SOURCE: "Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales and Stories: Secrets, Swans and Shadows," in Touchstones: Reflections on the Best in Children's Literature, Vol. 2: Fairy Tales, Fables, Myths, Legends, and Poetry, Children's Literature Association, 1987, pp. 14-23.

In the essay following, Cech discusses the optimistic and pessimistic aspects of Andersen's fairy tales, relating them to the "competing sides of [Andersen's nature."]

Among the 156 "tales and stories" that Hans Christian Andersen wrote between 1835 and 1872, a dozen or so are among the best-known, most frequently anthologized and reprinted retellings of fairy tales or literary fairy tales of any canon. Indeed, such stories as "The Ugly Duckling," "The Princess and the Pea," and "The Emperor's New Clothes" have been retold so often, and in so many different forms, that they have become part of the public domain of our oral folk tradition. Bo Grønbech claims that Anderson's tales have been translated into over...