Eskişehir, Türkiye
Tuesday 2 April 2024
“A life is full of isolated events, but these events, if they are to form a coherent narrative, require odd pieces of language to link them together, little chips of grammar (mostly adverbs or prepositions) that are hard to define words like ‘therefore’, ‘else’, ‘other’ ‘also’, ‘thereof’, ‘therefore’, ‘instead’, ‘otherwise’, ‘despite’, ‘already’ and ‘not yet’.”
(Carol Shields, Unless)
Today is International Children’s Book Day (ICBD), an annual event sponsored by the Intenrational Board on Books for Young People (IBBY), an international non-profit organization.
Founded in 1967, the day is observed on or around Hans Christian Andersen’s birthday, April 2.
Activities include writing competitions, announcements of book awards and events with authors of children’s literature.
Each year a different National Section of IBBY has the opportunity to be the international sponsor of ICBD.
It decides upon a theme and invites a prominent author from the host country to write a message to the children of the world and a well-known illustrator to design a poster.
These materials are used in different ways to promote books and reading.
Many IBBY Sections promote ICBD through the media and organize activities in schools and public libraries.
Often ICBD is linked to celebrations around children’s books and other special events that may include encounters with authors and illustrators, writing competitions or announcements of book awards.
International Children’s Book Day (ICBD) is celebrated annually on April 2 to promote reading and to inspire a love for books among children worldwide.
Every year, the International Children’s Book Day (ICBD) is celebrated in honour of the Danish author Hans Christian Anderson.
The aim of the day is to encourage children’s love of reading through the use of books.
Each year, the International Bureau of Children’s Books (IBBY) chooses a new department to be the international sponsor of ICBD.
The IBBY selects a theme and asks a well-known writer from the host nation to pen a letter to young readers everywhere.
This message is then accompanied by an illustration by a renowned illustrator on a poster.
Many strategies are used to promote books and reading with the resources produced by IBBY.
IBBY Japan (JBBY) is honoured to be the official sponsor of ICBD 2024, under the theme “Cross the Seas on the Wing of your Imagination“.
Well-known Japanese writer and 2018 HC Andersen Award recipient Eiko Kadono wrote a letter to all children worldwide.
The poster was made by Japanese artist Nana Furiya, who resides in Slovakia and has an international outlook.
The keyword for ICBD 2024 is imagination.
JBBY believes that fostering imagination will lead to mutual understanding and a spirit of tolerance.
Above: Eiko Kadono
ICBD was initiated by the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY), a non-profit organization founded in Zürich, Switzerland, in 1953.
The organization aims to promote international understanding through children’s books, as well as to advocate for children’s right to access quality literature.
The idea for International Children’s Book Day was proposed by Jella Lepman, a German writer and journalist, who founded the International Youth Library in Munich in 1949.
Lepman strongly believed in the power of children’s literature to foster empathy, understanding, and cultural exchange, especially in the aftermath of World War II.
Above: Jella Lepman and children
Above: Memorial plaque for Jella Lepman at the international youth library in Blutenburg Castle, Bavaria (Bayern), Germany (Deutschland)
The first International Children’s Book Day was celebrated on 2 April 1967, coinciding with Hans Christian Andersen’s birthday, the renowned Danish author best known for his fairy tales.
Andersen’s works have had a profound influence on children’s literature worldwide, making his birthday a fitting date to celebrate children’s books.
International Children’s Book Day is important because it encourages children around the world to read for pleasure and to become more literate.
This annual event, organised by the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY), celebrates children’s literature and the continuing legacy of authors such as Hans Christian Andersen.
Through books, children are given the opportunity to discover many points of view, spark their imagination and develop a lifelong love of reading, helping to create a brighter future through the power of storytelling.
“Oh, grown-ups cannot understand
And grown-ups never will,
How short’s the way to fairy land
Across the purple hill”
(Alfred Noyes)
Above: English poet Alfred Noyes (1880 – 1958)
Hans Christian Andersen (2 April 1805 – 4 August 1875) 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,[1] have been translated into more than 125 languages.
They have become embedded in Western collective consciousness, accessible to children as well as presenting lessons of virtue and resilience in the face of adversity for mature readers.
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”
- “Thumbelina“
His stories have inspired ballets, plays, and animated and live-action films.
Above: Hans Christian Andersen (1869)
Andersen was born in Odense, Denmark (Danish: Danmark) on 2 April 1805.
Andersen was baptized on 15 April 1805 in Saint Hans Church in Odense.
When the new-born child was taken to the church to be baptised, it cried resoundingly, which greatly displeased the ill-tempered pastor, who declared, in his passion, that “the thing cried like a cat”, at which his mother was bitterly annoyed .
One of the godparents, however, consoled her by the assurance, that the louder the child cried, the sweeter he would sing some day, and that pacified her.
Above: Sankt Hans Kirke, Odense, Danmark
The father of Andersen was not without education.
The mother was all heart.
The married couple lived on the best terms with each other.
Yet the husband did not feel himself happy.
He had no discourse with his neighbours, but preferred keeping himself at home, where he read Holberg’s Comedies, The Thousand and One Tales of the Arabian Nights, and worked at a puppet theatre for his little son, whom on Sundays he often took with him to the neighbouring woods, where the two commonly spent the whole day in quiet solitude with each other.
Andersen’s father, who had received an elementary school education, introduced his son to literature, reading him Arabian Nights.
Andersen’s mother, Anne Marie Andersdatter, was an illiterate washerwoman.
Following her husband’s death in 1816, she remarried in 1818.
Above: Andersen’s childhood home, Odense, Danmark
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 14, he moved to Copenhagen to seek employment as an actor.
Above: Copenhagen, Danmark
Wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen
Friendly old girl of a town
‘Neath her tavern light
On this merry night
Let us clink and drink one down
To wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen
Salty old queen of the sea
Once I sailed away
But I’m home today
Singing Copenhagen, wonderful, wonderful
Copenhagen for me
I sailed up the Skagerrak
And sailed down the Kattegat
Through the harbor and up to the quay
And there she stands waiting for me
With a welcome so warm and so gay
Wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen
Wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen
Friendly old girl of a town
‘Neath her tavern light
On this merry night
Let us clink and drink one down
To wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen
Salty old queen of the sea
Once I sailed away
But I’m home today
Singing Copenhagen, wonderful, wonderful
Copenhagen for me
Danny Kaye, Hans Christian Andersen, 1952
Having a good soprano voice, Andersen 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, and taking the suggestion seriously, Andersen began to focus on writing.
Above: Det Kongelige Teater, Copenhagen, Danmark
Jonas Collin (1776 – 1861), director of the Royal Danish Theatre, held great affection for Andersen and sent him to a grammar school in Slagelse, persuading King Frederick VI (1768 – 1839) to pay part of his education.
Above: Danish patron of the arts Jonas Collins
Above: Danish King Frederick VI
Andersen had by then published his first story, “The Ghost at Palnatoke’s Grave” (1822).
Though not a stellar pupil, he also attended school at Elsinore until 1827.
He later said that his years at this school were the darkest and most bitter years of his life.
At one school, he lived at his schoolmaster’s home.
There he was abused and was told that it was done in order “to improve his character“.
He later said that the faculty had discouraged him from writing, which resulted in a depression.
Above: Helsinger (English: Elsinore), Danmark
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 does not feel appreciated.
A tallow candle, whose parents are a sheep and a melting pot, becomes more and more disheartened as it cannot find a purpose in life.
It meets a tinderbox who lights a flame on the candle, so it finally finds its right place in life and spreads joy and happiness for itself and its fellow creatures.
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 was found 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” (Fodreise fra Holmens Canal til Østpynten af Amager i Aarene).
Its protagonist meets characters ranging from Saint Peter to a talking cat.
A crucial factor which enhanced and secured Andersen’s international fame, was his eagerness for lengthy sojourns both at home and abroad.
Through his frequent and extensive travels, Andersen was able to cross and transgress spatial, temporal and social borders and expand his international social network far beyond his home country.
Maybe even more important is the fact that Andersen thereby experienced the profound dynamics of spatial and temporal change, which made him aware of the two fundamentally opposed approaches to travel he himself embodied:
On the one hand he represented the quintessential 19th century bourgeois traveller, conducting his
educational Grand Tour, while he on the other hand, as a result of his personal life journey
so to say, was inescapably connected to its opposite:
The underlying social image of the tramp, the social misfit who rejects everything a contemporary upper-class traveler in those days wanted to be.
The gentleman traveler Andersen was doomed to be accompanied by his crude lower-class shadow, although he finally not only became a celebrity, but even a prestigious national literary icon of exceptional proportions.
More importantly, also in his literary work Andersen’s notion of mobility oscillates
between these two extreme positions, one emanating from his motivation to climb the social
ladder, while the other is fueled by his assiduous awareness of his modest social background.
For Andersen, his humble origin was a lifelong touchstone for everything he undertook, a
fundamental point of reference in his travels into the unknown, both geographically as well
as socially speaking.
In short:
Andersen’s mobility was clearly motivated by his longing for social advancement, with a clear awareness of the distance already covered.
One of the reasons to engage with this particular work, is the fact that it contains some of the earliest examples of what later was to become the essence of Andersen’s oeuvre:
The juxtaposition of the real and the imaginary.
Another reason why is the fact that Fodreise draws attention to one particular – historically
defined – form of locomotion, i.e. travel on foot.
Unlike what one might expect, walking – especially in the early 1800s – is not merely an expression of the natural human ability to move on foot but walking rather is a culturally and historically determined signifier, both in Andersen, as in more general terms.
It is an extremely playful, arabesque and grotesque quasi-travel account of a surprisingly short walk during the last hours of New Year’s Eve 1828 and the initial hours of New Year’s Day 1829.
Thus, the extensive title, feigning that the text deals with some sort of lengthy expedition on foot into some kind ofuncharted territory, plays an ironic and entertaining game with the reader’s expectation, because anyone who is just faintly familiar with the geography of Copenhagen knows that the distance between Holmen’s Canal and the East point of the island of Amager can be covered in less than an hour – even on foot.
Above: Holmens Kanal, Johannes Rach and Hans Heinrich Eegberg, 1750
Andersen does not really make use of the cityscape as a motif, but rather utilizes the city as a realist launchpad for his otherwise unbridled fantasy.
Although various localities in the urban topography are easily recognizable in Fodreise, they are functioning as a mere backdrop for Andersen’s unrestrained fantasies.
The fact that Andersen’s book – judging from its actual title – is about a walk or journey on foot seems to
downplay or degrade its importance.
The inconspicuous activity of walking sends a warning signal to readers not to expect too much from it, because isn’t walking a bit nutty and an utterly ordinary and totally unspectacular activity, that tends to be overlooked?
This negative framing of walking does not only pertain to Andersen’s contemporary readership, but also
to later generations and even today pedestrians are often marginalized by city planners, motorists and traffic analysts.
Instead of a voyage or a Grand Tour of some kind, Fodreise deals with a detour, merely a stroll, a short, nonsensical walk, and one may well ask what it is that makes this miniature ‘enterprise’ so special, that an entire book length travelogue was devoted to it.
Fodreise commences on New Year’s Eve 1828 with a Faustian scene in which the first person narrator is visited by the Devil himself, who conveys the ‘sinful’ idea of becoming an author to him.
Satan’s underlying purpose with this strategy is that the world, in the end, will be flooded with bad literati, who ultimately will corrupt and undermine the world with their crappy work.
Bad literature, whatever that may be, would ultimately eradicate humanity and enslave people under the rule of evil.
But instead of rejecting the Devil’s encouragement, Andersen’s protagonist cannot resist the temptation, leaves his cozy room, rushes down the stairs and is out in the street in a jiffy.
After a few steps, he meets a couple of ladies who force him to choose between the two of them.
One is an attractive, down-to-earth woman offering him carnal love, while the other is a melodramatic apparition of a languishing girl, representing literature or “den lyriske Muse” (the Muse of poetry) as
she calls herself.
And from then on, the story is a roller coaster of supernatural, grotesque events, a fantastic mixture of improbable and impossible actions and encounters.
Instead of walking straight towards a clearly defined goal, the narrator, as soon as he has left his home, is tossed around, thrown out of orbit, slowed down by a series of Kafkaesque encounters and random choices turning the road into a chaotic spatial and temporal labyrinth.
In the end, the narrator does reach a kind of destination, but when he finally wishes to step on board a boat that will ferry him across the Sound to Sweden, and thus beyond the frame defied by the title, he is denied access, because this would be a subversion of themeaning of the title, Fodreise, which is still a journey conducted on foot, and not a seaborne ‘voyage’ to another country.
So, when he is finally standing on the shore of Amager, the narrator has no other option than to stick to his word, stay in Denmark and try to settle his debt to Satan and write a lousy book.
The question then is whether he has become one of the many inferior authors who flood the world with their insignificant or at best mediocre works that ultimately will corrupt and undermine humanity, or is he able to make it to the top and produce canonical works of lasting value and thereby save humankind?
In any event, once he has reached the shore of Amager, his final destination, the narrator is drained for words and imagination and, as the final wordless chapter clearly shows, now it is up to the readers and critics to give their verdict.
Above: Satellite image of Amager Island
Andersen followed this success with a theatrical piece, Love on St.Nicholas Church Tower, and a short volume of poems.
Above: Kunsthallen Nikolaj, the former Sankt Nikolaj Kirke, Copenhagen, Danmark
He made little progress in writing and publishing immediately following these poems, but did receive a small travel grant from the King in 1833.
This enabled him to set out on the first of many journeys throughout Europe.
At Jura, near Le Locle, Switzerland, Andersen wrote the story “Agnete and the Merman“.
Above: Le Locle, Canton Jura, Switzerland (French: Suisse)
“There is an old Danish folks-song of Agnete and the Merman, which bore an affinity to my own state of mind, and to the treatment of which I felt an inward impulse.
The song tells that Agnete wandered solitarily along the shore, when a merman rose up from the waves and decoyed her by his speeches.
She followed him to the bottom of the sea, remained there seven years, and bore him seven children.
One day, as she sat by the cradle, she heard the church bells sounding down to her in the depths of the sea, and a longing seized her heart to go to church.
By her prayers and tears she induced the merman to conduct her to the upper world again, promising soon to return.
He prayed her not to forget his children, more especially the little one in the cradle, stopped up her ears and her mouth, and then led her upwards to the seashore.
When, however, she entered the church, all the holy images, as soon as they saw her, a daughter of sin and from the depths of the sea, turned themselves round to the walls.
She was affrighted, and would not return, although the little ones in her home below were weeping.
I treated this subject freely, in a lyrical and dramatic manner.
I will venture to say that the whole grew out of my heart.
All the recollections of our beechwoods and the open sea were blended in it.
In the midst of the excitement of Paris I lived in the spirit of the Danish folk songs.
It is a weakness of my country-people, that commonly, when abroad, during their residence in large cities, they almost live exclusively in company together.
They must dine together, meet at the theatre, and see all the lions of the place in company.
Letters are read by each other.
News of home is received and talked over, and at last they hardly know whether they are in a foreign land or their own.
I had given way to the same weakness in Paris, and in leaving it, therefore, determined for one month to board myself in some quiet place in Switzerland, and live only among the French, so as to be compelled to speak their language, which was necessary to me in the highest degree.
Above: Paris, France
In the little city of Lodi, in a valley of the Jura mountains, where the snow fell in August, and the clouds floated below us, was I received by the amiable family of a wealthy watchmaker.
They would not hear a word about payment.
I lived among them and their friends as a relation, and when we parted the children wept.
We had become friends, although I could not understand their patois.
They shouted loudly into my ear, because they fancied I must be deaf, as I could not understand them.
In the evenings, in that elevated region, there was a repose and a stillness in nature, and the sound of the evening bells ascended to us from the French frontier.
At some distance from the city, stood a solitary house, painted white and clean.
On descending through two cellars, the noise of a millwheel was heard, and the rushing waters of a river which flowed on here, hidden from the world.
I often visited this place in my solitary rambles.
Here I finished my poem of “Agnete and the Merman,” which I had begun in Paris.“
The same year he spent an evening in the Italian seaside village of Sestri Levante, which inspired the title of “The Bay of Fables“.
Above: Sestri Levante, Italy (Italian: Italia)
Above: The Bay of Fables and Silence (La Baia della Favole e del Silenzio), Sestri Levante, Italia
He arrived in Rome (Roma) in October 1834.
Above: Roma, Italia
Andersen’s travels in Italy were reflected in his first novel, a fictionalized autobiography titled The Improvisatore (Improvisatoren), published in 1835 to instant acclaim.
The story, reflecting Andersen’s own travels in Italy in 1833, reveals much about his own life and aspirations as experienced by Antonio, the novel’s principal character.
In this fictionalized autobiography, the hero Antonio does not arrive as a tourist but grows up in Italy, thus able to show not just the sunny side of life but also some of its shadows.
In its structure, the novel reflects Andersen’s own life and his travels through Italy.
The descriptions of the Italian towns and regions are particularly captivating, expressed in the author’s colourful language.
Like Andersen himself, Antonio comes from a poor background but fights his way through various crises and amorous relationships until he is finally successful.
The last improvisation involves a fishing boat accident in which many lose their lives.
But finally Antonio becomes the happy husband of the beautiful young Lara as well as a landowner in Calabria.
Hans Christian Andersen is one of those men who, from their earliest youth, have had to keep up a warfare with circumstances – a man who seemed destined by Fate to end their lives unnoticed in a village, and yet through an instinctive sense of their destined pre-eminence in the beautiful regions of art and literature, and sustained by an irrepressible will, have made themselves a part of the great world.
Fairy Tales Told for Children. First Collection. (Eventyr, fortalt for Børn. Første Samling.) is a collection of nine fairy tales by Hans Christian Andersen.
The tales were published in a series of three installments by C. A. Reitzel in Copenhagen between May 1835 and April 1837.
They were Andersen’s first venture into the fairy tale genre.
The first installment was a volume of 61 unbound pages published 8 May 1835 containing “The Tinderbox“, “Little Claus and Big Claus”, “The Princess and the Pea” and “Little Ida’s Flowers“.
The first three tales were based on folktales Andersen had heard in his childhood.
The fourth was Andersen’s creation for Ida Thiele, the daughter of folklorist Just Mathias Thiele (1795 – 1874), Andersen’s early benefactor.
Above: Just Mathias Thiele
Reitzel paid Andersen 30 rigsdalers for the manuscript.
The booklet was priced at 24 shillings.
The second booklet was published on 16 December 1835 and contained “Thumbelina“, “The Naughty Boy“, and “The Travelling Companion“.
“Thumbelina” was inspired by “Tom Thumb” and other stories of miniature people.
“The Naughty Boy” was based on a poem about Eros from the Anacreontea.
“The Travelling Companion” was a ghost story Andersen had experimented with in the year 1830.
Thumbelina, Thumbelina, tiny little thing
Thumbelina dance, Thumbelina sing
Thumbelina, what’s the difference if you’re very small?
When your heart is full of love, you’re nine feet tall
Though you’re no bigger than my thumb (than my thumb)
Than my thumb (than my thumb), than my thumb (than my thumb)
Sweet Thumbelina, don’t be glum (don’t be glum)
Now now now, hee hee hee, come come come
Thumbelina, Thumbelina, tiny little thing
Thumbelina dance, Thumbelina sing
Thumbelina, what’s the difference if you’re very small?
When your heart is full of love, you’re nine feet tall
Though you’re no bigger than my toe (than my toe)
Than my toe (than my toe), than my toe (than my toe)
Sweet Thumbelina, keep that glow (keep that glow)
And you’ll grow, and you’ll grow, and you’ll grow, whoooa!
Thumbelina, Thumbelina, tiny little thing
Thumbelina dance, Thumbelina sing
Thumbelina, what’s the difference if you’re very small?
When your heart is full of love, you’re nine feet tall
Above: Danny Kaye, Hans Christian Andersen, 1952
The third booklet contained “The Little Mermaid” and “The Emperor’s New Clothes“.
It was published on 7 April 1837.
“The Little Mermaid” was influenced by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué’s “Undine” (1811) and legends about mermaids.
This tale established Andersen’s international reputation.
Above: The Little Mermaid statue, Copenhagen, Danmark
The only other tale in the third booklet was “The Emperor’s New Clothes“, which was based on a medieval Spanish story with Arab and Jewish origins.
On the eve of the third installment’s publication, Andersen revised the conclusion (in which the Emperor simply walks in procession) to its now-famous finale of a child calling out:
“The Emperor is not wearing any clothes!“
This is the story of the King’s new clothes
Now there was once a King who was absolutely insane about new clothes
And one day two swindlers came to sell him what they said was a magic suit of clothes.
Now they held up this particular garment and they said ‘Your majesty this is a magic suit’.
Well the truth in the matter is there was no suit there at all.
But the swindlers were very smart and they said
‘Your majesty to a wise man this is a beautiful raymond but to a fool it is absolutely invisible.
Well naturally the King not wanting to appear a fool said.
‘Isn’t it grand, isn’t it fine, look at the cut, the style, the line.
The suit of clothes is all together
But all together, it’s altogether, the most remarkable suit of clothes that I have ever seen
These eyes of mine have once determined the sleeves are velvet
The cape is zurman, the holes are blue, and the doublet is a lovely shade of green.
(Lovely shade of green)
Somebody send for the Queen
Well they sent for the Queen and they quickly explained to her about the magic suit of clothes
Well naturally the Queen not wanting to appear a fool said
“Well isn’t it awe, isn’t it rich, look at the charm and then the stitch”
The suit of clothes is altogether but all together it’s altogether
The most remarkable suit of clothes that I have ever seen
These eyes of mine have once determined the sleeves are velvet
The cape is zurman, the holes are blue, and the doublet is a lovely shade of green.
(Lovely shade of green)
Summon the court to convene
Well the court convened and you never in your life saw as many people as were at that court
All the ambassadors, the dukes, the earls, the counts
It was just blanketed with people
And they were all told about the magic suit of clothes
And after they were told they naturally didn’t want to appear fools
And they said
Isn’t ooh, isn’t it aah, Isn’t it absolutely (whistle)
The suit of clothes is altogether, but all together, it’s altogether
The most remarkable suit of clothes a tailor ever made
Now quickly put it all together
With gloves of leather and hat and feather
It’s altogether the thing to wear on Saturday’s parade
(Saturday’s parade)
Leading the royal brigade
Now Saturday came and the streets were just lined
With thousands and thousands and thousands of people
And they all were cheering as the artillery came by
The infantry marched by
The cavalry galloped by
And everybody was cheering like mad
Except one little boy
You see
He hadn’t heard about the magic suit
And didn’t know what he was supposed to see
Well as the King came by the little boy looked
And horrified said
“Look at the King, look at the King, look at the King, the King, the King”
The King is in the altogether, but altogether, the altogether, he’s altogether
As naked as the day that he was born
The king is in the altogether, but altogether, the altogether, he’s altogether
The very least the King has ever worn
(Call the court physician, call an intermission)
His Majesty is wide open to ridicule and scorn
The King is in the altogether, but altogether, the altogether, he’s altogether
As naked as the day that he was born
Above: Danny Kaye, Hans Christian Andersen, 1952
Danish reviews of the first two booklets first appeared in 1836.
They were not enthusiastic.
The critics disliked the chatty, informal style and apparent immorality, since children’s literature was meant to educate rather than to amuse.
The critics discouraged Andersen from pursuing this type of style.
Andersen believed that he was working against the critics’ preconceived notions about fairy tales.
Above: The flag of Denmark
He temporarily returned to novel-writing, waiting a full year before publishing his third installment.
The nine tales from the three booklets were published in one volume and sold for 72 shillings.
A title page, a table of contents, and a preface by Andersen were published in this volume.
In 1868, Horace Scudder (1838 – 1902), the editor of Riverside Magazine for Young People, offered Andersen $500 for 12 new stories.
Sixteen of Andersen’s stories were published in the magazine.
Ten of them appeared there before they were printed in Denmark.
Above: American man of letters Horace Scudder
In 1851, he published In Sweden, a volume of travel sketches.
The publication received wide acclaim.
“I felt, what since then has become an acknowledged fact, that travelling would be the best school for me.
“Now be happy,” said my friends, “make yourself aware of your unbounded good fortune!
Enjoy the present moment, as it will probably be the only time in which you will get abroad.
You shall hear what people say about you while you are travelling, and how we shall defend you; sometimes, however, we shall not be able to do that.”
A keen traveller, Andersen published several other long travelogues:
- Shadow Pictures of a Journey to the Harz: A Report of a Trip to Saxon Switzerland (1831)
- A Poet’s Bazaar: Pictures of Travels in Germany, Italy, Greece and the Orient (1871)
- In Spain and A Visit to Portugal (1866).
(The last one describes his visit with his Portuguese friends Jorge and José O’Neill, who he knew in the mid-1820s while he was living in Copenhagen.)
In his travelogues, Andersen used contemporary conventions related to travel writing but developed the style to make it his own.
Each of his travelogues combines documentary and descriptive accounts of his experiences, adding additional philosophical passages on topics such as authorship, immortality and fiction in literary travel reports.
Some of the travelogues, such as Pictures of Sweden, contain fairy tales.
Above: Flag of Sweden
In the 1840s, Andersen’s attention returned to the theatre stage, but with little success.
He had better luck with the publication of the Picture-Book without Pictures (1840).
He started a second series of fairy tales in 1838 and a third series in 1845.
At this point Andersen was celebrated throughout Europe, although his native Denmark still showed some resistance to his pretensions.
Between 1845 and 1864, Andersen lived at Nyhavn 67, Copenhagen, where a memorial plaque is now placed.
Patrons of Andersen’s writings included the monarchy of Denmark, the House of Schleswig – Holstein – Sonderburg – Glücksburg.
An unexpected invitation from King Christian IX (1818 – 1906) to the Royal Palace entrenched Andersen’s folklore in Danish royalty as well as making its way to the Romanov dynasty when Christian IX’s daughter Maria Feodorovna (1847 – 1928) married Alexander III of Russia (1845 – 1894).
Above: Hans Christian Andersen statue in Kongens Have, Copenhagen, Denmark
In “Andersen as a Novelist“, Soren Kierkegaard (1813 – 1855) remarks that Andersen is characterized as “a possibility of a personality, wrapped up in such a web of arbitrary moods and moving through an elegiac duo-decimal scaled of almost echoless, dying tones just as easily roused as subdued, who, in order to become a personality, needs a strong life-development“.
Above: Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard
In June 1847, Andersen visited England for the first time, enjoying triumphant social success.
The Countess of Blessington (1789 – 1849) invited him to her parties where many intellectuals would meet, and at one such party he met Charles Dickens (1812 – 1870) for the first time.
They shook hands and walked to the veranda, which Andersen noted in his diary:
“We were on the veranda, and I was so happy to see and speak to England’s now-living writer whom I do love the most.”
The two authors respected each other’s work and as writers, and had in common their depictions of the underclass who often had difficult lives affected both by the Industrial Revolution and by abject poverty.
Above: English writer Charles Dickens
Ten years later, Andersen visited England again, primarily to meet Dickens.
He extended the planned brief visit to Dickens’ home at Gads Hill Place into a five-week stay, much to the distress of Dickens’ family.
After Andersen was told to leave, Dickens gradually stopped all correspondence between them, to Andersen’s great disappointment and confusion.
He had enjoyed the visit and never understood why his letters went unanswered.
Above: Gads Hill Place, Rochester, England
It is suspected that Dickens modeled the physical appearance and mannerisms of Uriah Heep from David Copperfield after Andersen.
Wikipedia then goes on to discuss Andersen’s romantic past.
Frankly, this is something I don’t really need to know.
Was Andersen heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, asexual or involuntarily celibate?
Does the answer enhance or detract from the quality of his character and the writing he produced?
I believe this does not matter.
What interests me about Andersen is how he wrote unforgettable stories and inspirational travelogues.
The rest is just noise to me.
Above: Hans Christian Andersen (1836)
As well I feel the topic of Andersen’s intimate life diminishes the magic of his tales for children.
In early 1872, at age 67, Andersen fell out of his bed and was severely hurt.
He never fully recovered from the resultant injuries.
Soon afterward, he started to show signs of liver cancer.
He died on 4 August 1875, in a country house called Rolighed (literally: calmness) near Copenhagen, the home of his close friends, the banker Moritz G. Melchior (1816 – 1884) and his wife.
Shortly before his death, Andersen consulted a composer about the music for his funeral, saying:
“Most of the people who will walk after me will be children, so make the beat keep time with little steps.“
At the time of his death, Andersen was internationally revered.
The Danish government paid him an annual stipend for being a “national treasure“.
Above: Rolighed, Osterbro, Copenhagen, Danmark
Above: Burial site of Hans Christian Andersen, Assistens Cemetery, Copenhagen
What interests me are the places Andersen went and the works he produced.
How did he derive inspiration from the things he saw?
How did he create great stories?
Above: Hans Christian Andersen and the ugly duckling, Central Park, New York City
I know that storytelling comes naturally to human beings.
That is why stories are all around us.
When you talk to your friends, you tell stories.
When you watch movies and read books, you are watching and reading stories.
When you study history and current events, you are understanding the world through stories.
You have stories to tell and whether you consider yourself a storyteller or not, you already tell them.
By learning how to tell a story, you can become a stronger communicator and even a better writer in other area, like academic and professional writing.
What is a story?
A story is, essentially, an account of connected events.
These events can be mentioned explicitly or implied.
Take a look at this famous six-word story that is often attributed incorrectly to Ernest Hemingway:
“For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”
Above: American writer Ernest Hemingway (1899 – 1961)
There is a lot you might infer from this sentence.
From the story’s scant clues, you might form ideas about who is offering the shoes, why they were never worn and why the seller is seeking payment for them rather than passing them along for free.
As you make these inferences, you are putting together a story.
An account of events is not always a story.
To be a story, the following elements must be present:
- setting
- plot
- conflict
- character
- theme
How to write a story in five steps:
- Find inspiration
- Brainstorm
- Outline
- Write the first draft
- Revise and edit your story
My novel (The Donkey Trail) and my colloborative project with former Olympic calibre athlete Steve O’Brien (Highway One) are frame stories – multiple shorter stories that fit into a larger framework.
Andersen was a master at both short stories and frame stories (his stories told within travelogues).
My colleague, Melek, originally assigned to teach an intermediate level Creative Writing found off the Internet a short story table involving objects, themes and characters.
How would you combine: (object / theme / character)
- a rocking horse, a fear of cats and an adventurous chıld?
- a secret garden, a surprise meeting and a famous celebrity?
- an unopened drawer, a fear of the dark and a curious teenager?
- an old notebook, a beautıful moment and a naughty child?
- an English dictionary, a beautiful gesture and an extended family member?
- a poisonous drink, a busy morning and a slow waitress?
How would Andersen make stories from these?
Take my present dilemmas with Highway One:
How can I combine Steve’s first day on his Trans-Canada Tour with his mention of Terry Fox (maybe I could compare their individual moments?) with:
Above: Canadian athlete / humanitarian Steve O’Brien
Above: Canadian athlete / humanitarian Terry Fox (1958 – 1981)
- Victoria-born artist Emily Carr (1871 – 1945), with excerpts from her memoir Klee Wyck?
Above: Emily Carr, Kitwancool, 1928
- Victoria-died writer Carol Shields (1935 – 2003)
- (Excerpts from The Stone Diaries, with the theme of a chapter detailing an epoch in the life of a person?
- Or from Larry’s Party, where we consider mazes and choices we make in trying to navigate them?
- Or from Unless – a linear series of reflections?)
The journey – both biographically and geographically that led Steve to decide to do his Trans-Canada Tour, starting from Mile Zero of the Trans-Canada Highway, to raise awareness of the difficulties in the development of children and youth- and his challenging first day as a man in motion with and without man-powered methods:
Above: Mile Zero, Trans-Canada Highway, Victoria, British Columbia
How can I incorporate all the aforementioned elements together?
Should I even try?
Take my present challenge with The Donkey Trail:
As I describe the married couple’s journey to the Donkey Trail, how much description of the places they pass through do I mention and still make these asides importance influences on the story?
Do I mention the murder on the mountain that they can see from the window of their apartment?
Part of me thinks I should, for the sense of difficult problems that must be ascended, the risk of relationships between people, the bond between man and wife are both part of The Donkey Trail plot and of the murders on Mount Säntis.
Part of me thinks I shouldn’t, but instead maybe I should pare the story down to its most basic elements.
I will let the readers decide.
Above: Säntis Berg, Switzerland (Swiss German: Schweiz)
Andersen realized that children need wholesome stories in the same way that they need fibre and fruit.
Just as there has been a concerted effort in recent years to reintroduce children to the benefits of exercise and decent nutrition (lessons Steve has taught to children as a gym teacher), there has similarly been a battle that many parents, publishers, librarians and teachers have been fighting to engae children once more with the joy of reading.
Our children deserve the best and that is as true for writing as it is for anything else.
We live in a culture of plenty.
Most people in the industrialized world have plenty of food, decent accommodation, as well as education, health, recreation and entertainment facilities that would astonish our recent ancestors.
Everyone in Canada and the US and the UK and Australia and New Zealand is already a lottery winner when compared with the majority of the world’s population.
And yet we often seem determined to squander these gifts.
Many of our children are bored witless despite a plethora of entertainment choices that someone someone born in my generation can only marvel at.
Who could have predicted when I was a boy that there would be digital TV, video games, Wii, PSP, Nintendo DS, and giant plasma screen HD TV?
Above: Children playing ball games, Roman artwork, 2nd century AD, Louvre Museum, Paris, France
And yet many children seem restless and dissatisfied.
Parents are consequently frustrated and cross.
The trouble is that a lot of the entertainment offered to us and our children is junk, the equivalent of a non-stop diet of fizzy pop and sweets.
A good book, a good story, can show them that Life need not be lived through a lens.
Reading might seem hard work when compared with sitting in front of the television all day.
And nearly every parent has used children’s television as a babysitter from time to time.
Yes, TV and computers can be educational, but so can dissection and we don’t usually allow to undertake that kind of experiment unsupervised.
The main drawback of allowing children unfettered access to the various screen-based entertainments is that the lassitude it induces becomes addictive.
But even worse than this is the fact that a room without someone burbling away in the corner begins to seem unnatural to children.
They becomes unnerved by quiet and by reflection because quiet and reflection is so rare to them.
They become scared of it, in the way that previous generations were scared of the woods and the darkness.
The modern world is loud and bright and children have access to unlimited options.
Reading can offer a rare and vital moment of peace and reflection.
We all know that a book is the real thing for a child when that child demands to have it read to them again and again.
A story is the real thing when we know every word by heart and still we want it read to us.
A book is the real thing when it completely absorbs the child.
Children are a difficult audience.
Not only do books have to compensate with all the other entertainment in what has become a visual rather than a literary culture, but children demand to be engrossed.
Generally, kids like books that are funny, that are full of adventure, that feature strong close relationships that are gripping without being too frightening and that end more or less happily.
It is a tall order but if a child loves your book then they will love it forever, read it over and over, and seek out other stories that you may write.
And herein lies the value of International Children’s Book Day.
Here is the reason that Andersen’s birthday was chosen to celebrate this Day.
Discover children’s books.
Rediscover the child within you.
Read the classic stories like the Famous Five, Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys, Narnia and Wonderland, Anne of Green Gables and Harry Potter, Robert Louis Stephenson, Jules Verne and Hans Christian Andersen.
Read as much modern children’s literature as you can.
What do the fine folks of the International Board of Books for Young People recommend?
Read to find the child within you.
Write to listen to what that child has to say.
You will be glad you did.
Sources
- Wikipedia
- Google Photos
- The Story of My Life and İn Sweden, Hans Christian Andersen (Abe Books)
- “How to Write a Great Story in 5 Steps“, Lindsay Kramer, Grammarly, 23 September 2022
- Get Started in Creative Writing, Stephen May (Teach Yourself)