Book Description
This digital document, covering the life and work of Hans Christian Andersen, is an entry from Contemporary Authors, a reference volume published by Thompson Gale. The length of the entry is 5883 words. The page length listed above is based on a typical 300-word page. Although the exact content of each entry from this volume can vary, typical entries include the following information:

• Place and date of birth and death (if deceased)
• Family members
• Education
• Professional associations and honors
• Employment
• Writings, including books and periodicals
• A description of the author's work
• References to further readings about the author

Customer Reviews (1)

an translation student interess by book
Research is about the chilhood of the author and relations with tale "The Duke Ugly". ... Read more

Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.Download Description
All was sunshine--all was spring! The vine hung in long trails from tree to tree; never since have I seen Italy so beautiful. I sailed on Lago Maggiore; ascended the cathedral of Milan; passed several days in Genoa, and made from thence a journey, rich in the beauties of nature, along the shore to Carrara. I had seen statues in Paris, but my eyes were closed to them; in Florence, before the Venus de Medici, it was for the first time as if scales fell from my eyes; a new world of art disclosed itself before me; that was the first fruit of my journey. Here it was that I first learned to understand the beauty of form--the spirit which reveals itself in form. The life of the people--nature-- all was new to me; and yet as strangely familiar as if I were come to a home where I had lived in my childhood. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

An awesome autobiography of a well loved author.
Art imitates life in this poignant and poetic rendering of the life of one of my favorite childhood authors.Just a great and wonderful read. ... Read more

Book Description
Translated by Erik Hougaard, this is the only version available in trade paperback that presents the fairy tales exactly as Andersen collected them in the original Danish edition in 1874.  His notes accompany the text. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

An absolute for the fairy tale completist
Now some of these tales are out there, but all offer some amusement. Some may not make any sense (i.e. the endings seem incomplete or "off") and they may not be on par with the Grimms tales, but it's nice to have all of these in one place and to be able to read tales that I have never heard of or come across over the years. If you are making a collection of myths and fairy tales, this collection is a must.

Excellent Collection of Favorites!
Every child should read Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales a first introduction to fantasy and modern tales of today. The book is great for adults also. Many stories I recall from my own childhood as I devoured the fairy tales that are enduring and lasting as classics forever.
Evelyn Horan - author
Jeannie, A Texas Frontier Girl, Books One - Three

The Ugly Duckling.The Little Mermaid. It's all here!
The Ugly Duckling.The Little Mermaid.The Tinderbox.The Emperor's New Clothes.The Princess and the Pea.It's all here!

C. S. Lewis, in his preface to "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," observed that as children we grow out of hearing fairy tales, but as an adult we can come back to them with fresh eyes and be enchanted in a different way.HCA stories have that amphibian quality of living above and below the supposed age limits.

I find it surprising that HCA writing in a minor language would be so popular, but he is a genius at writing fairy tales.The Grimm Boys just collected and edited the German fairy tales, but HCA was generating new and original fairy tales.I hope we don't sluff off this unique talent he had solely on the ground that he was writing to children.After all, how many naked Emperors have we seen?The comic Dilbert gets it's life blood from the fact that so many emperors can be smooth-talked by so many charlatans, and be sustained in their delusion by smarmy sycophants, and only brought to light by a child.

If children can understand this, why can't we adults?

On the printing-side of the book, I would like to see this in a hardbound, with durable paper, and not the thin and fragile newsprint.I am almost afraid to read this book since the opaper is so delicate!

The best there is
It is a pity that most people only know Hans Christian Andersen for a few of his "easiest" fairy tales. What springs to mind for almost everyone is stories like "The Emperor's New Clothes", "The Ugly Duckling" and perhaps "The Snowqueen". But Hans Christian Andersen has written a vast array of profoundly touching tales. In Odense, Denmark the Danish actor Troels Møller said (two years ago in a lecture on "H.C.A. & God"),

"We are all going to die. H.C.Andersen knew this, he worked with it and he used it to show us all the beauty of life - the beauty of all life."

His stories are not only for children they are for everyone. The likes of H.C.Andersen can be found nowhere. If you want to discover the full grandeur of his genius you MUST read more than just his popular works. I would even urge you to go to Odense to learn Danish - Much is lost in translation. But although the English translation doesn't reach the heights of the original Danish text I still give it one of my 5 star sets. And don't think that it's a case of petty nationalism - you will find no other Danish writer that I'll grant 5 great ones. It is entertainment, philosphy and religion.

gorgeous and well-crafted.
I received this book as a gift for my 20th birthday. I am very pleased with it. I recomend it, and especially for its beautifully crafted and translated material. Enjoy! There are so many so many tales... I love it! ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Well Crafted 600 Page Biography Covering His Life
This is a well written and generally what one would call an excellent 600 page biography of perhaps Denmark's most famous writer who lived from 1805 to 1875. The book has lots of photographs and many interesting pieces of information. It goes into his life at a fine level of detail, and attempts to combine his life story with his travels and his writings, explaining the private and public personalities. I found the book to be expensive at book stores, very expensive, almost too expensive to buy, but it is less expensive as an on line purchase. It is written in a folksy style, a bit different from many biographies, and each chapter has a short one page introduction in italics to set the mood for that chapter. It covers most of his life in great detail more or less in chronological order starting with the young teen age Andersen about 14 - from poor parents - and his break at the Royal Theatre around 1820. There are some excellent photographs of the aging Andersen.

The book tells a fairly detailed story of his breaks and opportunities that allowed him to finish school and obtain some university level education at the Copenhagen University. The book includes many references to his writings including his first writings when he was just seventeen. Like many other famous writers such as Dickens, he came from a home where the father had failed to provide economic support and he had to find work in his youth to survive - and then his father died when he was just 11 years old. Like Dickens and others, that changed his outlook on the world, and Andersen wrote hundreds of stories and short pieces often with the aim of entertaining children to make them happier. Despite the economic hardships, he did gain some inspiration from his father. His mother was interested in folklore and that was passed onto Andersen and reflected in some of his writings. There are chapters on his travels and some on interactions with other European writers of his era in Germany, France and England, and in fact he did meet Dickens. An interesting chapter describes how the famous Andersen lives in his own country of Denmark often living as a free guest as a celebrity getting free meals and lodging - in a way similar to some of our modern athletes or movie stars who go to restaurants or resorts and expect to get free meals in exchange for being photographed with the owner, or giving them signed baseballs, etc.

Overall this is a good read and one can get a fairly good understanding of Andersen, right up to his declining years. He made a name for himself as a writer of fairy tales for children - about farm animals and similar that carry on in conversations as if they are people. He expanded this to include his travels as an element of his writings, Italy being one of the most famous countries, but not the only country. This topic is well covered in the book including trips from Denmark to Portugal and elsewhere. The book is very well organized - much more so than many biographies - and it has a good introduction and index, but not much in the way of notes and follow up documentation. Also, as the authors point out, some of the references are written in Danish.

In any case, this is a substantial but easy to read biography, and one is impressed with the effort and the level of detail.

5 stars.

The Radically Bizarre Source for the Best Fairy Tales
HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN as written by Jens Andersen and beautifully translated form the Danish by Tiina Nunnally is that sort of biography we all long to read: the facts are all well-researched, the data is all in place, but the book reads like a novel.

Andersen's background is a fairytale unto itself and if ever there was a man whose beginnings belied his later success and durability as a writer, this man is it.Gratefully his oeuvre was appreciated in his lifetime and his wondrous tales have pleasured young and old alike for well over a hundred years.In his native Denmark he is considered a near 'saint' and his books have been translated into every language and are in the homes of children of all ages throughout the world.

This biography is, thankfully, not afraid to discuss those darker aspects of Andersen's life, but the way in which the author deals with this difficult information is the model of excellent reportage.The narrative style of Andersen on Andersen is by far the most positive aspect of this fine book.

Despite the weight (over 600 pages) of this tome, it is not daunting in the least.It reads quickly and entertainingly and is as fine as any biography of the world's favorite children's writer on the shelves.Highly recommended.Grady Harp, June 05 ... Read more

Book Description
The 2005 bicentenary of Hans Christian Andersen's birth is an opportunity to reevaluate the achievement of one of the great figures of the fairy tale and storytelling tradition, a beloved writer famous for The Snow Queen and The Little Mermaid , The Ugly Duckling and The Red Shoes and many other now classic tales. Jack Zipes broadens our understanding of Andersen by exploring the relation of the Danish writer's work to the development of literature and of the fairy tale in particular. Based on thirty-five years of researching and writing on Andersen, this new book is a welcome reconsideration of Andersen's place and of his reception in English-speaking countries and on film. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Based on over thirty years of researching and writing on Andersen
Fans of Andersen and any who would study his works would do well to include Jack Zipes' Hans Christian Andersen: The Misunderstood Storyteller on their lists of supplemental reading material: it's based on over thirty years of researching and writing on Andersen and explores his writings and their reception in the English-speaking world. Chapters discuss posthumous recognition, themes of childhood and children in his tales, and his ability to portray role reversals to make readers think. A scholarly, quite insightful study evolves.
... Read more

Book Description
A richly entertaining and informative collection of Hans Christian Andersen's stories, annotated by one of America's leading folklore scholars.

In her most ambitious annotated work to date, Maria Tatar celebrates the stories told by Denmark's "perfect wizard" and re-envisions Hans Christian Andersen as a writer who casts his spell on both children and adults. Andersen's most beloved tales, such as "The Emperor's New Clothes," "The Ugly Duckling," and "The Little Mermaid," are now joined by "The Shadow" and "Story of a Mother," mature stories that reveal his literary range and depth. Tatar captures the tales' unrivaled dramatic and visual power, showing exactly how Andersen became one of the world's ten most translated authors, along with Shakespeare, Dickens, and Marx. Lushly illustrated with more than one hundred fifty rare images, many in full color, by artists such as Arthur Rackham and Edmund Dulac, The Annotated Hans Christian Andersen will captivate readers with annotations that explore the rich social and cultural dimensions of the nineteenth century and construct a compelling portrait of a writer whose stories still fascinate us today. 146 illustrations including color. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Once upon a time.

This beautifully produced book contains 12 tales for children and 12 short stories for adults. There are almost 150 illustrations, many in color, from classic editions of Andersen's works. At first blush, the illustrations are the stars of the show. The colored images by Clarke, Dulas, Nielsen and Lorenz Frolich are splendid, as are themany ink drawings by W. Heath Robinson. The illustrations speak for themselves (and for this collection), although there are ten short biographies at the back of the book.

Maria Tatar edited THE ANNOTATED BROTHERS GRIMM and THE ANNOTATED CLASSIC FAIRY TALES. She and Julie K. Allen translated the stories, and Tatar provides many annotations. Example: "The Ugly Duckling" is "the most deeply personal of Anderson's stories, a narrative that traces his trajectory from humble origins to a literary aristocracy."

Tatar is eloquent on the importance of Andersen: "We need to engage our critical faculties in order to understand what makes these stories so emotionally addictive. Why have these Danish cultural stories taken hold in the United States to become instruments for navigating childhood? How do the stories enable the reader to get lost in the book, to drink the heady elixir of fantasy? And how do they arouse the intellectual curiosity of children?"

Tatar argues that Andersen's descriptive techniques create moments with "ignition power" that kindle the imagination. "Andersen's descriptions of beauty can weave spells. They create an adrenaline rush so that you begin to read with the spine rather than the brain. These luminous moments energize the mind, leading the reader to read on to explore perils and possibilities, but also to dig deeper."

According to Tatar, "The Emperor's New Clothes" exemplifies Andersen's narrative powers. "When I reread the tale I remembered how as a child I had started to imagine what the cloth looked like. Even though it is invisible, the swindlers and the adults describe the cloth as silky and beautiful, with gossamer designs ... and Andersen invests so much narrative energy in describing the invisible cloth that, ironically, it begins to dazzle in the mind's eye. That is what Andersen can do -- he lights up the imagination."

The short stories were new to me and have some interest seen through Tatar's eyes. But these new translations of the old favorites like "The Snow Queen" or "The Little Mermaid" are just as magical as ever.

Stories Which Appeal On Many Levels
Many people dismiss Hans Christian Anderson as a mere author of now outdated children's stories.Anderson, as this volume of his annotated stories makes clear, was a poet, folklorist, historian, and commentator as well as a children's writer.In fact, many of his stories were written for adults, not children, and even those aimed at the young have side passages and comments which were meant for grown up men and women to hear and ponder.This volume contains a good sampling of both of these types of Anderson's stories.Each story is copiously annotated, a real pleasure for the modern reader who may not recognize references to customs and people now far in the past.There are many beautiful illustrations from the multiple published versions of the stories.Most importantly, the stories have been newly translated from the original Danish, so that as much of the original emphasis and focus is present as possible.

This annotated volume not only allows the reader a fresh view of some famous stories, it also makes the enormously complex original author much more comprehensible and even more likeable.

Great quality at a low price.
I ordered this as a Christmas gift for a friend with young children.The quality of the book exceeded my expectations.The wonderful stories and illustrations are perfect for kids, whilst the scholarship and annotations are excellent for adults.

"Once upon a time..."


An excellent example of Norton's annotated series, this edition contains what we have come to expect from this publisher, Anderson's goblins and mermaids hopping through the pages, the margins offering historical context, the influence of culture and an interpretation of the selections that hint of the darker nature of fairy tales. Translated by Maria Tatar and Julie K Allen, these tales are lushly illustrated, ink sketches, black and white drawings and full-color renderings that pique the curiosity of young and old alike, "Tales for Children", "Tales for Adults", "Biographies", "Anderson's Readers" and "Bibliography". Children's selections include "The Emperor's New Clothes", "The Princess and the Pea", "The Little Mermaid" and "The Wild Swan", segueing into the more sophisticated stories for adults, "The Red Shoes", "The Girl Who Trod on the Loaf", "The Goblin and the Grocer" and "The Bell".

Putting the collection in context, the Introduction, "Denmark's Perfect Wizard", speaks to Anderson's genius, a Dane born over 200 years ago. Anderson tackles provocative subjects: compassion ("The Little Match Girl"); hypocrisy ("The Emperor's New Clothes"); and the necessity of hope ("The Ugly Duckling"). Sparking imagination through the texture and color of language, darker issues are dressed in sparkling prose and brilliant hue ("a purple flower with light streaming from its calyx"). It is such language that draws young and old into the world of the fairy tale, subtle lessons on the vagaries of human behavior and the undiluted power of storytelling as a means of universal communication.

Evocative illustrations and fascinating annotations offer a depth of perspective that is common to this series, an exploration of social consciousness and tales couched in the visual and the arcane, a juxtaposition of morality and fantasy that allows the reader to challenge preconceptions and enter the world of expanded imagination, because some stories never grow old. Luan Gaines/ 2007.

A lovely book
This is a lovely book with an old-fashioned flavor. The pictures are beautiful and child-friendly. It is sized as a large in-the-lap story book. I can imagine a child or grandchild gazing wide-eyed at this book while being read to outloud. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Fascinating biography
The biography of Hans Christian Andersen by Elias Bredsdorff is a fascinating journey into every relevant detail of the life of the great danish writer. A large part of the book consists of interpretations by Mr.Bredsdorff, but each of them is inteligently supported by what seems to bea thorough and respectful research into Andersen's own writings and thoseof his friends and critics. Delightful. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Scholarly Work on Andersen
It is good to see that there is a compilation of essays on Hans Christian Andersen.The bibliographic references, alone, make this an important volume of scholarship.I liked some of the pieces of writing.There are fine essays in a section that deals with translations of Andersen's stories and poems in other languages. I also gained good insights by reading about Andersen's work in relation to the historical and political contexts of 19th Century Denmark.There is a range of quality in the overall texts, however, and some of the pieces are simply not compelling reading. ... Read more

Book Description
Danish poet and novelist Hans Christian Andersen is best known for the dozens of fairy tales he wrote. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

A wonderful book by one of the best story tellers ever.
I really liked reading Han's Christian Anderson's biography. You learn a lot about him, and his stories from this book. He is one of the greatest writers ever. He tells the story of his life beautifully. It was full of adventures and travels, of which he tells a lot about in his book. He truly liked all people. I highly recommend this book, and would give it more stars if I could.

A "must" for the legions of Hans Christian Andersen fans
The Fairy Tale Of My Life is Hans Christian Andersen's autobiography. Andersen (1805-1875) had an undeniable gift for storytelling that led to the creating of a series of classic fairytales that included "The Little Mermaid", "The Ugly Duckling", and "The Snow Queen. His sense of fantasy, descriptive abilities, and sensitivity to human emotions are also evident in the candor and engaging self-told story of his life from the extreme poverty of a provincial childhood to the international celebrity of his final years. Careful readers will also find valued insights into the sources for many of his most famous and enduringly popular stories. The Fairy Tale Of My Life is a "must" for the legions of Hans Christian Andersen fans!

A must for the legions of Hans Christian Andersen fans
The Fairy Tale Of My Life is Hans Christian Andersen's autobiography. Andersen (1805-1875) had an undeniable gift for storytelling that led to the creating of a series of classic fairytales that included "The Little Mermaid", "The Ugly Duckling", and "The Snow Queen. His sense of fantasy, descriptive abilities, and sensitivity to human emotions are also evident in the candor and engaging self-told story of his life from the extreme poverty of a provincial childhood to the international celebrity of his final years. Careful readers will also find valued insights into the sources for many of his most famous and enduringly popular stories. The Fairy Tale Of My Life is a "must" for the legions of Hans Christian Andersen fans! ... Read more

Book Description