Hans Christian Andersen: His Life, His Tales and Which to Read at Bedtime

Hans Christian Andersen (1805–1875) was a Danish writer who wrote more than 150 fairy tales and stories, among them The Ugly Duckling, The Little Mermaid, The Emperor's New Clothes and The Little Match Girl. Unlike the Brothers Grimm, who collected folk tales, Andersen made up most of his own, and many of them end sadly. Below is a short account of his life, what sets his stories apart, and how the eight Andersen tales on Story Voice work at bedtime, sad endings included. All eight are free to read and listen to, in English and Chinese, with no sign-up.

Who was Hans Christian Andersen?

Andersen was born on April 2, 1805, in Odense, a town on the Danish island of Funen. His family was poor. His father was a shoemaker who loved books and plays and shared them with his son; his mother worked as a washerwoman. His father died in 1816, when Hans Christian was 11.

In 1819, at 14, he left for Copenhagen, hoping for a life on the stage. He didn't make it as a singer, dancer or actor, but he caught the attention of people at the Royal Theatre. One of its directors, Jonas Collin, helped arrange for him to go back to school, and Andersen went on to write novels, plays, poems and travel books.

His first booklet of fairy tales came out on May 8, 1835. It held four short tales: The Tinderbox, Little Claus and Big Claus, The Princess and the Pea, and Little Ida's Flowers. He kept writing fairy tales for most of the rest of his life, and when he died in Copenhagen on August 4, 1875, he was famous far beyond Denmark.

How many tales did he write? It depends on what you count as a fairy tale. The figure most often quoted is 156, and lists that take in all of his shorter stories come out higher, so "more than 150" is the safe answer. His tales have been translated into more than a hundred languages. International Children's Book Day is held on his birthday, April 2, and the Hans Christian Andersen Award, given by the International Board on Books for Young People, carries his name.

What makes Andersen's fairy tales different

He wrote them himself

The Grimms wrote down stories people already told. Andersen borrowed a few plots: some of his earliest tales, like The Tinderbox, came from folk tales he heard as a child, and The Emperor's New Clothes came from a medieval Spanish story by Juan Manuel. But most of his tales are his own inventions, so they share one voice: chatty, funny, and full of little asides to the reader.

Toys and everyday things have feelings

A tin soldier falls in love with a paper dancer. A fir tree can't wait to grow up. A darning needle is vain about how fine she is. Andersen gave inner lives to toys, plants and household objects, which is a big part of why children take to him.

Not every story ends happily

This is the difference parents notice first. The Little Match Girl dies in the cold on New Year's Eve. The Steadfast Tin Soldier melts in a stove. The Little Mermaid doesn't win her prince. Andersen wrote for adults as well as children, and he didn't treat "happily ever after" as a rule. Many of his endings turn on kindness, courage or faith instead, and in the originals several close with a religious image, such as the match girl's grandmother carrying her up to God.

The 8 Andersen stories on our site, by bedtime fit

Each of these is our own retelling, written in short, plain English sentences and in Chinese. The English narration takes 2 to 3 minutes, the Mandarin narration 4 to 7.

Easy choices for most nights

The Princess and the Pea (1835, ages 3–7) was in Andersen's very first booklet. A queen hides one pea under twenty mattresses to test a rain-soaked girl who says she is a real princess. It's the shortest of the eight, about 2 minutes in English, and it ends on a joke: the pea went into a museum, and you can still see it there, "if nobody has taken it."

Thumbelina (1835, ages 3–7) is about a girl no bigger than a thumb who is born from a flower. A toad carries her off, a mole nearly marries her, and she nurses a frozen swallow back to life. In spring the swallow flies her to a land of flowers. We shortened some of her adventures and left out the epilogue, where she is renamed Maia and the swallow tells the story to a man who writes fairy tales.

The Ugly Duckling (1843, ages 3–7) has a hard middle: the duckling is mocked and spends a long winter alone. But the ending is one of Andersen's happiest. In spring he bends his head to the water and sees a swan. We left out the hunters shooting wild geese and the farmer's wife chasing him with fire tongs.

The Emperor's New Clothes (1837, ages 4–8) is a comedy. Two tricksters sell an emperor cloth that fools can't see, nobody dares to admit they see nothing, and a child finally says it out loud. The plot and ending follow Andersen.

Better with a parent close by

The Wild Swans (1838, ages 5–9) is long and tense. A wicked queen turns eleven princes into swans, and their sister Elisa can only break the spell by making shirts from stinging nettles without saying a word. In the original she is condemned as a witch and is about to be burned; in ours the townspeople only want to punish her. It ends well: the shirts turn her brothers back into princes, and the wood in the square grows into roses.

The Little Mermaid (1837, ages 5–9) is bittersweet, and quite different from the Disney film. The mermaid gives up her voice for legs, and the prince marries someone else. Her sisters bring her a knife: hurt the prince before sunrise and she can come home. She throws the knife into the sea, and instead of turning into foam she rises up as one of the "daughters of the air." In the original the sea witch cuts out her tongue; in ours she simply gives up her voice. Our page suggests telling it over two nights.

Sad endings: choose the night

The Steadfast Tin Soldier (1838, ages 5–9) follows a one-legged toy soldier who falls out of a window, rides a paper boat, is swallowed by a fish and comes home again to the paper dancer he loves. Then a boy throws him into the stove, a gust of wind blows the dancer in after him, and all that's left in the morning is a little tin heart and her flower, burned black.

The Little Match Girl (1845, ages 5–9) is the saddest of the eight. On New Year's Eve a barefoot girl lights her unsold matches one by one to keep warm and sees a stove, a roast goose, a Christmas tree and, at last, her grandmother. In the morning she is found in the corner, smiling. We kept the ending but told it gently: she "had gone to sleep in the cold night, and she never woke up," and she is "with her grandma, warm at last."

How to handle a sad ending at bedtime

A sad story can still be a good bedtime story. What matters is when and how you read it.

1. Read it earlier the first time. Try a sad story in the afternoon or early evening, not as the last thing before lights out. Once your child knows how it ends, it is easier to hear again at bedtime.
2. Slow down for the last two paragraphs. Lower your voice, finish, then hold your child. Our page for The Little Match Girl suggests telling them that tonight their home is warm and they are safe.
3. Answer plainly. If your child asks "Did she die?", say yes, simply and kindly, in words they understand.
4. Point to what the story leaves behind. The soldier's tin heart and the dancer's flower end up together. The mermaid chose not to hurt anyone. The match girl is with the grandmother who loved her.
5. Follow it with something light. The Princess and the Pea takes about two minutes in English and ends with a joke.
6. Let your child decide. Some children ask for The Little Match Girl again and again; others would rather skip it. Either is fine.

How we retell Andersen

We retell each tale ourselves from Andersen's plots rather than reprinting an existing translation, and we keep the sentences short for young listeners. Where we soften or cut something, the note at the bottom of each story page says what and why.

Every story page has the English text with a native English narration, read in a British storyteller's voice, and the Chinese version with Mandarin narration. Both narrations are AI-generated and labeled as such. As the audio plays, the sentence being read lights up, and you can tap any sentence to start from there. There's also a short list of Chinese words from the story with pinyin, for families who speak or are learning Chinese.

FAQ

How many fairy tales did Hans Christian Andersen write?

More than 150. The number most often quoted is 156, but totals vary depending on which of his shorter stories are counted as fairy tales. He published the first of them in 1835 and kept writing them for most of the rest of his life.

What are Hans Christian Andersen's most famous stories?

The Little Mermaid, The Ugly Duckling, The Emperor's New Clothes, The Little Match Girl, The Princess and the Pea, Thumbelina, The Snow Queen and The Steadfast Tin Soldier are among the best known. A bronze statue of the Little Mermaid has sat by the harbor in Copenhagen since 1913.

Did Hans Christian Andersen write Cinderella or Snow White?

No. Cinderella, Snow White, Little Red Riding Hood and Hansel and Gretel are folk tales collected by the Brothers Grimm, and the Cinderella with a glass slipper and a fairy godmother comes from Charles Perrault's French version of 1697. Our retellings of the Grimm tales are in Grimms' Fairy Tales.

Are Andersen's fairy tales suitable for young children?

Many are. The Princess and the Pea, Thumbelina and The Ugly Duckling work from about age 3. The sad ones, like The Little Match Girl and The Steadfast Tin Soldier, are better from about 5, with a parent reading along. All eight are in our Hans Christian Andersen Fairy Tales collection.