Wow, I love researching for these posts and finding out all sorts of crazy things I might never have known otherwise. For example, Hans Christian Andersen may have royal heritage, as a child he suffered through school and worked as an apprentice for a weaver and then a tailor. While attending college he lived with a schoolmaster where he was beaten "to improve his character" and discouraged from writing in general. They were the most bitter years of his life and he went through a phase of severe depression. Despite this difficult beginning, he went on writing anyway, and in addition to the Fairy Tales he is well known for, he also wrote several novels. As a young adult he received a "travel grant" from the King (how do I get my hands on one of those?) and many of his travels inspired his writing and sketches. But though his professional life was successful, his private life was a little disappointing. He fell in love with many women (and a few men) but never married or had children. At the age of 67 he fell out of bed and never fully recovered, and died 3 years later.
All of this is kind of depressing, and not at all what I thought I would find when I started doing my research. I'm interested in reading some of his serious work, especially about his travels, which apparently contain excerpts about being an author, immortality, and fiction in travel reporting. I also discovered there's a BBC miniseries called "Hans Christian Andersen... My Life as a Fairytale," has anyone seen this? It's kind of an interesting title considering his life was anything but.
Perhaps it is because he had such a bitter, depressing, romantically unfulfilled life that he retreated so often to this make-believe world. Who would have thought that a man such as him would bring to life such beautiful and enchanting stories as "Thumbelina," "The Little Mermaid," "The Princess and the Pea," "The Steadfast Tin Soldier," "The Emporers New Clothes," and "The Ugly Duckling?"
And more importantly, what do these stories teach us about life? That we must value ourselves despite our circumstances, that each of us is unique and there is beauty in that, that we shouldn't worry too much about what others think of us, and that each of us has a story to tell.
"Life itself is the most wonderful fairy tale." - Hans Christian Andersen
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