From: I Could a Tale Unfold: Violence, Horror and Sensationalism in Stories for Children (London: Tavistock, 1961), 89–90
BETTY ADCOCK
Most of Andersen’s stories have sad endings, and that may have been one of their attractions for me. At seven, I had already seen my mother vanish, her sudden death the new defining point in my life. I had lost a place as well, having been moved to another house. I had seen my father fold into himself, quit his job, become a wanderer in the forests, a hunter spellbound by grief, his tamped spirit somehow comforted by the rough riverbanks, the difficult chases, the dog’s companionship. Death and transformation were two things I understood. I think I knew instinctively that the tales in my favorite book held an unusually powerful truth in the absence of the usual “happily ever after.”
From: “The Most Enchanting Book I Read,” in Remarkable Reads, ed. J. Peder Zane (New York: W. W. Norton, 2004), 35
A. S. BYATT
Hans Andersen’s Snow Queen was not only beautiful but intelligent and powerful; she gave Kay a vision of beauty and order, from which Gerda, with Andersen’s blessing, redeemed him for the ordinary and everyday. Andersen makes a standard opposition between cold reason and warm-heartedness and comes down whole-heartedly on the side of warm-heartedness, adding to it his own insistent Christian message. The eternity of the beautiful snow-crystals is a false infinity; only Gerda’s invocation of the Infant Jesus allows a glimpse of true eternity. Andersen even cheats by making the beautiful, mathematically perfect snowflakes into nasty gnomes and demons, snakes, hedgehogs, bears. . . . Science and reason are bad, kindness is good. It is a frequent, but not a necessary opposition. And I found in it, and in the dangerous isolation of the girl on her slippery shiny height a figure of what was beginning to bother me, the conflict between a female destiny, the kiss, the marriage, the child-bearing, the death, and the frightening loneliness of cleverness, the cold distance of seeing the world through art, of putting a frame around things.
From: “Ice, Snow, Glass,” in On Histories and Stories: Selected Essays (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 2000), 155–56
DEBORAH EISENBERG
No one, I think, has outshone Andersen in depicting perdition. Who could ever forget what happened to that uppity girl who trod on the loaf? Or to vain little Karen, with her pretty red shoes? Who could forget the horrible tortures to which their defects consign these children? But Kay virtually swoons into his icy hell, and once he is there, the Snow Queen continues to blaze in all her erotic danger.
“The Snow Queen” shimmers with ambivalence and thwarted or suppressed cravings. The author’s stance is impeccable: he recommends to us the rewards of equipoise or eternity, and purity of soul. And yet what the story paints with indelible brilliance is the glamour of immobilization and aesthetic purity.
From: “In a Trance of Self,” in Bernheimer, Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, 90–114
MICHAEL BOOTH
There is a ghoulish anarchy to many of his stories—people are garroted, have their brains scattered about and endure other wonderfully arbitrary and brutal deaths, sometimes to the extent that you can’t help feeling a good many of these tales are wholly inappropriate for children. In “The Stork,” for instance, the eponymous birds plot a grisly revenge on a boy who taunted them: “In the pond there is a little dead baby, it has dreamed itself to death, we will take it to him, and then he will cry because we have brought him a little dead brother.” While the moment in “Little Claus and Big Claus,” where little Claus dresses up his dead grandmother, verges on the Hitchcockian.
Yet amid all the horror and fantasy, the telling details make it all seem somehow strangely real—like the walls rubbed with witches’ fat to make them shine in “The Elf Hill”; or the way the moon sees a Hindu maiden, “the blood coursing in her delicate fingers as she bent them round the flame to form a shelter for it” in “What the Moon Saw.”
From: Just as Well I’m Leaving: To the Orient with Hans Christian Andersen (London: Jonathan Cape, 2005), 17
CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTES
Hans Christian Andersen wrote dozens of stories about the orphan archetype. He was a premier advocate of the lost and neglected child and he strongly supported searching for and finding one’s own kind. . . . For the last two centuries “The Ugly Duckling” has been one of the few stories to encourage successive generations of “outsiders” to hold on till they find their own. . . . It is a psychological and spiritual root story. A root story is one that contains a truth so fundamental to human development that without integration of this fact further progression is shaky.
From: Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run with the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype (New York: Ballantine, 1992), 167
CLAIRE BLOOM
What I remember most from those early days is the sound of Mother’s voice as she read to me from Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid” and “The Snow Queen.” These emotionally wrenching tales, to which I raptly listened and to which I was powerfully drawn, instilled in me a longing to be overwhelmed by romantic passion and led me in my teens and early twenties to attempt to emulate these self-sacrificing heroines, at least on the stage.
The sound of Mother’s voice and the radiance of those long summer afternoons are fused in my childhood memory, creating a pleasurable sensation of warmth and comfort and safety.
From: Claire Bloom, Leaving a Doll’s House (Boston: Little, Brown, 1996), 9
MAURICE SENDAK
Andersen was that rare anomaly, wise man and innocent child; he shared with children an uncanny poetic power, the power of breathing life into mere dust. It is the intense life—honest, ingratiating—in Andersen’s tales that makes them unique. Discarded bits of bottle, sticks, doorknobs, and fading flowers give voice to their love, anguish, vanity, and bitterness. They reflect on their past joys, lost opportunities, and soberly ponder the mystery of death. We listen patiently, sympathetically, to their tiny querulous voices and the miracle is that we believe, as Andersen did, as all children do, that the bit of bottle, the stick, the doorknob are, for one moment, passionately living. The best tales of Andersen have this mixture of worldliness and naïveté that makes them so moving, so honest, so beautiful.
From: “Hans Christian Andersen,” in Caldecott & Co. (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1992), 35
WALTER BENJAMIN
In one of Andersen’s tales, there is a picture-book that cost “half a kingdom.” In it everything was alive. “The birds sang, and people came out of the book and spoke.” But when the princess turned the page, “they leaped back in again so that there should be no disorder.” Pretty and unfocused, like so much that Andersen wrote, this little invention misses the crucial point by a hair’s breadth. The objects do not come to meet the picturing child from the pages of the book; instead, the gazing child enters into those pages, becoming suffused, like a cloud, with the riotous colors of the world of pictures.
From: “A Glimpse into the World of Children’s Books,” in Walter Benjamin, Selected Writings, ed. Marcus Bullock and Michael W. Jennings (Cambridge MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1996), I, 435
Works by Hans Christian Andersen
1. Editions of the Fairy Tales in English
Hans Christian Andersen: The Complete Stories. Trans. Jean Hersholt. London: The British Library, 2005.
Fairy Tales: Hans Christian Andersen. Trans. Tiina Nunnally. Ed. Jackie Wullschlager. London: Penguin, 2004.
The Stories of Hans Christian Andersen. Trans. Diana Crone Frank and Jeffrey Frank. Illus. Vilhelm Pedersen and Lorenz Frølich. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2003.
Hans Andersen’s Fairy Tales: A Selection. Trans. L. W. Kingsland. Illus. Vilhelm Pedersen and Lorenz Frølich. New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1984.
Hans Christian Andersen: The Complete Fairy Tales and Stories. Trans. Erik Christian Haugaard. New York: Anchor, 1983.
Hans Christian Andersen: Eighty Fairy Tales. Trans. R. P. Keigwin. Illus. Vilhelm Pedersen and
Lorenz Frølich. New York: Pantheon Books, 1982.
The Shadow and Other Tales by Hans Christian Andersen. Ed. Niels Ingwersen. Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1982.
Fairytales: H. C. Andersen. Illus. Kay Nielsen. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art and Viking Press, 1981.
Tales and Stories by Hans Christian Andersen. Trans. Patricia L. Conroy and Sven H. Rossel. Seattle: Univ. of Washington Press, 1980.
Ardizzone’s Hans Andersen: Fourteen Classic Tales. Trans. Stephen Corrin. Illus. Edward Ardizzone. New York: Atheneum, 1979.
Fairy Tales and Legends by Hans Andersen. Illus. Rex Whistler. London: Bodley Head, 1978.
New Tales, 1843: Hans Christian Andersen. Trans. Reginald Spink. Copenhagen: Høst, 1973.
Andersen’s Fairy Tales. Trans. Pat Shaw Iversen. Illus. Sheila Greenwald. New York: Signet, 1966.
Fairy Tales. Ed. Clifton Fadiman. Illus. Lawrence Beall Smith. New York: Macmillan, 1963.
Forty-two Stories: Hans Andersen. Trans. M. R. James. Illus. Robin Jacques. London: Faber and Faber, 1953.
The Complete Andersen. Trans. Jean Hersholt. Illus. Fritz Kredel. New York: Heritage Press, 1942.
2. Other Works in English
The Andersen-Scudder Letters: Hans Christian Andersen’s Correspondence with Horace Elisha Scudder. Trans. Waldemar Westergaard. Ed. Jean Hersholt and Helge Topsöe-Jensen. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1949.
The Diaries of Hans Christian Andersen. Trans. and ed. Patricia L. Conroy and Sven H. Rossel. Seattle: Univ. of Washington Press, 1990.
The Fairy Tale of My Life. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1871. Rpt. New York: Paddington Press, 1975.
Pictures of Travel in Sweden among the Hartz Mountains, and in Switzerland, with a Visit at Charles Dickens’ House. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1871.
A Poet’s Bazaar: A Journey to Greece, Turkey & up the Danube. Trans. Grace Thornton. New York: M. Kesend, 1988.
Travels: Hans Christian Andersen. Trans. Anastazia Little. Los Angeles: Green Integer, 1999.
The True Story of My Life: A Sketch. Trans. Mary Howitt. London: Longman, 1847.
A Visit to Germany, Italy, and Malta, 1840–1841. Trans. Grace Thornton. London: Peter Owen, 1985.
A Visit to Portugal, 1866. Trans. Grace Thornton. London: Peter Owen, 1972.
A Visit to Spain and North Africa, 1862: Hans Christian Andersen. Trans. Grace Thornton. London: Peter Owen, 1975.
3. Works in Danish
Almanakker 1833–1873. Ed. Helga Vang Lauridsen and Kirsten Weber. Copenhagen: Gad, 1996.
Breve fra H. C. Andersen. Ed C. St. A. Bille and Nikolaj Bøgh. 2 vols. Copenhagen: Aschehoug, 2000.
Breve til H. C. Andersen. Ed. C. St. A. Bille and Nikolaj Bøgh. Copenhagen: C. A. Reitzel, 1877.
Dagbøger, 1825–1875. Ed. Det Danske Sprog-og Litteraturselskab. Copenhagen: Gad, 1971–1977.
Eventyr. Ed. Erik Dal, Erling Nielsen, and Flemming Hovmann. 7 vols. Copenhagen: C. A. Reitzel, 1963–1990.
H. C. Andersen og Henriette Wulff. En Brevveksling. Ed. H. Topsøe-Jensen. 3 vols. Odense: Flensteds Forlag, 1959.
Mit livs eventyr: H. C. Andersen. Ed. H. Topsøe-Jensen and H. G. Olrik. Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1996.
Samlede eventyr og historier. Ed. Estrid Dal. Odense: C. A. Reitzel, 1998.
4. Early Illustrated Editions
H. C. Andersens Eventyr. Illus. Vilhelm Pedersen. Copenhagen: C. A. Reitzel, 1850.
Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen. Illus. Eleanor Vere Boyle. London: Sampson Low, Marston, Low, Searle, & Rivington, 1872.
Fairy Stories from Hans Christian Andersen. Illus. Margaret Tarrant. London: Ward, Lock & Co., 1910.
The Big Book of Fairy Tales. Illus. Charles Robinson. London: Blackie and Sons, 1911.
The Snow Queen and Other Stories from Andersen. Illus. Edmund Dulac. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1911.
Hans Andersen’s Fairy Tales. Illus. W. Heath Robinson. London: Constable & Co., 1913.
Hans Andersen’s Fairy Tales. Illus. Mabel Lucie Attwell. London: Raphael Tuck & Sons, 1914.
Fairy Tales. Illus. Jennie Harbour. London: George G. Harrap, 1915.
Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen. Illus. Harry Clarke. New York: Brentano’s, 1916.
Fairy Tales. Illus. Honor Appleton. London: T. Nelson and Sons, 1922.
Fairy Tales by Hans Andersen. Illus. Kay Nielsen. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1924.
The Red Shoes. New York: Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1928.
Fairy Tales by Hans Andersen. Illus. Arthur Rackham. London: George G. Harrap, 1932.
The Arthur Rackham pictures are reproduced with the kind permission of his family and the Bridgeman Art Library.
Secondary Literature
Alderson, Brian. “H. C. Andersen: Edging toward the Unmapped Hinterland.” Horn Book Magazine 81 (2005): 671–76.
_______. Hans Christian Andersen and His Eventyr in England. Wormley, England: International Board on Books for Young People, 1982.
Allen, Brook. “The Uses of Enchantment.” New York Times, May 20, 2001.
Alter, Nora M., and Lutz Koepnick. Sound Matters: Essays on the Acoustics of German Culture. New York: Berghahn, 2004.
Altmann, Anna E., and Gail de Vos. Tales, Then and Now: More Folktales as Literary Fictions for Young Adults. Englewood, CO: Greenwood, 2001.
Andersen, Hans Christian. “Hans Christian Andersen—the Journey of His Life.” In Bloom, Hans Christian Andersen, 75–91.
Andersen, Jens. Hans Christian Andersen: A New Life. Trans. Tiina Nunnally. New York: Overlook Duckworth, 2005.
Andersen, Kim. “ ‘Genius’ and the Problem of ‘Livs-Anskuelse’: Kierkegaard Reading Andersen.” In Sondrup, H. C. Andersen: Old Problems and New Readings, 145–60.
Anderseniana. First Series, 1–13 (1933–1946); Second Series, 1–6 (1947–1969); Third Series, 1–4 (1970–1986). Annually since 1987.
Anderson, Celia Catlett. “Andersen’s Heroes and Heroines: Relinquishing the Reward.” In Triumphs of the Spirit in Children’s Literature, ed. Francelia Butler and Richard Rotert, 122–26. North Haven, CT: The Shoe String Press, 1986.
Arden, Harvey. “The Magic World of Hans Christian Andersen.” National Geographic 156 (1979): 824–50.
Atkins, Adelheid M. “The Triumph of Criticism: Levels of Meaning in Hans Christian Andersen’s ‘The Steadfast Tin Soldier.’ ” Scholia Satyrica 1:1 (1975): 25–28.
Atwood, Margaret. Lady Oracle. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1976.
_______. “Of Souls as Birds.” In Bernheimer, Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, 21–36.
Auden, W. H. “Grimm and Andersen.” In W. H. Auden: Forewords and Afterwords, ed. Edward Mendelson, 198–208. New York: Random House/Vintage, 1989.
Barlby, Finn. “The Euphoria of the Text—on the Market, on Man, and on Melody, i.e.: Poetry.” In Mylius et al., Hans Christian Andersen: A Poet in Time, 515–25.
Beauvoir, Simone de. The Second Sex. New York: Random House/Vintage, 1989.
Bell, Elizabeth, Lynda Haas, and Laura Sells, eds. From Mouse to Mermaid: The Politics of Film, Gender, and Culture. Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 1995.
Bendix, Regina. “Seashell Bra and Happy End: Disney’s Transformations of ‘The Little Mermaid.’ ” Fabula 14 (1993): 280–90.
Bering, Henrik. “A Fairy Tale: The Life and Work of Hans Christian Andersen.” The Weekly Standard, February 2, 2004, 35–37.
Bernheimer, Kate, ed. Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall: Women Writers Explore Their Favorite Fairy Tales. New York: Random House/Anchor, 1998.
Bettelheim, Bruno. The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales. New York: Random House/Vintage, 1977.
Bloom, Claire. Leaving a Doll’s House. Boston: Little, Brown, 1996.
Bloom, Harold. “Great Dane.” Wall Street Journal, April 20, 2005.
_____, ed. Hans Christian Andersen. New York: Chelsea House Publications, 2004.
_______. “ ‘Trust the Tale, Not the Teller’: Hans Christian Andersen.” Orbis Litteraru
m 60 (2005): 397–413.
Bøggild, Jacob. “Framing the Frame of H. C. Andersen’s Auntie Toothache.” Fabula 46 (2005): 29–42.
_______. “Ruinous Reflections: On H. C. Andersen’s Ambiguous Position between Romanticism and Modernism.” In Sondrup, H. C. Andersen: Old Problems and New Readings, 75–96.
Böök, Fredrik. Hans Christian Andersen: A Biography. Trans. George C. Schoolfield. Norman: Univ. of Oklahoma Press, 1962.
Booth, Michael. Just as Well I’m Leaving: To the Orient with Hans Christian Andersen. London: Jonathan Cape, 2005.
Bottigheimer, Ruth B. Grimms’ Bad Girls & Bold Boys: The Moral & Social Vision of the Tales. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1987.
Bournonville, Charlotte Helene Frederikke. Erindringer fra hjemmet og fra scenen. Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1903.
Brandes, Georg. “Hans Christian Andersen.” In Eminent Authors of the Nineteenth Century. Trans. R. B. Anderson. New York: Crowell, 1886.
Brask, Peter. “Andersen’s Love.” In The Nordic Mind: Current Trends in Scandinavian Literary Criticism, ed. Frank Egholm et al., 17–35. Lanham, MD: Univ. Press of America, 1986.
Braude, L. Yu. “Hans Christian Andersen and Russia.” Scandinavica 14 (1975): 1–15.
Bredsdorff, Elias. “Beginnings in Traditional Folk Tales and in H. C. Andersen’s Eventyr.” Scandinavica 21 (1982): 5–15.
_______. “A Critical Guide to the Literature on Hans Christian Andersen.” Scandinavica 6 (1967): 108–25.
_______. Hans Andersen and Charles Dickens: A Friendship and Its Dissolution. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde and Bagger, 1956.
_______. Hans Christian Andersen: The Story of His Life and Work, 1805–75. New York: Scribner, 1975.
_______. “Intentional and Non-Intentional Topicalities in Andersen’s Tales.” In Mylius et al., Hans Christian Andersen: A Poet in Time, 11–37.
Bredsdorff, Thomas. Deconstructing Hans Christian Andersen: Some of His Fairy Tales in the Light of Literary Theory and Vice Versa. Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press, 1993.