Hans Christian Andersen: A New LifeHans Christian Andersen was a storyteller for children of all ages. He gave us the now standard versions of many traditional folk tales as well as original stories that have enchanted generations of readers. "The Little Match Girl," "The Emperor's New Clothes," "The Little Mermaid," and "The Ugly Duckling," are just a few of his beloved titles. Andersen was also much more than a writer of children's tales. He was a critical journalist with great enthusiasm for science, an existential thinker, an observant travel-book writer, a passionate novelist, a deft paper cut-out artist, a neurotic hypochondriac, and a man with intense but frustrated sexual desires. He was a man with demons, dreams, yearnings, and visions-a man of flesh and blood. This startling, immensely readable, and definitive new biography by Danish author Jens Andersen (no relation to Hans Christian Andersen) is essential to a full understanding of the man whose writing has influenced the lives of readers young and old for centuries. Delving deeply into archives and correspondence, Jens Andersen sheds brilliant new light on Hans Christian Andersen's writings-the 156 published fairy tales, as well as the novels, short stories, plays, poetry, and non-fiction-and on the writer whose own life had many aspects of the fairy tale. As did some of the memorable characters he created, Andersen grew up in miserable and impoverished circumstances, and as an adult he took steps to keep what he called his "common" background well hidden, propagating myths about his life and family, partially to create a romantic distance from his true background. In this new biography, translated by the PEN translation award-winning Tiina Nunnally, Jens Andersen uncovers much about this man that has never been revealed before. Book jacket. |
Contents
TRANSLATORS NOTE | 11 |
ARRIVAL 18191822 | 17 |
IN THE HOUSE OF EDUCATION 18221827 | 64 |
Copyright | |
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Adam Oehlenschläger Agnete Andersen wrote Anderseniana artist August autobiography B. S. Ingemann beautiful became Brevveksling med Edvard Carl Alexander Charles Dickens child childhood Christian Andersen Collin family Collinske Copenhagen Danish author Denmark diary Dickens dream Edvard Collin Edvard og Henriette Eventyr fairy tale fairy tales fairy-tale father feel Fiddler friendship German girl H. C. Andersens Brevveksling H. C. Andersens dagbøger H. C. Ørsted Hans Andersen Hans Christian Andersen headmaster heart Heiberg Helsingør Henriette Collin Henriette Hanck Henriette Wulff Henrik human Ibid Jenny Lind Jonas Collin Kierkegaard later letter literary lived look Ludvig Meisling mother nature never novel Odense Odense River paper-cuts person picture books play poem poet poetry relationship Riborg rigsdaler Romantic Royal Theater Samlede Skrifter says Slagelse Søren Søren Kierkegaard soul story summer trip Walking Tour Weimar words writing young