Hans Christian Andersen (1805–75) was a Danish author best remembered for his fairy tales. Considered to be one of the world’s greatest storytellers, he also experimented with numerous other literary genres—poetry, drama, the novel, travelogue, vaudeville, and autobiography.
Many of his 156 fairy tales and stories, including “The Snow Queen,” “The Ugly Duckling,” and “The Little Match Girl,” have become international children’s classics. Some of Anderson’s stories have even spawned such metaphorical idioms as “the ugly duckling” and “the emperor’s new clothes.”
Andersen based some of his stories on fable, legends, and old wives’ tales that are rooted in Danish folklore. However, much of his work is self-invented. His stories were shaped by his own emotional alienation—attributable to solitude and social awkwardness.
One dominant premise in Andersen’s work is the destiny of the outcast. Literary scholars contend that many of his tales are disguised autobiographies: the clumsy duckling, the edgy fir tree, the underprivileged match girl, the mermaid unable to articulate her love.
Andersen also wrote an autobiography Mil Livs Eventyr (1855; The True Story of My Life, Mary Howitt, 1847.) The Danish writer Jens Andersen write the biography Hans Christian Andersen (2005.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Hans Christian Andersen
It is God who lets the wild apples grow, to satisfy the hungry. He showed her a wild apple-tree, with the boughs bending under the weight of the fruit. Here she took her midday meal, placing props under the boughs, and then went into the darkest part of the forest. There it was so still that she could hear her own footsteps, as well as the rustling of every dry leaf which bent under her feet. Not one bird was to be seen, not one ray of sunlight could find its way through the great dark boughs of the trees; the lofty trunks stood so close together that when she looked before her it appeared as though she were surrounded by sets of palings one behind the other. O, here was solitude such as she had never before known!
—Hans Christian Andersen
Topics: Solitude
A human life is a story told by God.
—Hans Christian Andersen
Topics: Sympathy
Many, many steeples would have to be stacked one on top of another to reach from the bottom to the surface of the sea.
—Hans Christian Andersen
Then he felt quite ashamed, and hid his head under his wing; for he did not know what to do, he was so happy, and yet not at all proud. He had been persecuted and despised for his ugliness, and now he heard them say he was the most beautiful of all the birds. Even the elder-tree bent down its bows into the water before him, and the sun shone warm and bright. Then he rustled his feathers, curved his slender neck, and cried joyfully, from the depths of his heart, “I never dreamed of such happiness as this, while I was an ugly duckling.”
—Hans Christian Andersen
Topics: Beauty
Nothing is too high for a man to reach, but he must climb with care and confidence.
—Hans Christian Andersen
Topics: Goals
Life itself is the most wonderful fairytale of all.
—Hans Christian Andersen
Eighty per cent of our criminals come from unsympathetic homes.
—Hans Christian Andersen
Topics: Home
Time is so fleeting that if we do not remember God in our youth, age may find us incapable of thinking about him.
—Hans Christian Andersen
Topics: Time
Just living is not enough. One must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.
—Hans Christian Andersen
Topics: Living, Life
I cannot bear it! said the pewter soldier. I have shed pewter tears! It is too melancholy! Rather let me go to the wars and lose arms and legs! It would at least be a change. I cannot bear it longer! Now, I know what it is to have a visit from one’s old thoughts, with what they may bring with them! I have had a visit from mine, and you may be sure it is no pleasant thing in the end; I was at last about to jump down from the drawers.
—Hans Christian Andersen
Topics: Crying
Being born in a duck yard does not matter, if only you are hatched from a swan’s egg.
—Hans Christian Andersen
Topics: Perception, Being True to Yourself
It is the power of thought that gives man power over nature.
—Hans Christian Andersen
Topics: Thought, Thinking, Thoughts
Every man’s life is a fairy tale, written by God’s fingers.
—Hans Christian Andersen
Topics: Life and Living, Life
To be of use in the world is the only way to happiness.
—Hans Christian Andersen
Topics: Happiness
Most of the people who will walk behind me will be children so make the beat keep time with short steps.
—Hans Christian Andersen
Topics: Children
Where words fail, music speaks.
—Hans Christian Andersen
Topics: Music, Words
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
Niels Bohr Danish Physicist
Robert W. Service Scottish Poet
George William Russell Irish Author
Nathaniel Parker Willis American Poet, Playwright
Tobias Smollett Scottish Poet
Maya Angelou American Poet
Ernest Hemingway American Author
James Agee American Man of Letters
Eliza Cook English Author
Oliver Goldsmith Anglo-Irish Novelist, Poet