Hans Christian Andersen

Hans Christian Andersen was a Danish author. Although a prolific writer of plays, travelogues, novels, and poems, he is best remembered for his literary fairy tales. Andersen's fairy tales, consisting of 156 stories across nine volumes, have been translated into more than 125 languages. They have become culturally embedded in the West's collective consciousness, readily accessible to children but presenting lessons of virtue and resilience in the face of adversity for mature readers as well.

His most famous fairy tales include "The Emperor's New Clothes," "The Little Mermaid," "The Nightingale," "The Steadfast Tin Soldier," "The Red Shoes," "The Princess and the Pea," "The Snow Queen," "The Ugly Duckling," "The Little Match Girl," and "Thumbelina." His stories have inspired ballets, plays, and animated and live-action films. Hans Christian Andersen was born in Odense, Denmark, on 2 April 1805. He had a stepsister named Karen.

His father, also named Hans, considered himself related to nobility (his paternal grandmother had told his father that their family had belonged to a higher social class, but investigations have disproved these stories). Although it has been challenged, persistent speculation suggests that Andersen was an illegitimate son of King Christian VIII. Danish historian Jens Jørgensen supported this idea in his book H.C. Andersen, en sand myth.

Hans Christian Andersen was baptized on 15 April 1805 in Saint Hans Church (St John's Church) in Odense, Denmark. His certificate of birth was not drafted until November 1823, according to which six Godparents were present at the baptizing ceremony: Madam Sille Marie Breineberg, Maiden Friederiche Pommer, shoemaker Peder Waltersdorff, journeyman carpenter Anders Jørgensen, hospital porter Nicolas Gomard, and royal hatter Jens Henrichsen Dorch.

Andersen's father, who had received an elementary school education, introduced his son to literature, reading him the Arabian Nights. Andersen's mother, Anne Marie Andersdatter, was an illiterate washerwoman. Following her husband's death in 1816, she remarried in 1818. Andersen was sent to a local school for poor children where he received a basic education and had to support himself, working as an apprentice to a weaver and, later, to a tailor. 

At fourteen, he moved to Copenhagen to seek employment as an actor. Having an excellent soprano voice, he was accepted into the Royal Danish Theatre, but his voice soon changed. A colleague at the theatre told him that he considered Andersen, a poet. Taking the suggestion seriously, Andersen began to focus on writing.

Jonas Collin, director of the Royal Danish Theatre, held great affection for Andersen and sent him to a grammar school in Slagelse, persuading King Frederick VI to pay part of the youth's education. Andersen had by then published his first story, "The Ghost at Palnatoke's Grave" (1822). Though not a stellar pupil, he attended Elsinore school until 1827.

He later said that his years at this school were the darkest and most bitter years of his life. At one particular school, he lived at his schoolmaster's home. There he was abused and told that it was done to " improve his character." He later said that the faculty had discouraged him from writing, resulting in depression.

A very early fairy tale by Andersen, "The Tallow Candle" (Danish: Tællelyset), was discovered in a Danish archive in October 2012. The story, written in the 1820s, is about a candle that did not feel appreciated. It was written while Andersen was still in school and dedicated to one of his benefactors. The story remained in that family's possession until it turned up among other family papers in a local archive.

In 1829, Andersen enjoyed considerable success with the short story "A Journey on Foot from Holmen's Canal to the East Point of Amager" (locations in central Copenhagen and a few miles to the East of Copenhagen). Its protagonist meets characters ranging from Saint Peter to a talking cat. Andersen followed this success with a theatrical piece, Love on St.Nicholas Church Tower, and a short volume of poems. 

He made little progress in writing and publishing immediately following the issue of these poems, but he did receive a small travel grant from the king in 1833. This enabled him to set out on the first of many European journeys. At Jura, near Le Locle, Switzerland, Andersen wrote the story "Agnete and the Merman." The same year he spent an evening in the Italian seaside village of Sestri Levante, the place which inspired the title of "The Bay of Fables." 

He arrived in Rome in October 1834. Andersen's travels in Italy were reflected in his first novel, a fictionalized autobiography titled The Improvisatore (Improvisatoren), published in 1835 to instant acclaim.