He Wrote for the Children

In today's world of high-tech, various media, and instant communication, anyone can be a published writer. Quality doesn't matter, it seems. And everyone tries it. It doesn't matter if they have any talent or imagination or expertise in any particular subject or field or even any semblance of command of the language. Everyone has access to the means of communicating; therefore, they think they must. So they write, producing unmemorable tripe that is forgotten as soon as it's read--it it is read at all.

But writing that lasts over time, writing that makes an impact and influences readers, is rare. One generally has to look to writers of the past to find exemplary writing of that sort.

Hans Christian Anderson

One such author is Hans Christian Anderson. You've no doubt heard of him and some of his works. You've read, or had read to you as a child, some of his stories because he wrote primarily for children. And his writing has lasted for generations.

Sadly, the current generation has been prevented from becoming familiar with Anderson's writing because it hasn't been emphasized, eclipsed by the modern tripe. Also, parents have tended to read to their children less than earlier generations did. And children tend not to read as much themselves, preferring to spend their time watching TV, playing video games, or spending time on social media.

Andersons writing, however, was once widely read, told and retold for generations. They once were well known, entertained thousands of children, and were remembered and retold by them for years after they reached adulthood.

Hans Christian Anderson was born on April 2, 1805, in Odense, Denmark. When he was 14, his family moved to Copenhagen, where he lived for the next three years. He made his debut as a writer in 1822, when he published Youthful Attempts using the pseudonym William Christian Walter.

Anderson's Fairy Tales

Although those earliest literary efforts were largely unsuccessful, Anderson was persistent and prolific (he wrote more than 168 stories), and success and fame soon came to him. On this date in 1835, his first collection of writings for which he is best known today, children's fairy tales, was published. The collection was titled Fairy Tales, Told for Children.

Anderson's writings were discovered in America by editor, publisher, and translator Horace Elisha Scudder, who published many of them in The Riverside Magazine for Young People. Included among Anderson's fairy tales are these now-famous and much-loved stories:

• "Thumbelina,"

• "The Little Mermaid,"

• "The Emperor's New Clothes,"

• "The Ugly Duckling,"

• "The Nightingale," and

• "The Snow Queen."

  
  

Perhaps you have read some of them yourself, or read them to your children.

Despite the heavy writing schedule that allowed him to be so prolific, Anderson found time for a lot of world travel. He visited such places as Germany, Austria, Sweden, Italy, Greece, Constantinople, Prussia, Switzerland, Bavaria, Spain, Morocco, Paris, Amsterdam, Holland, Norway, and the Riviera.

During those travels, he met a number of famous people. They included authors: Victor Hugo, Charles Dickens (twice), and Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Others were composers and musicians: Felix Mendelssohn, Franz Liszt, Richard Wagner, Edvard Grieg, and Johannes Brahms. And still others were royalty: King Christian VII of Denmark, King Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia, King Oscar I of Sweden, and King Maximilian of Bavaria.

Jenny Lind, the "Swedish nightingale" and the love and inspiration of Hans Christian Anderson

But meeting none of those iconic people so inspired Anderson's writing as did his meeting one woman, a woman with whom he fell in love. He met Jenny Lind, the world-famous Swedish opera singer, who was known as the Swedish Nightingale. Lind, however, regarded her relationship with Anderson as being merely that of a friend and brother, not as a suitor. So infatuated with Lind was Anderson that, despite the fact that his love was not reciprocated, his thoughts of her inspired his stories "The Nightingale" and "The Snow Queen." Such is the power a woman can have over a writer.

Anderson died on August 4, 1875, in Copenhagen, but his tales live on.