[2] They have become embedded in Western collective consciousness, accessible to children as well as presenting lessons of virtue and resilience in the face of adversity for mature readers.

[3] His most famous fairy tales include "The Emperor's New Clothes", "The Little Mermaid", "The Nightingale", "The Steadfast Tin Soldier", "The Red Shoes", "The Princess and the Pea", "The Snow Queen", "The Ugly Duckling", "The Little Match Girl", and "Thumbelina."

Danish historian Jens Jørgensen supported this idea in his book H.C. Andersen, en sand myte [a true myth].

According to his birth certificate, which was not drafted until November 1823, six godparents were present at the baptism ceremony: Madam Sille Marie Breineberg, Maiden Friederiche Pommer, shoemaker Peder Waltersdorff, journeyman carpenter Anders Jørgensen, hospital porter Nicolas Gomard, and royal hatter Jens Henrichsen Dorch.

[citation needed] Andersen's father, who had received an elementary school education, introduced his son to literature, reading him Arabian Nights.

[9] Andersen was sent to a local school for poor children where he received a basic education and had to support himself, working as an apprentice to a weaver and, later, to a tailor.

[13] In 1829, Andersen enjoyed considerable success with the short story "A Journey on Foot from Holmen's Canal to the East Point of Amager."

The same year, he spent an evening in the Italian seaside village of Sestri Levante, which inspired the title of "The Bay of Fables.

His travels in Italy were reflected in his first novel, a fictionalized autobiography titled The Improvisatore (Improvisatoren), published in 1835 to instant acclaim.

"The Naughty Boy" was based on a poem about Eros from the Anacreontea, and "The Traveling Companion" was a ghost story Andersen had experimented with in the year 1830.

[19] The only other tale in the third booklet was "The Emperor's New Clothes", which was based on a medieval Spanish story with Arab and Jewish origins.

The critics disliked the chatty, informal style and apparent immorality, since children's literature was meant to educate rather than to amuse.

Andersen believed that he was working against the critics' preconceived notions about fairy tales, and he temporarily returned to novel-writing, waiting a full year before publishing his third installment.

A keen traveler, he published several other long travelogues: Shadow Pictures of a Journey to the Harz, Swiss Saxony, etc.

Each of Andersen's travelogues combines documentary and descriptive accounts of his experiences, adding additional philosophical passages on topics such as authorship, immortality, and fiction in literary travel reports.

"[26] The two authors respected each other's work and each other as writers, and had in common their depictions of the underclass, who often led difficult lives affected both by the Industrial Revolution and by abject poverty.

[26] It is suspected that Dickens modelled the physical appearance and mannerisms of Uriah Heep from David Copperfield after Andersen.

[28][29] Andersen experienced homosexual attraction;[30] he wrote to Edvard Collin:[31] "I languish for you as for a pretty Calabrian wench ... my sentiments for you are those of a woman.

Jackie Wullschlager's biography maintains he was possibly lovers with Danish dancer Harald Scharff [da][34] and Andersen's "The Snowman" was inspired by their relationship.

[37] Wullschlager asserts that in the winter of 1861–62, the two men entered an affair that brought Andersen "joy, some kind of sexual fulfillment, and a temporary end to loneliness.

"[40] He took this calmly and the two thereafter met in overlapping social circles without bitterness, though Andersen attempted to rekindle their relationship many times without success.

They state: it is correct to point to the very ambivalent (and also very traumatic) elements in Andersen's emotional life concerning the sexual sphere, but it is decidedly just as wrong to describe him as homosexual and maintain that he had physical relationships with men.

[49] Andersen died on 4 August 1875 at the age of 70 in a country house called Rolighed (literally: calmness) near Copenhagen, the home of his close friends, the banker Moritz G. Melchior and his wife.

[49] Shortly before his death, Andersen consulted a composer about the music for his funeral, saying: "Most of the people who will walk after me will be children, so make the beat keep time with little steps.

In 1914, the headstone was moved to another cemetery (today known as "Frederiksbergs ældre kirkegaard"), where younger Collin family members were buried.

[50] At the time of his death, Andersen was internationally revered, and the Danish government paid him an annual stipend for being a "national treasure.

"[51] Andersen's stories laid the groundwork for other children's classics, such as The Wind in the Willows (1908) by Kenneth Grahame and Winnie-the-Pooh (1926) by A.

The trope of inanimate objects, such as toys, coming to life (as in "Little Ida's Flowers") would later also be used by Lewis Carroll and Beatrix Potter.