Determined to write plays if he could not play them, Andersen composed drama after drama.  He would rush into the house of a total stranger, of whom perhaps he had heard as a patron of genius, declaim some scenes from his plays, and then rush out, leaving his auditor in gasping amazement.  Finally he made the acquaintance of one of the directors of the Royal Theatre, Jonas Collin, who was ever afterward his best friend.  Through the influence of this kindly man, Anderson was sent to school at Slagelse, and as he said later, the days of his degradation were over once and for all.

Andersen did not have an entirely pleasant time at school.  He loved systematic study no more than he had early in his life, and he did not fall in very readily with his young companions.  However, he persisted, for he was ashamed to disappoint his patron, Collin, and by the time he left school in 1827, he had an education of which he needed not to be ashamed.  After his return to Copenhagen, he was able to pass his examinations satisfactorily.

[Illustration:  Hans Christian Andersen 1805-1875]

From this time on, Andersen’s life was in the main happy, although he was so sensitive and so sentimental that he was constantly fancying grievances where none existed, and making himself miserable over imaginary snubs.  It is true that his dramatic works were not well received, but this was because there was no real merit in them, and not, as Andersen persisted in believing, because the critics to whom they were submitted had grudges against him.  His first works that made a distinctly favorable impression were travel sketches, for Andersen was all his life a great traveler, and knew how to write most charmingly and humorously of all that he saw.  His trips to other countries were all treated most delightfully, and every book that appeared increased the author’s fame.  His visit to Italy, the country which all his life he loved above any other, also resulted in a novel, the IMPROVISATORE, which became immensely popular and caused Andersen to be hailed as a future great novelist.

However, it was neither for travel sketches nor for novels that he was to be best known, but for something entirely different, which he himself was inclined at first to look down upon, and which many of his critics at the outset regarded as mere child’s play.  These were the fairy tales which he began in 1835, and which he published at intervals from that time until his death.  The children loved The Ugly Duckling, The Fir Tree and The Snow Queen; but it was not only the children who loved them.  Gradually people all over the world began to realize that here was a man who knew how to tell tales to children in so masterly a manner that even grown folks would do well to listen to him.