Hans Christian Andersen (1805-75) died 145 years ago today. He is remembered as master of the fairytale & beloved children’s author. He was also a rather odd potato. So prepare to have your childhoods ruined as I tell you what got this ugly duckling off.
Thread
Thread
Andersen was born into poverty in Odense. His mother was a washerwoman & his father was a shoe maker. An aunt ran a brothel, & his half-sister was a sex worker. There is some suggestion mother also turned to sex work to keep the family afloat.
As a child, Andersen was frequently taunted for his girlish voice and effeminate manner. Even as an adult, he was very awkward. He left to make his fortune in Copenhagen while he was still in his teens.
Andersen died a virgin but threw himself into hopeless, unrequited infatuations with men and women throughout his life. His diary reveals he was in love with Edvard Collin for years. In one letter he wrote...
“My dear Eduard! How often I think of you! How open your soul is to me. I wonder if you can comprehend, comprehend the love that I have for you!“ Collin later wrote in his own memoir: "I found myself unable to respond to this love, and this caused the author much suffering."
He also had intense relationships with ballet dancer Harald Scharff & Carl Alexander, Grand Duke of Weimar. He fell deeply in love with Henrik Stampe, the 22 year-old son of Baron Hendrik Stampe. His diary entries for that time show the escalating infatuation.
He also fell passionately in love with Riborg Voigt, but she was already engaged to someone else. He wrote, “Almighty God, thee only have I; thou steerest my fate, I must give myself up to thee! Give me a livelihood! Give me a bride! My blood wants love, as my heart does!”
Another obsession was with Jenny Lind, a soprano nicknamed the Swedish Nightingale. Andersen pined after her for years until they eventually parted ways. By 1854, she was married and had a young daughter.
While Andersen felt his many loves were spiritual & noble, he seems to have viewed the act of sex itself as dirty & debased. He became deeply disturbed after reading Mathilde Fibiger’s erotic novel, Minona and wrote about it to his friend B. S. Ingemann.
Andersen may never have had sex, but he masturbated a lot, and whenever he did he recorded it in his diary with a ++. He was very frank in his diary about how much he masturbated and some entries just read “penis tender,” “penis hurts,” “penis sick,” “penis very bad.”
He also visited brothels - although this was often as the insistence of his friends. But all he could bring himself to do was talk to the woman in her room and then go home and write about how good he was for not having sex - plus a couple of ++.
Another diary entry reads.
He often referred to his sexual desire as “Parisian thoughts” and was genuinelly tormented by them.
It’s very difficult to know what to make of Andersen’s sexuality. Various historians have argued he was bisexual, gay, or even a-sexual. Others have linked his fear of sex to childhood trauma & his relationship with his mother.
But whatever his thing was, he lived in a constant state of devotion, rejection, and sublimated sexual desires - and a lot of ++ - which may change how you interpret his works, many of which are focused on heartbreak, death, and a yearning for transformation.
“The Little Mermaid,” for example, ends with the beautiful half woman mermaid dying alone and transforming into sea foam, while her prince marries someone else.
For anyone who wants to read more about Andersen and his private life, my source for this thread is “Hans Christian Andersen: a New Life” by Jens Andersen.
PS. I wasnt serious about this thread ruining childhoods, only joking at the awkward juxtaposition of fairytales & frantic masturbation.
