Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen Read online

  Table of Contents

  From the Pages of Fairy Tales

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Hans Christian Andersen

  The World of Hans Christian Andersen and His Fairy Tales

  The Hans Christian Andersen We Never Knew

  Translator’s Preface

  THE ARTIST AND SOCIETY

  THE NIGHTINGALE

  THE GARDENER AND THE GENTRY

  THE FLYING TRUNK

  THE WILL-O’-THE-WISPS ARE IN TOWN

  THE PIXIE AND THE GARDENER’S WIFE

  THE PUPPETEER

  “SOMETHING”

  WHAT ONE CAN THINK UP

  THE MOST INCREDIBLE THING

  AUNTIE TOOTHACHE

  I.

  II.

  III.

  IV.

  THE CRIPPLE

  FOLK TALES

  THE TINDERBOX

  LITTLE CLAUS AND BIG CLAUS

  THE PRINCESS ON THE PEA

  THE TRAVELING COMPANION

  THE WILD SWANS

  THE SWINEHERD

  MOTHER ELDERBERRY

  THE HILL OF THE ELVES

  CLOD-HANS AN OLD STORY RETOLD

  WHAT FATHER DOES IS ALWAYS RIGHT

  ORIGINAL FAIRY TALES

  THE SHADOW

  THE LITTLE MERMAID

  THE EMPEROR’S NEW CLOTHES

  THUMBELINA

  THE NAUGHTY BOY

  THE GALOSHES OF FORTUNE

  1. A BEGINNING

  2. WHAT HAPPENED TO THE COUNCILMAN

  3. THE WATCHMAN’S ADVENTURE

  4. A HEADY MOMENT. A RECITAL. A MOST UNUSUAL TRIP.

  5. THE CLERK’S TRANSFORMATION

  6. THE BEST THING THE GALOSHES BROUGHT

  THE GARDEN OF EDEN

  THE BRONZE PIG

  THE ROSE ELF

  THE PIXIE AT THE GROCER’S

  IB AND LITTLE CHRISTINE

  THE ICE MAIDEN

  1. LITTLE RUDY

  2. JOURNEY TO A NEW HOME

  3. RUDY’S UNCLE

  4. BABETTE

  5. ON THE WAY HOME

  6. A VISIT TO THE MILL

  7. THE EAGLE’S NEST

  8. THE HOUSECAT HAS NEWS

  9. THE ICE MAIDEN

  10. GODMOTHER

  11. THE COUSIN

  12. EVIL POWERS

  13. IN THE MILLER’S HOUSE

  14. VISIONS IN THE NIGHT

  15. THE END

  EVANGELICAL AND RELIGIOUS TALES

  THE SNOW QUEEN AN ADVENTURE IN SEVEN STORIES

  THE FIRST STORY - WHICH IS ABOUT THE MIRROR AND THE FRAGMENTS

  SECOND STORY - A LITTLE BOY AND A LITTLE GIRL

  THIRD STORY - THE FLOWER GARDEN OF THE WOMAN WHO KNEW MAGIC

  FOURTH STORY - APRINCE AND PRINCESS

  FIFTH STORY - THE LITTLE ROBBER GIRL

  SIXTH STORY - THE SAMI WOMAN AND THE FINN WOMAN

  SEVENTH STORY - WHAT HAPPENED IN THE SNOW QUEEN’S CASTLE AND WHAT HAPPENED LATER

  THE RED SHOES

  THE LITTLE MATCH GIRL

  THE BOG KING’S DAUGHTER

  THE GIRL WHO STEPPED ON BREAD

  THE BELL

  THE THORNY PATH TO GLORY

  THE JEWISH MAID

  THE STORY OLD JOHANNA TOLD

  SHE WAS NO GOOD

  THE ANTHROPOMORPHIZING OF ANIMALS AND NATURE

  THE UGLY DUCKLING

  IN THE DUCKYARD

  THE STORKS

  THE SPRUCE TREE

  IT’S PERFECTLY TRUE!

  THE DUNG BEETLE

  THE BUTTERFLY

  THE SNOWDROP

  THE SUNSHINE’S STORIES

  THE DROP OF WATER

  THE FLEA AND THE PROFESSOR

  THE SNOWMAN

  THE HUMANIZATION OF TOYS AND OBJECTS

  THE STEADFAST TIN SOLDIER

  THE SHEPHERDESS AND THE CHIMNEY SWEEP

  THE DARNING NEEDLE

  THE OLD HOUSE

  THE RAGS

  LEGENDS

  HOLGER THE DANE

  BIRD PHOENIX

  THE FAMILY OF HEN-GRETHE

  EVERYTHING IN ITS PROPER PLACE

  Commentaries on the Tales

  Inspired by Andersen’s

  Comments

  For Further Reading

  Alphabetical Index of the Tales

  From the Pages of Fairy Tales

  “You see, ladies and gentlemen, Your Royal Majesty! You can never know what to expect from the real nightingale, but everything is determined in the artificial bird. It will be so-and-so, and no different! You can explain it; you can open it up and show the human thought—how the cylinders are placed, how they work, and how one follows the other!”

  (from “The Nightingale,” page 10)

  It’s an old innate law and privilege that when the moon is in the precise position it was last night, and the wind blows as it blew yesterday, then all will-o‘-the-wisps born at that hour and minute can become human beings.

  (from “The Will-o’-the-Wisps Are in Town,” page 37)

  “This is certainly an interesting tinderbox if it will give me what I want like this!”

  (from “The Tinderbox,” page 90)

  “I almost didn’t close my eyes the whole night! God knows what could have been in the bed? I was lying on something hard, so I am completely black and blue all over my body. It’s quite dreadful!”

  (from “The Princess on the Pea,” page 107)

  Way out at sea the water is as blue as the petals on the loveliest corn-flower, and as clear as the purest glass, but it’s very deep, deeper than any anchor rope can reach. Many church steeples would have to be placed end to end to reach from the bottom up to the surface and beyond. Down there the sea people live.

  (from “The Little Mermaid,” page 188)

  The emperor came to them with his most distinguished cavaliers. Both swindlers lifted one arm in the air as if they were holding something and said, “See, here are the pants. Here’s the jacket, and here’s the cape!” They continued on and on. “They are as light as cobwebs. You might think you weren’t wearing anything, but that’s the beauty of this fabric.”

  (from “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” page 215)

  In the middle of a garden there was a rose tree that was completely full of roses, and in one of these, the most beautiful of them all, lived an elf. He was so tiny that no human eye could see him. He had a bedroom behind every rose petal. He was as well formed and lovely as any child could be and had wings from his shoulders all the way down to his feet. What a lovely fragrance there was in his rooms, and how clear and lovely the walls were! Of course they were the fine, pink rose petals.

  (from “The Rose Elf,” page 289)

  Dance she did and dance she must, dance in the dark night. The shoes carried her away over thorns and stubble that scratched her until she bled. She danced over the heath until she came to a lonely little cottage. She knew that the executioner lived there....

  (from “The Red Shoes,” page 395)

  The poor duckling who had been last out of the egg and who looked so dreadful was bitten, pushed, and made fun of, both by the ducks and the chickens. “He’s too big,” they all said, and the turkey rooster, who was born with spurs and thought he was an emperor, blew himself up like a clipper ship under full sail, went right up to him, gobbled at him, and turned red in the face. The poor duckling didn’t know whether he was coming or going, and was very sad because he was so ugly. Indeed, he was the laughing stock of the entire hen yard.

  (from “The Ugly Duckling,” pages 485-486)

  Once upon a time there was a darning needle that wa
s so refined and stuck-up that she was under the illusion that she was a sewing needle.

  (from “The Darning Needle,” page 555)

  Everything was once again where it was before except for the two old portraits of the peddler and the goose girl. They had been blown up to the wall in the great hall, and when someone who was an art expert said that they were painted by a master, they were repaired and remained hanging there. No one knew before that they were any good, and how would you know that? Now they hung in a place of honor. “Everything in its proper place” and eventually that’s where everything ends up. Eternity is long—longer than this story.

  (from “Everything in Its Proper Place,” page 597)

  Published by Barnes & Noble Books

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  www.barnesandnoble.com/classics

  Hans Christian Andersen published his first collection of fairy tales in 1835,

  and continued to issue subsequent volumes until 1872, three years before

  his death. Marte Hvam Hult’s new translation is based on the first

  five volumes of H. C. Andersens Eventyr ( 1963-1967) .

  Published in 2007 by Barnes & Noble Classics with new Introduction,

  Notes, Biography, Chronology, Inspired By, Comments & Questions,

  and For Further Reading.

  Introduction, Commentaries on the Tales, and For Further Reading

  Copyright © 2007 by Jack Zipes.

  Note on Hans Christian Andersen, The World of Hans Christian Andersen

  and his Fairy Tales, Textual Annotations, Inspired by Andersen’s Fairy Tales,

  Comments & Questions, and Marte Hvam Hult’s Original

  Translation of Andersen’s Fairy Tales

  Copyright © 2007 by Barnes & Noble, Inc.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or

  transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including

  photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without

  the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Barnes & Noble Classics and the Barnes & Noble Classics

  colophon are trademarks of Barnes & Noble, Inc.

  Fairy Tales

  ISBN-13: 978-1-59308-260-4 ISBN-10: 1-59308-260-6

  eISBN : 978-1-411-43216-1

  LC Control Number 2006925199

  Produced and published in conjunction with:

  Fine Creative Media, Inc.

  322 Eighth Avenue

  New York, NY 10001

  Michael J. Fine, President and Publisher

  Printed in the United States of America

  QM

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  Hans Christian Andersen

  The future author of the classic stories “The Ugly Duckling,” “The Little Mermaid,” and “The Red Shoes,” Hans Christian Andersen was born on April 2, 1805, into humble circumstances in the Danish city of Odense. His father, Hans Andersen, was an impoverished cobbler who had taught himself to read and write; his mother, illiterate and superstitious, worked as a washerwoman and died an alcoholic. From an early age, Hans shared his father’s love of the theater. When Hans was a boy, he and his father built a puppet theater, where Hans would enact dramas of his own invention. Desperate for money, in 1812 Hans Andersen Sr. was paid to take another man’s place in the army of Denmark, allied with the French in the Napoleonic Wars. When he returned home, he was sick and suffering from an illness that would prove fatal in 1816. Before his mother remarried, young Hans worked in a factory, but the family’s economic woes continued.

  In 1819 Hans—fourteen years old and with little education, but endowed with a remarkable singing voice and a gift for performance—left Odense to seek his fortune in Copenhagen as a singer, dancer, or actor. Through his talents and ambition, as well as a certain audacity, he attracted wealthy patrons who arranged singing lessons and a small stipend for him. In 1820 he joined the choir of the Royal Theater, one of whose directors, Jonas Collin, had Hans sent to a private school in Slagelse, 50 miles from Copenhagen. When he returned to the city in 1827, he maintained his relationship with Collin, became a frequent dinner guest at the homes of the city’s elite, and blossomed as a writer. His first poem, “The Dying Child,” appeared in 1827, and two years later he published a travel sketch in the style of German Romantic writer E. T. A. Hoffmann, who had a great influence on him.

  In 1833 and 1834 Andersen visited France, Switzerland, and Italy, where he set his first successful novel, The Improvisatore (1835). He began writing fairy tales in the folk tradition and published them as Fairy Tales Told for Children ( 1835) , a volume that included “The Princess on the Pea” and “Little Claus and Big Claus.” The same year he produced a second installment of stories including “Thumbelina.” Thereafter, for the rest of his life he published a new volume of tales every year or two. Among the best known are “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” “The Steadfast Tin Soldier,” “The Nightingale,” and “The Little Match Girl.” He also published several travelogues, dozens of plays, six novels, and three autobiographies.

  For inspiration, Andersen drew on the people he knew as well as on traditional folk tales. His unique style—his inventive, entertaining stories appeal to children and adults alike—at—tracted many admirers, including the Danish king, who, when Andersen was a young man, granted him a royal annuity. Andersen was an international celebrity, and the royalties from his books made him wealthy. An avid traveler, he made frequent sojourns throughout Europe, most frequently to the cultured city of Weimar, Germany. Hans Christian Andersen died on August 4, 1875, in Copenhagen.

  The World of Hans Christian Andersen and His Fairy Tales

  1805 Hans Christian Andersen is born on April 2, in the Danish city of Odense. His father, Hans Andersen, is a cobbler ; his mother, Anne Marie Andersdatter, works as a washerwoman.

  1812 Hans Andersen Sr. leaves his family to serve in the Danish army at a time when Denmark is an ally of Napoleon. Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm publish the first volume of Children ’s and Household Tales.

  1813 Danish philosopher and theologian Søren Kierkegaard is born.

  1814 Hans Andersen Sr. returns to Odense, suffering from an illness contracted while he was in the army. Denmark cedes control of Norway to Sweden.

  1815 The Grimm brothers publish the second volume of Children’s and Household Tales.

  1816 Hans Andersen Sr. dies. Young Hans takes a factory job to help support the household.

  1818 Anne Marie remarries, but the family’s financial situation does not improve. Endowed with an exceptional singing voice, Hans earns money singing in the salons of the town’s educated middle class.

  1819 Young Hans leaves Odense and travels to Denmark’s capital, Copenhagen, where he pursues a career as a singer, dancer, and actor. He solicits leading figures in the city’s arts establishment before winning the patronage of composer C. E. F. Weyse, among others; he is provided with singing lessons and a small stipend.

  1820 His stipend depleted, a desperate Andersen joins Copenhagen’s Royal Theater choir and lands several minor roles with the company.

  1822 A play written by Andersen is rejected by the theater. With the help of one of the theater’s directors, Jonas Collin, Andersen obtains a scholarship that allows him to attend a private school in Slagelse, 50 miles from Copenhagen. The Grimms publish a third volume of Children’s and Household Tales. German Romantic author E. T. A. Hoffmann dies.

  1827 Returning to Copenhagen and still under the patronage of Jonas Collin, Andersen begins dining with the cultured families of the cosmopolitan city and develops a lifelong friendship with his patron’s son, Edvard Collin. He publishes his first work, a poem called “The Dying Child.”

  1829 Andersen passes entrance exams for the University of Copenhagen but does not enroll. He publishes his first book, A Walking Tour from the Holmen Canal to the Eastern Point of Amager. His first play, Love at
St. Nicholas Tower, is performed at the Royal Theater.

  1831 He makes his first major trip to Germany and meets many important authors and writers, including Ludwig Tieck, a German writer of fairy tales.

  1832 Andersen writes The Book of My Life, the first of three autobiographies he will produce; it will not be published until 1926. The second part of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Faust is published posthumously.

  1833 Andersen’s mother, overcome by alcoholism, dies. During this year and the next, Andersen travels to Germany, Paris, Switzerland, and Italy. Slavery is abolished in the British Empire.

  1835 The Improvisatore, an autobiographical novel set in Italy, is so successful that it is immediately published in German . Andersen’s first booklet of fairy tales, Fairy Tales Told for Children, is published in May; the volume includes “The Tinderbox,” “Little Claus and Big Claus,” and “The Princess on the Pea.” In December he publishes a second booklet of Fairy Tales that includes “Thumbelina” and “The Naughty Boy.” American novelist

  1836 Andersen’s second autobiographical novel, O. T.: Life in Denmark, is published. Charles Dickens’s The Pickwick Papers begins to be published in monthly installments.

  1837 A third booklet of Andersen’s Fairy Tales is published, this one containing “The Little Mermaid” and “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” A third autobiographical novel, Only a Fiddler, is published.

  1838 The King of Denmark awards Andersen an annual grant that allows him to concentrate on writing. He publishes the first booklet of a new collection of Fairy Tales Told for Children that includes “The Steadfast Tin Soldier” and “The Wild Swans.” Dickens’s Oliver Twist is a best-seller in England. Naturalist and artist John James Audubon completes publication of the four volumes of The Birds of America.