For many years, when the time came to teach Andersen’s fairy tales in my course on children’s literature at Harvard University, I braced myself for a challenging week. My lecture on Andersen lingered over the cruelty of describing a child’s cold corpse lying out in the streets in “The Little Match Girl,” the horrors of the executioner’s ax in “The Red Shoes,” or the merciless torments suffered by Inger in “The Girl Who Trod on the Loaf.” Every year, a phalanx of students, a few of them near tears, routinely rushed the podium after the day’s lecture to report their magical childhood experiences with the fairy tales—experiences that utterly contradicted my analysis of their effects. I grounded my case in philosophical terms, using Michel Foucault’s brilliant study Discipline and Punish; I summoned the child psychologist Alice Miller, who had denounced “black pedagogy” in For Your Own Good, as a witness; and I called to the stand Maurice Sendak, P. L. Travers, Angela Carter, and a host of other distinguished authors who had disapproved of Andersen. To their credit, the students in that class held their ground, rarely conceding a point.
It was, then, with some reluctance that I took up conversations with Bob Weil, at W. W. Norton, about an Annotated Hans Christian Andersen. Few can rival Bob’s powers of persuasion, and before I knew it, I had signed on, despite my reservations about devoting years of my life to an author I did not love. For weeks, I read Andersen, working my way through the 156 tales in R. P. Keigwin’s translation with the quaint, original illustrations to the tales by Vilhelm Pedersen and Lorenz Frølich. I began listening to the Danish originals on tape. I studied the work of Arthur Rackham, Edmund Dulac, Kay Nielsen, and the many other gifted illustrators who had turned to Andersen’s stories to inspire their artwork. And then one day, while rereading “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” I experienced a sudden rush of childhood memories brought on by the description of the Emperor’s clothing: “exquisite” and “light as spiderwebs.” I remembered how that cloth, even though it did not exist, became an object of fascination and longing, kindling my powers of imagination to dream up something as beautiful as the words that Andersen used to describe something invisible. It was then that I began to read Andersen in a different way. And it is now that I can finally report to those students from many years ago that they have made their point.
Julia Lam and Nicole White, two students from my Freshman Seminar on Childhood, contributed in thoughtfully intelligent ways to the annotations, querying, provoking, and rephrasing. The book is much improved from their forays into Widener Library, their finds on the internet, and their enthusiastic support and collaboration, despite their demanding schedules. Annotations for “The Snow Queen” include Julia’s brilliant analysis of the kiss in Andersen and its connective power. Nicole’s investigative energy led to many new discoveries about films, plays, artwork, and books based on Andersen’s tales.
Over the years, I have had the chance to present my thoughts about Andersen and his fairy tales to many audiences, and, each time, I returned to my desk with provocative new ideas and insights. I benefited greatly from conversations—not just about Andersen and fairy tales—with colleagues and remain especially grateful to Sanford Kreisberg, Penelope Laurans, Larry Wolff, Dorrit Cohn, Kate Bernheimer, Homi Bhabha, Susan Bloom, Sue Bottigheimer, Donald Haase, Ellen Handler-Spitz, Michael Patrick Hearn, Casie Hermansson, Perri Klass, Gregory McGuire, Stephen Mitchell, Eric Rentschler, Judith Ryan, Jan Ziolkowski, and Jack Zipes for encouraging and supporting this project.
Archival work at Houghton Library at Harvard University and at the Cotsen Library at Princeton University was always a pleasure, and I am grateful to the staff at both those extraordinary institutions.
Michael Droller generously made his books on Hans Christian Andersen available to me and shared his enthusiasm for the beauty of what he has collected. Most of the illustrations for this volume are drawn from his splendid collection.
As always, Daniel and Lauren Schuker encouraged, vetoed, applauded, and distracted in ways that made what could have been a scholarly and solitary project into a vibrant collaboration.
Bob Weil not only inspired this project but also made sure it got done. I am grateful to him for friendship, advice, and attention to detail. Tom Mayer ably kept me on course, with tactful wisdom, advice, and guidance at every turn.
It was a special pleasure to work with Julie K. Allen, whose deep knowledge of the Danish language and of Denmark’s cultural life enabled a productive collaboration. Her enthusiasm and expertise kept the project alive and on course.
