Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875)

Our tour of Scandinavian authors finished its current round in Denmark with the Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875).

The library staff put special effort into finding full translations of his stories for children, rather than heavily edited versions.

Most of us chose a lightly edited version because it had illustrations by Edward Ardizzone, though the general consensus was that the Penguin/ Puffin Classics editions contained the best translation.

Reading these stories prompted a lot of childhood memories of reading the Ladybird versions of his stories, with their short text and bright illustrations (proving that the narrative pull of his tales was as strong as his elegant turn of phrase). While some readers were defeated by his longer stories, other counted The Snow Queen and the Wild Swans as childhood favourites.

Some of the books were illustrated with Andersen's own beautiful paper-cut art - a talent with which he would entertain people at cosmopolitan literary gatherings, as he never fully mastered the English language.

Andersen's retelling of traditional tales and his own original stories have captivated and inspired people for many generations. It's worth getting your hands on a good translation to read his original descriptive, evocative texts.

Scandinavian Children's Literature

What the Scandinavians Know about Children's Literature

First broadcast: BBC Radio 4, 26 Mar 2012

Duration:28 minutes
 

From the super-human strength of Pippy Longstocking by Swedish author Astrid Lindgren to the strange Finnish animals dreamt up by Tove Jansson in the Moomin stories, and the anarchic Wild Baby created by Barbro Lindgren and Eva Eriksson, Scandinavian children's literature 'punches above its weight' in terms of worldwide sales.  Why is that, and why does it have a particularly unique voice?

 

It began with probably the best known storyteller for children - Hans Christian Andersen - and continued with the work of Elsa Beskow, the Swedish Beatrix Potter.  It's still alive today in the books of authors like Gro Dahle.

According to Professor Maria Nikolajeva, a senior editor for the Oxford Encyclopaedia of Children's Literature, Scandinavian books are not rooted in the world of fantasy, like other children's stories, but are often grounded in a slightly skewed reality in which the childlike characters exhibit 'magical' talents. She claims that the Scandinavian culture of respect for the child, the history of the region and those long winters have all had a profound effect on the character of its literature.