On this day in history, the master of fairy tales was born.
Sparked by a childhood reading of The Arabian Nights, Hans Christian Andersen quickly became enchanted by literature.
He began to seriously pursue writing after a colleague in the Royal Danish Theatre told Andersen he had the spirit of a poet. By 1835, he had published his first complete volume of fairy tales, which included “The Princess and the Pea,” “Tom Thumb,” and “Thumbelina.”
In 1837, he published arguably some of his most well-known stories, like “The Little Mermaid” and “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” Reviews were highly negative, criticizing the informal style and absence of education or morals. Even so, these stories have survived the years and are now largely ingrained in the Western collective consciousness.
Andersen’s personal life was complicated. He enjoyed the company of Charles Dickens, with whom he shared a passion for social justice and literature. Dickens would later abruptly end their friendship for unknown reasons. Andersen was also a homosexual, having numerous speculated male lovers, but his diaries suggest he was possibly asexual.
Andersen endures in the literary sphere as a true master of the craft, especially among those working in children’s literature. His birthday, April 2, is even celebrated as International Children’s Book Day.
As he writes in his autobiography, “To move, to breathe, to fly, to float, / To gain all while you give, / To roam the roads of land remote, / To travel is to live.”
