Andersen, Hans Christian

1805 – He was born on the 2nd day of April this year in Odense, Denmark.

1816 - His father died and the young boy had to start earning a living. He worked as an apprentice for both a weaver and a tailor, and later worked in a cigarette factory where his fellow workers humiliated him by betting on whether he was in fact a girl, pulling down his trousers to check.

1819 - At the age of fourteen, Andersen moved to Copenhagen seeking employment as an actor in the theatre. He had a pleasant soprano voice and succeeded in being admitted to the Royal Danish Theatre.

1822 - Andersen had already succeeded in publishing his first story, The Ghost at Palnatoke's Grave in this year.

1827 – He studied both in Slagelse and at a school in Elsinore until this year. He later stated that these years had been the darkest and most bitter parts of his life. He had experienced living in his schoolmaster's own home and was abused. He later said that the school faculty forbade or discouraged him to write.

1829 – He enjoyed a considerable success with a fantastic story entitled "A Journey on Foot from Holmen's Canal to the East Point of Amager", and during the same season, he published both a farce and a collection of poems.

1833 – He received a small travelling grant from the King, making the first of his long European journeys. At Le Locle, in the Jura, he wrote "Agnete and the Merman"; and in October 1834 he arrived in Rome.

1840 - Andersen's attention returned to the stage, however with no great success. His true genius was however proved in the miscellany the Picture-Book without Pictures on this year.

1851 – He published to wide acclaim In Sweden, a volume of travel sketches. A keen traveller, Andersen published several other long travelogues: Shadow Pictures of a Journey to the Harz, Swiss Saxony, etc. etc. in the Summer of 1831 (1831), A Poet's Bazaar (1842), In Spain (1863), and A Visit to Portugal in 1866 (1868).

1857 – This year, he published a new novel “To be or not to be”.

1872 – He continued publishing his Fairy Tales in installments, until this year. He published his last stories at Christmas in this year. In the spring of this year, Andersen fell out of bed and severely hurt himself. He never quite recovered, but he lived until the time of his death.

1875 – He died peacefully on the 4th day of August this year.

• "Everyman's life is a fairy tale written by God's fingers."