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This month is the 150th anniversary of Hans Christian Andersen’s death. To mark the occasion, Ash Mowat, a volunteer in our Civic Engagement team, has written this blog post, exploring some of Andersen’s works. What is your favourite Hans Christian Andersen tale?

In this blog we shall be exploring two bound and illustrated edition copies of poems by the celebrated, prolific and beloved author of fairy tales the Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen, held at the University of Edinburgh’s Centre for Research Collections.

Brief biography of Hans Christian Andersen

Andersen (2^nd April 1805 to 4^th August 1875) was born into a modest upbringing, but had been encouraged by his father from an early age to enjoy reading literature.[1] His family situation suffered a tragic loss and further financial decline when his father died when Hans was just aged 11. He received a basic education at a school for poor children until the age of fourteen, and after this initially sought to seek employment in the theatre as an actor or singer, given his artistic talents and interests.

He later returned to more formal education at a grammar school funded by a benefactor of the Royal Danish Theatre in recognition of his talents for writing, especially in the medium of poetry. Andersen would later write record that these later years in education were a miserable time for him in that he was mistreated and discouraged from his favoured ability at creative writing, and also due to the fact that he felt an outsider and misfit due to his family’s poverty. He was also considerably older than the other pupils in his classroom.

He began writing his first stories whilst still at school in the early 1820’s but his first series of fairy tales were published in three volumes between 1835 to 1837. Although initially not very well received critically in Denmark, he would reach success and return to write several more collections of his fairy tales, in addition to authoring novels and travelogues recounting his tours of Europe.

Andersen came to befriend the fellow writer Charles Dickens as they both shared a mutual respect for each other’s work and held similar views on the prevalence and cruelty of poverty, although their friendship later came to an abrupt end to Andersen’s consternation. In his diaries and letters Andersen first wrote of his disinclination to have sexually intimate relationships, then later wrote of his sexual attraction towards men, although the exact nature of his sexual inclinations is uncertain as he was cited as having unrequited attractions for women.

The first booklet of his poetry that I viewed at the University was an illustrated edition of the Ugly Duckling from 1950, that had been created and illustrated by Ann Restall in the Book Production class at the Edinburgh College of Art, with line blocks by Messrs Hislop and Day.[2]

The Ugly Duckling itself was composed by Andersen in 1844, and is one of his most well-known fairy tales which includes many of his recurring themes of feelings of exclusion or the notion of being an outsider or misfit. The location is the countryside in summer and there is a delightful description of the birth of a group of ducklings, each of which are given a voice to articulate their amazement at emerging into life and the expanse of the new environment around them. “Their mother let them look as much as much as they pleased, because green is good for the eyes”, and “how wide the world is”, one of the ducks observes.

The last duckling to emerge is reluctant and also the largest and its mother grows increasingly tired and frustrated at the burden it is placing upon her. When it finally emerges from its shell it is announced as being “frightfully big”. Its mother begins at first to accept the latest arrival but in a series of encounters with other ducks and animals it is repeatedly described in pejorative terms as being ugly, monstrous, ungainly, queer, and mocked and bullied for its strangeness. The impact of the onslaught of these insults affects the ducking so much that it perceives itself as loathsome, unwanted and despised and for those reasons elects to escape and wander on its own. On its travels the duckling encounters a gaggle of Geese who address him as comrade and invite him to join them, only for the geese to be slaughtered by a group of hunters. When the hunter’s dogs’ approach but then ignore the duckling, it remarks “I am so ugly that even the dogs won’t bite me.” As winter approaches, the ducking’s sense of isolation and exclusion are emphasised in the metaphor of the water freezing over to encircle and entrap him. Further such negative encounters follow, but as if to spare the young readers anguish Andersen simply interjects “but it would be too sad to mention all the privations and misery it had to go through during the hard winter.”

With the advent of Spring, relief and hope come to the rescue as the duckling on seeing his reflection realizes that he is in fact a Swan and he is accepted and welcomed into a family of Swans. The final moral to close the story is “he was so happy, but not at all proud; a good heart never becomes proud.” Across the story we hopefully learn not to judge one another on appearance and not to be cruel and unkind. It also reflects some of the author’s own recorded experience of being bullied at school and not fitting in because of his poverty and being much older than his classmates, and because of his own concerns about his appearance, not being conventionally handsome like many male characters in his tales.

(The image above is from the cover of the second bound story “The Emperor’s Nightingale”, printed in the letterpress department of the Heriot-Watt College, designed and illustrated with lino-cuts by Margaret Jean Mackenzie).[3]

“The Emperor’s Nightingale”, or sometimes simply entitled as “The Nightingale”, was first published by Andersen in 1844. It opens with a stunning and immersive description of the grand palace and gardens of the emperor, to help ensure to ensnare young readers or listeners to the tale being read such that they are immediately transported and enchanted from the start.

As lavish as the palace is with its gold and treasures, they are nevertheless lifeless materialistic items and a gaudy and perhaps vulgar display of wealth. Even the gardens, whilst truly beautiful, were carefully manicured into unnaturally ordered designs at the emperor’s instructions, diminishing the true random assortments in which flowers and trees would form in the wild. By contrast the subject of the Nightingale surpasses all the vanity and contrived array of the palace and its grounds, simply by its natural plumage and the sweet melody of its singings which delights all who experience it. Such is the impact of the Nightingale’s song and its enchanting effects, is that people from across the world come to witness it for themselves. Not having heard of even being aware of the bird, the emperor petulantly demands that it be brought before him to sing in his palace, rather than to hear it where it thrives in the forest.

It is the humbler people working on the estate that have heard the Nightingale and know where it lives, and a kitchen maid leads a group to seek it out to bring before the emperor, although she cautions “it sounds best amongst the trees”. The Nightingale agreed to the invitation, perhaps in truth more of a summons, to sing before the emperor in his home, and when he did the emperor wept tears of joy in witnessing its voice.

Still associating true values as being prized objects and not nature or good deeds, the emperor offers the Nightingale a gold slipper to wear around its neck. The Nightingale refuses this ludicrous adornment remarking that it is reward enough that its singing brings pleasure to others. Not having yet learnt his lesson, the emperor orders the construction of a bejewelled mechanical nightingale which became a thing of worship despite its inferior voice, and the real bird returned to its life in the forest.

After some years the emperor fell gravely ill and the toy bird was no help to him. The real nightingale returned to sing again before the emperor and in doing so healed and restored him to full health. The emperor offered to destroy the toy bird and have the nightingale live at his side in the palace. The nightingale instead agreed to visit and sing before the emperor as often as needed but that he must live within the forest as that is his world and without his natural environment his voice would be stilled.

In essence therefore, this tale cautions against the coveting and valuing of material things over nature, love and simple kindness. Andersen wrote frequently of people of royalty and opulence in his fairy tales, and in this instance the emperor has an epiphany to learn that the true wealth is life and not possessions. There is at times some ambivalence in how Andersen chooses to portray people of wealth, perhaps stemming from the conflict between his own impoverished upbringing and the later fact that he benefited from a sponsor to fund his own education.

These two stories are excellent examples of why Andersen’s tales continue to be loved and read, given that in addition to delivering moral messages, they are also engrossing and entertaining so as not to become dry or dogmatic in tone. The artists’ illustrations also help bring the works to light.

(A finely illustrated page from the book depicting the palace at the summit, leading down thought the gardens onto the sea, its muted colours and simplistic lines helping to convey the moral of the story).

I should like to thank my supervisor Laura Beattie (Community Engagement Officer, University of Edinburgh) for her advice, guidance and support, and all the staff at the University of Edinburgh Centre for Research Collections for their kindness and expertise in enabling me to view these items from the archive.

[1] Hans Christian Andersen – Wikipedia

[2] Booklet containing The Ugly Duckling (2 copies), 1950 | University of Edinburgh Archive and Manuscript Collections

[3] https://archives.collections.ed.ac.uk/repositories/2/archival_objects/29433