SOURCE: "The Range of Andersen's Tales," in Hans Christian Andersen: The Story of His Life and Work, 1805-75, Phaidon, 1975, pp. 308-32.

In the following essay, Bredsdorff discusses the sources of some of Andersen's tales and proposes a system for grouping the tales.

Today Andersen's fame rests entirely on his fairy tales and stories. They have been translated into well over a hundred languages and are still being published and republished in millions of copies all over the world; but it is important to realize that when people speak of Andersen's Fairy Tales they are not necessarily speaking of the same tales.

The total number of tales published in Denmark during Andersen's lifetime under the title Eventyr og Historier is 156; but although they have all been translated,¹ many are unfamiliar in Denmark, and even fewer are well known abroad.

In the English-speaking world the early tales, those published between...