 miles from Copenhagen, and later in Helsingør. Andersen, who was several years older and much taller than his classmates, was instructed to forget all ideas of becoming a writer or poet; Meisling, a notable scholar but a notoriously mean and petty man, who delighted in humiliating Andersen, tried to drill him according to the strict regulations of a classical education and often humiliated Andersen in and outside the classroom. Though he did learn a great deal and managed to keep writing poems and sketches, Andersen suffered greatly from Meisling’s constant persecution. Only the support of Collin and friendships with elderly men—such as the great Danish poet B. S. Ingermann, the physicist H. C. Ørsted, and the commodore Peter Frederick Wulff—and their families enabled him to tolerate the five years with Meisling. By 1827 Collin allowed Andersen to return to the city and prepare himself for admission to the University of Copenhagen. When he passed the matriculation examination in 1829, however, Andersen took the bold step of embarking on a career as a free-lance writer. That same year he had a modest success with a fantasy sketchbook, A Walking Tour from the Holmen Canal to the Eastern Point of Amager, influenced by German Romantic writer E. T. A. Hoffmann, and a sentimental comedy, Love at St. Nicholas Tower, which was performed at the Royal Theater in Copenhagen. These works enabled Andersen to convince Collin that he was “destined” to become a writer, and it was Collin, who assisted him time and again to obtain royal stipends and to make connections that were to be beneficial for Andersen throughout his life. At that time in Denmark and in Europe as a whole, it was very difficult to earn a living as a free-lance writer unless one was born into money, was supported by an aristocratic patron, or received a royal grant.

Although Collin’s help was significant, it was Andersen’s perseverance, audacity, and cunning that enabled him to climb to fame starting in the early 1830s. It is difficult to say whether Andersen consciously conceived plans for his success or whether he intuitively knew what he had to do to survive in Danish and European high society. In his scrupulously researched biography, Hans Christian Andersen: A New Life (Woodstock, NY: Overlook Press, 2005), Jens Andersen notes that the young writer early on concocted a story about himself that gained him admission into the upper classes. It was truly a kind of fairy tale, in which Andersen, the poor ugly duckling, triumphs against the odds and becomes a gifted writer because God has ordained it so. Sometimes he blended it with the motif of Aladdin and the magic lamp, which he introduced in his first fairy tale, “The Tinderbox” (1835). Andersen had to prove that he was a soldier of fortitude who had the makings of a king, or that he was an oppressed and awkward fowl who would develop into an elegant swan. This was the story that he repeated to himself, and it formed the basis of his three autobiographies. At the same time, Andersen learned how to market himself as the Lord’s chosen writer whenever he traveled abroad—he made more than thirty trips throughout Europe and the Middle East during his lifetime. Beginning with his first major trip to Germany in 1831, he would send his books to famous authors and wealthy people in advance of his arrival, implying that he was a kind of poetic genius who was stunning the world and was thus worth meeting and befriending. Indeed, Andersen did have a peculiar charm that made him an odd and delightful performer for court societies and upper-middle-class salons, which were always on the lookout for “sensational” entertainment.

Andersen knew exactly what he had to do and wanted to do to maintain his early success: forge a name for himself, influence and cater to the public, and become a respectable member of the upper classes through marriage. From 1831 to 1840, he worked hard in both the artistic and social domains, succeeding in art and failing only in his plan to wed a proper wife. After his trip to Germany, where he met two of the great romantic writers, Ludwig Tieck and Adelbert Chamisso, Andersen published Shadow Pictures (1831), which describes his journey, and the long dramatic poem Agnete and the Merman (1833), which would serve as the basis for his fairy tale “The Little Mermaid” (1837). At the same time, he wrote a short autobiography that circulated only among his closest friends and was not published until 1926. He did publish an autobiographical novel, The Improvisatore, in 1835; it was so successful that it was immediately translated into German. The year 1835 also marked the publication of his first two pamphlets of fairy tales, which included “The Tinderbox,” “Little Claus and Big Claus,” “The Princess on the Pea,” “Little Ida’s Flowers,” “Thumbelina,” and “The Naughty Boy.” In 1836 he produced his second autobiographical novel, O. T.: Life in Denmark and in 1837 his third, Only a Fiddler, in 1837 he added “The Little Mermaid” and “The Emperor’s New Clothes” to his collection of fairy tales. These works led to Andersen’s receiving an annual grant from the King of Denmark in 1838; this grant, the amount of which was raised from time to time, enabled Andersen to live as a free-lance writer for the rest of his life. Finally, two of his plays, The Mulatto: A Comedy in Green and The Moorish Maiden, were performed at the Royal Theater in Copenhagen in 1840.

While the 1830s were highly productive and successful years for Andersen’s artistic career, there were some personal set backs. He proposed to Riborg Voigt, the sister of a schoolmate, in 1830, and courted Louise Collin, daughter of his patron, in 1832. Both young women rejected his advances, as did Jenny Lind, the famous Swedish singer, in 1843. Andersen was never able to achieve the happy married life he ostensibly sought because he was never fully acceptable in upper-class society and because he felt strong attractions toward men. For most of his life, he was in love with Edvard Collin, the son of his patron Jonas Collin, and his diaries and papers reveal that he often used women to draw closer to men or that he favored the company of young men. Some critics have argued that Andersen was a homosexual who had an occasional relationship and veiled his sexual preferences his entire life. Others maintain that Andersen may have been gay or bisexual but never had any sexual affairs because he was painfully afraid of sex, often thought he would contract a venereal disease, and repressed his urges. Whatever the case may be, his diaries and letters reveal just how confused and frustrated, if not tortured, Andersen was because he could not fulfill his sexual desires. Throughout his life he suffered from migraine headaches, paranoia, hypochondria, and other neuroses that might be attributed to the repression of his sex drive. Ironically, all this suffering also played a significant role in his producing some of the greatest fairy tales and stories in Western literature.

By 1840 Andersen had become famous throughout Europe, his fame resting more on his fairy tales and stories than on any of the other works he produced. Though the title of his first collection was Eventyr, fortalte for Bøm (Fairy Tales Told for Children), Andersen had not had much contact with children and did not tell tales to children at that point. He basically intended to capture the tone and style of a storyteller as if he were telling tales to children. Indeed, he thrived on the short narrative form. Although his novels and plays were sometimes well received, his writing was clearly not suited for these forms; the novels, plays, and even his poetry are flaccid, conventional, sentimental, and imitative—barely readable today, if they are read at all. On the other hand, he had an extraordinary gift for writing short narratives. During the 1840s he produced some of his best tales, including “The Ugly Duckling” (1844), “The Nightingale” (1844), “The Snow Queen” (1845), and “The Shadow” (1847). By this time Andersen no longer made the pretense that his tales were addressed to children. He eliminated the phrase “for children” in the title of his collections, and many of the tales became more complex. For instance, “The Shadow” was purposely written to address the hurt and humiliation that Andersen felt because his beloved Edvard Collin refused throughout his life to address him as “you” with the familiar du in Danish; instead, Collin kept Andersen at a distance by using the formal de. “The Shadow,” in which Andersen reveals the feelings of obliteration caused by this relationship, is also a brilliant reflection of the master/slave relationship and the condition of paranoia.

It was clearly due to the appreciation of adults that Andersen became immensely successful by the 1840s. Not only were his tales well received; he also published an official autobiography, The True Story of My Life, in 1846, the same year his stories were first translated into English. The next year he planned and organized his first trip to England, where he was treated as a celebrity. He published a patriotic novel, The Two Baronesses, in 1848, and though he felt drawn to the Germans, he defended Denmark in its conflict with Germany and Prussia from 1848 to 1851 over control of the Schleswig-Holstein region. In fact, Andersen’s loyalties were split because he felt more comfortable in foreign countries, especially when he was hosted by rich aristocratic families and sorely mistreated and unrecognized in Denmark. In 1846 he wrote the following letter from Berlin to his patron Jonas Collin:

Andersen could never reconcile himself to the fact that he was not praised unconditionally by the Danish critics and public. He had an enormous ego and insatiable need for compliments and special treatment. From 1850 until his death in 1875, the more he wrote the more he tended to repeat the plots and styles of his earlier tales, and though some like “Clod Hans” (1855), “What Father Does Is Always Right” (1861), and “The Gardener and the Gentry” (1872) were masterful works of art, most waxed pale in comparison to those that had preceded them. His last two novels, To Be or Not to Be (1857) and Lucky Peter (1870), were poorly conceived and boring to read. His plays were performed but were not very successful. If anything, it was not Andersen’s unusual talents as a storyteller that grew in the latter part of his life, but rather his vanity, and he was often a burden on others. For instance, when he returned to England in 1857 and spent five weeks with Charles Dickens and his family, they could not wait to see him leave because he was too nitpicky and overbearing. Andersen continued to make annual excursions to other countries and cities, and wherever he went he insisted on being coddled and pampered, and he sought close male friendships that were often amorous but never fulfilled in the way he desired. The older he became, the more lonely he felt, and the more he needed some kind of warm family life to replace the Collins, who continued to assist him and manage his affairs but kept their distance. In 1865 Andersen began close friendships with two wealthy Jewish families, the Melchiors and the Henriques, who became his dedicated supporters; though he maintained a residence in Copenhagen, when he visited the World Exposition in Paris in 1867 and such countries as Spain, Germany, and Switzerland, Andersen often stayed at their estates. By 1873 it was clear that he was suffering from cancer of the liver, and though he courageously fought the disease and even made a few trips and attended social functions during the next two years, he finally succumbed to the cancer on August 4, 1875.

At his best, Andersen was an unusually creative and sensitive writer whose imagination enabled him to transform ordinary occurrences and appearances into extraordinary stories that open new perspectives on life. He was not a profound philosophical thinker, but he had a knack of responding spontaneously and naively to the world around him, and he possessed a talent for conveying his wonder about the miracles of life through short narrative prose that could be awe-inspiring. Moreover, because he always felt oppressed, dominated, and misunderstood, he sought to assess and grasp the causes of suffering, and offered hope to his readers—a hope that he himself needed to pursue his dreams.

It thus makes sense to try to “categorize” Andersen’s tales in a non-traditional-that is, non-chronological-manner in order to try to appreciate some of the common themes that he tried to weave into his narratives time and again from 1835 to 1875. Though it is difficult to typify all his tales, a consideration of their common themes will allow for a broader and more critical appreciation of his works and might make some of his intentions clearer. I have divided the tales into the following categories: the artist and society; folk tales (the adaptation of folklore); original fairy tales; evangelical and religious tales; the anthropomorphizing of animals and nature; the humanization of toys and objects; and legends. There are, of course, overlapping themes and motifs, and a tale that appears in one category might have been included in another. Yet from the vantage point of these categories, Andersen’s tales may assume more relevance in a socio-cultural context. (See “Commentaries on the Tales” for more on each tale in this collection.)

In “The Nightingale” and “The Gardener and the Gentry,” Andersen depicts the quandary of the artist who must suffer the indignities of serving upper-class patrons who do not appreciate his great accomplishments; in each case, the artist is a commoner or is common-looking but capable of producing uncommon art. For Andersen, uncommon art was “authentic” and “true” and stemmed from nature—that is, the natural talents of the artist. It is also essential and therapeutic, for humankind cannot do without it. In “The Nightingale,” the artist/bird heals the emperor, who realizes that mechanical art is artificial. In “The Gardener and the Gentry,” a more cynical Andersen depicts an arrogant, rich man and his wife who are unable to appreciate the originality of their innovative artist/gardener. Despite their ignorance and closed minds, true art succeeds, an indication of Andersen’s strong belief that the artist who is naturally endowed with talent will somehow shine forth.

One can always distinguish the true art from the false, and all the other tales in this category reflect Andersen’s constant re-examination of the nature of storytelling and the salvation it offered all people. In one of his last tales, “The Cripple” (1872), it is the fairy tale that enables a sick boy to regain his health; the story is a personal wish-fulfillment that transcends the conditions in Andersen’s life to become a universal narrative about art’s wondrous powers.

Andersen colored his tales based on folklore with his personal experience while using the folk perspective to expose the contradictions of the aristocratic class. In “The Swineherd” (1842) he remained close to the folk perspective, which he also developed in some of his original fairy tales, such as “The Emperor’s New Clothes.”

In Andersen’s early adaptations of folklore we see him in an “apprentice” phase as a writer of short prose. Taking the structure and contents of these tales as a basis, he developed his own style and tone, which was characterized by the simple folk mode of storytelling. Andersen’s style overall is really not so much “childlike” as it is “folksy,” and it was this blend of intimate, down-to-earth storytelling with folk motifs and literary themes that gave rise to some of his most significant fairy tales.

What often makes Andersen’s original tales original is their irony—a key element in “The Shadow” but one that is even more pronounced in “The Emperor’s New Clothes” (1837) and “The Naughty Boy” (1835). Andersen used the metaphorical mode of the fairy tale to expose social hypocrisy, and in the best of his original fairy tales, he left his readers not with happy endings, but with startling ones aimed at making them reflect upon ethical and moral behavior.

Andersen tended to chastise girls or use them as examples in Christian allegorical fairy tales that celebrate the intelligent design of God. Whether the girl is reprimanded, as in “The Girl Who Stepped on Bread” (1859), or elevated to the level of a saint, as in “The Little Match Girl” (1845), Andersen insisted that she become self-sacrificial and pious. It was not much different for the male characters in Andersen’s tales, but interestingly, he did not treat males as harshly as he did females. Overall, almost all of Andersen’s religious tales and many others indicate that the only way to fulfill one’s destiny is to place one’s trust in the Lord.

Andersen’s anthropomorphizing tales are not always religious. In many, he pokes fun at human foibles—for example, pomposity is his target in “The Spruce Tree” (1845) and “The Dung Beetle” (1861). His short tales, pungent and often bitterly ironic, stand in the tradition of Aesop’s fables and reflect Andersen’s notions of “survival of the fittest.” Though in fact he rejected Darwin’s ideas, many of Andersen’s tales that deal with anthropomorphized animals and plants are concerned with intense social and natural conflict. He understood the fierce battles waged in the European societies of his day, such as the revolutions of 1848 and the uprisings of peasants and workers, but instead of recounting these conflicts in realistic stories, Andersen anthropomorphized animals and nature to comment critically on more than one of the delicate issues and taboo subjects of his time.

More typical of Andersen is “Everything in Its Proper Place,” in which he invents his own local legend about a family’s history and its house to comment on class conflict. Houses and mansions abound in Andersen’s stories, and though he knew some of their legendary histories, he was at his best when he invented legends; his inventions were always bound up with his real experiences and his realistic appraisal of Danish society.

Little is known in the English-speaking world about the tireless creative experiments of the tormented writer called Hans Christian Andersen. He tried to make a fairy tale out of his life to save himself from his sufferings. Whether he succeeded in saving himself is open to question, but he did leave us fantastic tales that still stun us and compel us to reflect on the human will to survive.