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Hans Christian Andersen

Hans Christian Andersen : a new life

On the 200th anniversary of his birth, a new biography of the much-loved children's author, Hans Christian Andersen Hans Christian Andersen was a storyteller for children of all ages, but he was more than that. 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. This startling and immensely readable, definitive new biography by Danish scholar Jens Andersen is essential to a full understanding of the man whose writing has influenced the lives of readers young and old for centuries. Jens Andersen sheds brilliant new light on Hans Christian Andersen's writings and on the writer whose own life had many aspects of the fairytale. Like some of the memorable characters he created, Andersen grew up in miserable and impoverished circumstances. He later propagated myths about his life and family, but this new biography uncovers much about this man that has never been revealed before.Hans Christian Andersen was a storyteller for children of all ages, but he was also a critical journalist with great enthusiasm for science; an existential thinker; a travel writer; a passionate novelist; a paper cut-out artist; a neurotic hypochondriac; and a man with intense, but frustrated sexual desires. Andersen propagated myths about his life, but this new biography uncovers much about this man that has never been revealed before. This startling and immensely readable, definitive new biography, by Danish scholar Jens Andersen, is essential to a full understanding of the man whose writing has influenced the lives of readers young and old for centuries.

Hans Christian Andersen [videorecording]

Hans Christian Andersen, a young Danish cobbler with a special gift of storytelling, weaves his tales of magic for the children of Copenhagen.

Fairy tales, fables, folklore and trickster tales