Literature Network » Andrew Lang

A drop of bitterness: Andersen's fairy tales

Content courtesy of

From: The Hudson Review
Date: 20020101
Author:Lewis, Tess

There are not many people now, perhaps there are none, who can write really good fairy tales, because they do not believe enough in their own stories, and because they want to be wittier than it has pleased Heaven to make them.

-Andrew Lang, The Green Fairy Book (1892)

HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN, who died seventeen years before Andrew Lang's lament, was the last great writer of fairy tales. Andersen certainly believed deeply in his stories, many of which have obvious autobiographical sources, and he was, both in conversation and in his tales, a genuinely witty man. While Charles Perrault and ...

Read the rest of this article with a Free Trial at HighBeam Research.

Other Articles on Andrew Lang

About Our Articles: We've partnered with Highbeam Research to provide these article excerpts for your research needs. However, due to copyright laws, we cannot publish the whole article. To view these articles in full length you'll need to use the link above to access the free trial at Highbeam.