Know Your Classics – Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen.

Growing up you might have came across a few fairy tales such as “The Emperor’s New Clothes (1837)”, “The Ugly Duckling(1843)” and “Thumbelina(1835)”. You could have read it from a children’s book, watched a play or even heard it as part of your bed time story. Regardless of your sources, these classical fairy tales were written by Hans Christian Andersen.

Who was Hans Christian Andersen?

There are many literatures out there who had done studies on Hans Christian Andersen. The pages that I have read about Andersen are found in Hans Christian Andersen’s Complete Fairy Tales published by Canterbury Classics (2014) as well as referenced from Ken Mondschein(PhD). Below are some bits and pieces gathered.

To begin, Hans Christian Andersen was born on April 1805 in the city of Odense, Denmark. The Danish author was described as a skinny tall man with a noticeable nose. A romantic at heart but remained celibate his entire life. Before Andersen died as a virgin (so to speak), he did fell in love with a few ladies. They were Riborg Vogt, Sophie Collin as well as the famous Swedish opera singer Jenny Lind. Jenny Lind rejected his marriage proposal because her reason was that she loved him like a brother (Perhaps in modern times, this would be deemed as ‘Friend zoned’ him?).

Andersen had a beautiful singing voice and performed at theatres as a teen before he became a famous author. He met Jonas Collin, a Danish civil servant who saw potential in Hans Christian Andersen and helped pave way for the author’s education. Did you know that Andersen at some point of his studying years went into depression as he recalled principal Simon Meisling bullying him? Fortunately Collin took Andersen out from Meisling’s supervision and at the age of 23, he managed to enter Copenhagen University and graduated in 1833 (1833-1805 =28 years old).

His humble beginnings in writing and short stories being published started in the late 1820s. If you happen to read some of the classic fairy tale books, Andersen’s children fairy tales only started getting publications during 1835 and continued until 1872 in a few series. During his earlier career years, he travelled around Scandinavian countries such as Norway, Denmark, Sweden which strongly inspired his writing ideas. Interestingly, he visited England late 1840s and met the famous Charles Dickens at a party. It was described in Andersen’s diary that he glorified Dickens. On the contrary, Dickens kept his distance with Andersen by not corresponding with the Danish author. He continued to travel around and wrote his way to success through out the 1840s and 1850s.

Andersen’s health started declining in his late 60s and died in 1875. Prior to his death, he gave directions that his funeral tempo possession should keep pace with attending little children’s small steps (A mindful and considerate author indeed).

Fairy tales turned modern day cartoons or movies.

Some of Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales has been animated into cartoons or movies as we speak. Disney was able to produce box office shows based on stories such as The Ugly Duckling(1834), The Little Match Girl(1845), The Snow Queen(1844), The Little Mermaid(1837) and The Emperor’s New Clothes(1837). You can check out more of Disney’s animated films based on fairy tales on Wikipedia.

I have watched these cartoons produced by Disney growing up and enjoyed the classic versions (I’ll leave the reboot versions at your discretion). However, if one have read Hans Christian Andersen’s written fairy tales, one would know that the ending is not entirely happily ever after.

So should fairy tales show bright cheery endings or touching sad endings? I’d say read up Andersen’s written stories, let your imagination setup its own scene first and then watch all the box office again. Maybe you will be able to see Elsa or Ariel from a different prospective and interpret these classical fairy tales clearer.

In the end.

Before I end this post, I would gladly leave you a few titles of Hans Christian Andersen’s short reads. If you have the chance to get a hard cover book with complete tales, go for it because you will read it over and over again.

The Tallow Candle(1820s), The Tinder Box(1835), The Princess on the Pea(1835), What The Moon Saw(1839-1840), She Was Good For Nothing(1852), The Money Pig(1854), The Angel(1843), etc.

The book version that I’ve read, Canterbury Classics (2014) published hard cover.

Mistytoad

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