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Hans Christian Andersen: The Life Of A StorytellerEditions
Review
It is difficult to make Andersen an interesting figure because of his vanity and physical ineptness: he very quickly seems ridiculous, a sort of literary Inspector Clouseau. But Wullschlager makes sense of him: she allows you to see that he was ridiculous, but she does not lose sight of his work, nor of the fact that many people were fond of him. She is the first to have made use of Andersen’s diaries, and from these it is plain that he was gay. He emerges in these pages as a neurotic old queen, a convincing and altogether more sympathetic portrait than the weird creature we have heard about till now. The book also gives a wonderful sidelong portrait of nineteenth century Europe. - review by Johnny de Falbe |
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John Sandoe [Books] Ltd |
This is by far the best biography of Hans Christian Andersen that has been written, and it is fascinating. He is such a strange figure: a shambling, gangling, oaf who wrote some of the most enduring works of his age. Born a virtual pauper, his life story (as he constantly reminded anyone who cared to listen) was like one of his fairy tales. After forcing himself on the attention of those with influence, he was eventually given a grant to attend school – which he did, in his twenties, among schoolfellows 10 years younger. Always convinced of his destiny, he only began writing fairy stories after a few failed novels etc. These were moderately successful in Denmark, but won him international fame and, eventually, the fame at home that he craved.
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