Review by Choice Review
Wullschlager's painstaking and wide-ranging search for the real Hans Christian Andersen follows the great storyteller through friendships and romances, foreign lands, and literary genres in a vivid narrative that deserves wide readership. The meeting of Andersen and story form was providential in terms of time. From Heine to Jenny Lind, Bjrrnson, and the Brownings, the cast of figures who met Andersen reads like a who's who of 19th-century greats. Landscapes and cities and villages in Denmark, France, Germany, and Italy rise up before the reader's eyes as Andersen pushes on from place to place. The mixture of triumph, pathos, and comedy of Andersen in society is no better seen than in London in the care of Dickens. The circle of Northern Europeans drawn to Italy and the effect of Naples on Andersen's creative spirit make rich reading. Wullschlager is good at the quick character sketch; she picks the exact bit of dialogue to crystallize a scene. Ample quotation helps explain the magic, but the author's own prose works too. In her analysis of Andersen's conflicted soul, however, some may find the psychiatry tentative. Recommended for all general and academic collections. J. G. Holland Davidson College
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
It is a truism of literary history that the Danish inventor of modern children's literature was the prototype of his most famous creation, the ugly duckling. The gawky, effeminate, only son of a depressive father who died young and an illiterate mother, Andersen came out of more impoverished circumstances than did any other giant of world literature. Moreover, he retained peasantlike gaucheness, servility toward authority, and feelings of social inferiority throughout his life. Balancing such qualities was an irrepressible drive to entertain. As a boy, Andersen, a naturally gifted singer, extemporized songs and dramatic contexts for them and presented himself before prospective patrons. He succeeded often enough to eventually be given a grant to start school at 17, a full six years older than his classmates. Success followed success, especially when he started to write fairy tales, at first based on folktales and Romantic literary precedents but eventually as original in matter as they were in manner. Throwing "proper" written grammar to the winds, Andersen strove to write as if he were speaking to children while being heard by adults. So doing, he became an acknowledged great writer, the peer of his friend Dickens, within his lifetime. So much for the ugly duckling part of the scenario. Writing with a scholar's authority, a critic's perspicacity, a fan's enthusiasm, and an artist's skill, Wullschlager argues that Andersen's many neuroses and his bisexuality, which drove him repeatedly to simultaneously court a man and a woman, often brother and sister, influenced his stories as much as his rags-to-riches success. Fascinating is too mild a word for this gripping biography. --Ray Olson
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Andersen (1805-1875) and his work receive perceptive and uncondescending treatment from Financial Times arts critic Wullschlager (Inventing Wonderland). In his autobiographies (and autobiographical novels), Andersen portrayed his life as a Danish Horatio Alger story, "the poor shoemaker and washerwoman's son" who rose to international prominence through a talent for storytelling. While that summary is accurate enough in itself, that talent for storytelling led him to embellish some details, such as family stories about aristocratic connections, while obscuring others, particularly his unrequited attachments to the Swedish opera singer Jenny Lind and a series of stern and serious Copenhagen gentlemen. Gauche and gawky, self-absorbed and self-pitying, Andersen nonetheless had his own personal charm and could hold audiences spellbound at his readings. As one of the first Danish writers with an international reputation, he parlayed his fame into visits with assorted German princes and the likes of Franz Liszt and Charles Dickens. Wullschlager gives a colorful travelogue of his restless journeys in Italy, France and England and contrasts them with his upbringing and adulthood in the parochial Denmark, which, as Wullschlager notes, felt stifling to his romantic temperament. Yet he could work only in his homeland and needed its praise to the end of his life. That praise usually was for him as a children's author, but Wullschlager also reads into the adult themes and artistry of The Little Mermaid and The Snow Queen, as well as Andersens's adult novels, giving him full credit as a real, adult person. 24 pages of photos. (May 3) Forecast: Favorable reviews might convince literary readers that the life of an author of fairy tales is worth their time. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Danish author Hans Christian Andersen was one of the greatest fairy-tale writers of all time, with stories like "The Ugly Duckling," "The Emperor's New Clothes," and "The Tin Soldier" defining him as an all-time great in the world of children's literature. Wullschlager, a literary critic and European arts correspondent for the Financial Times, has written the first major biography of this consummate storyteller. She shatters what has become the standard image of the author as a "sweet-natured, pathetic entertainer." In fact, Andersen lived a difficult life and never found real satisfaction with his success. Wullschlager succeeds brilliantly at portraying Andersen's inner mind and uncovering his hopes and fears and details the historical context that served to produce such a grand body of literature. Relying on letters, diaries, and original German and Danish accounts, Wullschlager has written a biography that will be a standard study for years to come. Recommended for all libraries. Ron Ratliff, Kansas State Univ., Manhattan (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A well-researched biography of the famed childrens author, by Financial Times critic Wullschlager (Inventing Wonderland, 1995). Born to a poor washerwoman and a young shoemaker in tiny Odense, Denmark, in 1805, Andersen was an effeminate, unattractive boy who left home at 14 to seek fame on the stage in Copenhagen. Unsuccessful as an actor, he managed to find a wealthy patron who provided for his education and helped launch his writing career. He made little mark as an author until 1835, when he turned to the fairy tales that would ultimately bring him fame. Drawing heavily on Andersens diaries and correspondence, Wullschlager paints a revealing portrait: an over-sensitive and essentially child-like man who was conflicted about his ambiguous sexuality and haunted by his humble origins. Especially interesting is Andersens complicated relationship with his primary audience; he wrote for adults and was annoyed that the public looked upon him as a childrens author. Andersen traveled widely, and the accounts of his visits are a source of some humor (and a fair amount of insight): he was once introduced to fellow childrens author Jakob Grimm (who had never heard of him), and was received as a London houseguest by Charles Dickens (who subsequently pinned up the note, Hans Andersen slept in this room for five weekswhich seemed to the family AGES!). A popular but lonely man, Andersen left his entire estate to a lifelong unrequited love, and among the hundreds who attended his funeral there was apparently not a single blood relative. A solid and worthwhile biography. (24 b&w photos) Readers Subscription featured selection
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Review by Choice Review
Review by Booklist Review
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
