Hans Christian Andersen: The Life of a Storyteller

A well-researched critical, yet sympathetic biography of the complex brilliance which was Hans Christian Andersen.When you reach the pages describing his death, you feel like you have lost a dear friend. HCA was known for his children's fiction, but in fact, many of his works are for adults. This biography is particularly interesting as it gives some insight into his little known adult works, together with his character, and places his work in the cultural context in Europe in which it found itself.

Others collected folk stories and retold them; but Hans Christian Andersen's efforts stood out from his peers in that he was the first to create fairy stories himself. Surprisingly, this is the first comprehensive study of Andersen and his work to be published in English, telling of his life and poverty, his struggle to achieve fame, and the psychological forces which drove him to keep on producing. A fascinating and different portrait of the man evolves.

A heartbreaking and page-turning account of the original Ugly Duckling -- Andersen's own awkward, striving, half-mad character, as it turns out, informs his best known stories, nearly all of which involve an outsider trying to penetrate rigid, hypocritical society. Tales like The Emperor's New Clothes and The Little Mermaid, in their original form (Disney versions will be even more unwatchable once you read this book) were clearly understood by contemporaries in 19th-century Copenhagen as the brilliant and vituperative satires they were. An impressive book.

Of course, you are never to old to enjoy a good fairy tale. But maybe it is also true that you are never really old enough to understand all its subtle layers of meaning. Behind the simple story read to a child, there are always enough hidden allusions, jokes and adult tragedies to last a lifetime of re-reading. And when the fairy tales have been created by a modern author such as Hans Christian Andersen, they may even contain an entire autobiography. Andersen published several rather rosy-coloured "official" accounts of his life, with sugar-sweet titles like "The Fairy Tale of My Life". But as Jacky Wullschlager shows in this moving biography, it was only in his stories that he revealed his true fears, hopes and obsessions. The great pleasure of Wullschlager's book is that it helps us to rediscover the familiar cast of fairy tale characters; to recognize Andersen's struggle from extreme poverty in the "Ugly Duckling", his flirtation with nobility in the king-loving "Nightingale" and his almost fin-de-siècle obsession with sex and death in the "Snow Queen" or the "Ice Maiden". It gives an added biographical depth to characters that have fascinated readers ever since Andersen first created them. And as the story goes, "if they haven't stopped fascinating, they're fascinating still."

From childhood the stories of Hans Christian Anderson always brought hope and encouragement to a boy trying to fit in despite leg braces and crutches. Later as a parent my appreciation for his insight and depth grew as I read his stories to my children. I found myself wanting to know who was this man and how had he been influenced to write about these flawed characters who always reacted to their circumstances with courage and dignity. Wullschlager's masterful biography does a good job of giving us an understanding of Anderson and his stories. Unlike the person portrayed in the film by Danny Kaye, Anderson experienced much of the alienation and abuse that his characters did. This biography shows that Anderson was much like the heros in his stories, flawed, but always hopeful. Like the hero in my favorite Anderson story, "The Steadfast Tin Soldier", he understood that although he was different, he would always believe that he would make a difference.