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HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN (1805-1875)

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Originally appearing in Volume V01, Page 959 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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HANS See also:

CHRISTIAN See also:ANDERSEN (1805-1875)  , Danish poet and fabulist, was See also:born at See also:Odense, in Funen, on the and of See also:April 1805 . He was the son of a sickly See also:young shoemaker of twenty-two, and his still younger wife: the whole See also:family lived and slept in one little See also:room . See also:Andersen very See also:early showed signs of imaginative temperament, which was fostered by the See also:indulgence and superstition of his parents . In 1816 the See also:shoe-maker died and the See also:child was See also:left entirely to his own devices . He ceased to go to school; he built himself a little See also:toy-See also:theatre and sat at See also:home making clothes for his puppets, and See also:reading all the plays that he could See also:borrow; among them were those of See also:Holberg and See also:Shakespeare . At See also:Easter 1819 he was confirmed at the See also:church of St Kund, Odense, and began to turn his thoughts to the future . It was thought that he was best fitted to be a tailor; but as nothing was settled, and as Andersen wished to be an See also:opera-See also:singer, he took matters into his own See also:hand and started for See also:Copenhagen in See also:September 1819 . There he was taken for a lunatic, snubbed at the theatres, and nearly reduced to See also:starvation, but he was befriended by the musicians Christoph Weyse and Siboni, and afterwards by the poet Frederik Hoegh Guldberg (1771-1852) . His See also:voice failed, but he was admitted as a dancing See also:pupil at the Royal Theatre . He See also:grew idle, and lost the favour of Guldberg, but a new See also:patron appeared in the See also:person of See also:Jonas See also:Collin, the director of the Royal Theatre, who became Andersen's See also:life-See also:long friend . See also:King See also:Frederick VI. was interested in the See also:strange boy and sent him for some years, See also:free of See also:charge, to the See also:great See also:grammar-school at Slagelse . Before he started for school he published his first See also:volume, The See also:Ghost at Palnatoke's See also:Grave (1822) .

Andersen, a very backward and unwilling pupil, actually remained at Slagelse and at another school in See also:

Elsinore until 1827; these years, he says, were the darkest and bitterest in his life . Collin at length consented to consider him educated, and Andersen came to Copenhagen . In 1829 he made a considerable success with a fantastic volume entitled A See also:Journey on See also:Foot from See also:Holman's See also:Canal to the See also:East Point of Amager, and he published in the same See also:season a See also:farce and a See also:book of poems . He thus suddenly came into See also:request at the moment when his See also:friends had decided that no See also:good thing would ever come out of his early eccentricity and vivacity . He made little further progress, however, until 1833, when he received a small travel-See also:ling See also:stipend from the king, and made the first of his long See also:European journeys . At Le See also:Locle, in the See also:Jura, he wrote Agnate and the Merman; and in See also:October 1834 he arrived in See also:Rome . Early in 1835 Andersen's novel, The See also:Improvisatore, appeared, and achieved a real success; the poet's troubles were at an end at last . In the same See also:year, 1835, the earliest See also:instalment of Andersen's immortal See also:Fairy Tales (Eventyr) was published in Copenhagen . Other parts, completing the first volume, appeared in 1836 and 1837 . The value of these stories was not at first perceived, and they sold slowly . Andersen was more successful for the See also:time being with a novel, O.T., and a volume of sketches, In See also:Sweden; in 1837 he produced the best of his romances, Only a Fiddler . He now turned his See also:attention, with but ephemeral success, to the theatre, but was recalled to his true See also:genius in the charming miscellanies of 1840 and 1842, the Picture-Book without Pictures, and A Poet's See also:Bazaar .

Meanwhile the fame of his Fairy Tales had been steadily rising; a second See also:

series began in 1838, a third in 1845 . Andersen was now celebrated throughout See also:Europe, although in See also:Denmark itself there was still some resistance to his pretensions . In See also:June 1847 he paid his first visit to See also:England, and enjoyed a triumphal social success; when he left, See also:Charles See also:Dickens saw him off from . See also:Ramsgate See also:pier . After this Andersen continued to publish much; he still desired to excel as a novelist and a dramatist, which he could not do, and he still disdained the enchanting Fairy Tales, in the See also:composition of which his unique genius See also:lay . Nevertheless he continued to write them, and in 1847 and 1848 two fresh volumes appeared . After a long silence Andersen published in 18J7 another See also:romance, To be or not to be . In 1863, after a very interesting journey, he issued one of the best of his travel-books, In See also:Spain . His Fairy Tales continued to appear, in instalments, until 1872, when, at See also:Christmas, the last stories were published . In the See also:spring of that year Andersen had an awkward See also:accident, falling out of See also:bed and severely hurting himself . He was never again quite well, but he lived till the 4th of See also:August 1875, when he died very peacefully in the See also:house called Rolighed, near Copenhagen . (E .

End of Article: HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN (1805-1875)
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