Editing Hans Christian Andersen (section)

===Romantic relationships===
In Andersen's early life, his private journal records his [[Celibacy|refusal to have sexual relations]].<ref name="Guardian">{{cite news |last=Lepage |first=Robert |author-link=Robert Lepage |date=18 January 2006 |title=Bedtime stories |newspaper=[[The Guardian]] |location=London |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2006/jan/18/theatre.classics |access-date=19 July 2006 |archive-date=29 May 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080529014005/http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/classics/story/0,6000,1689053,00.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Garfield">{{cite web<!--|EXISTING REFERENCE--> |last=Garfield |first=Patricia |date=21 June 2004 |title=The Dreams of Hans Christian Andersen |url=http://www.patriciagarfield.com/publications/anderson_2004IASD.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120321031708/http://www.patriciagarfield.com/publications/anderson_2004IASD.pdf |archive-date=21 March 2012 |access-date=19 August 2020 |page=24}}</ref>

Andersen experienced [[Homosexuality|homosexual attraction]];<ref name=":0">{{Cite book | last=Booth| first=Michael| title=Just As Well I'm Leaving: To the Orient With Hans Christian Andersen| publisher=Vintage| year=2005| isbn=978-1-44648-579-8| location=London| pages=Pos. 2226| language=English}}</ref> he wrote to Edvard Collin:<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=i3pWfVwhPUIC |title=Hans Christian Andersen's Correspondence with the Late Grand-Duke of Saxe-Weimar, Charles Dickens, Etc., Etc |date=1891 |publisher=[[Dean & Son]] |editor-last=Crawford |editor-first=Frederick}}</ref> "I languish for you as for a pretty [[Calabria]]n wench ... my sentiments for you are those of a woman. The femininity of my nature and our friendship must remain a mystery."<ref>{{Citation |last=Hurley |first=Nat |title=The Little Transgender Mermaid: A Shape-Shifting Tale |date=2014 |url=https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137356000_14 |work=Seriality and Texts for Young People |pages=270 |editor-last=Reimer |editor-first=Mavis |access-date=18 November 2023 |series=Critical Approaches to Children's Literature |place=London |publisher=[[Palgrave Macmillan]]|doi=10.1057/9781137356000_14 |isbn=978-1-137-35600-0 |editor2-last=Ali |editor2-first=Nyala |editor3-last=England |editor3-first=Deanna |editor4-last=Unrau |editor4-first=Melanie Dennis}}</ref> Collin wrote in his own memoir, "I found myself unable to respond to this love, and this caused the author much suffering." Andersen's infatuation with [[Charles Alexander, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach|Karl Alexander]], the young hereditary duke of [[Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach]],<ref name="eiruaghklfsdivwelafassss xewdgAlexander">{{cite news |last=Pritchard |first=Claudia |date=27 March 2005 |title=His dark materials |newspaper=[[The Independent]] |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/his-dark-materials-8437.html |url-status=live |access-date=18 November 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070314153313/http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/books/features/article8437.ece |archive-date=14 March 2007}}</ref> did result in a relationship:

<blockquote>The Hereditary Grand Duke walked arm in arm with me across the courtyard of the castle to my room, kissed me lovingly, asked me always to love him though he was just an ordinary person, asked me to stay with him this winter ... Fell asleep with the melancholy, happy feeling that I was the guest of this strange prince at his castle and loved by him ... It is like a fairy tale.<ref name=":0" /> </blockquote>

There is a sharp division in opinion over Andersen's physical fulfillment in the sexual sphere. {{ill|Jackie Wullschlager|de|Jackie Wullschlager}}'s biography maintains he was possibly lovers with Danish dancer {{ill|Harald Scharff|da}}<ref name="Scharff">{{cite web |title=The Timetable Year by Year |url=https://andersen.sdu.dk/liv/tidstavle/vis_e.html?date=1862-00-00 |access-date=22 July 2006 |publisher=H.C. Andersen Centret}}</ref> and Andersen's "[[The Snowman (fairy tale)|The Snowman]]" was inspired by their relationship.<ref name="WullschlagerPP373,3792">{{Harvnb|Wullschläger|2000|pp=373,379}}</ref> Scharff first met Andersen when the latter was in his 50s. Andersen was infatuated and Wullschlager sees his journals as implying that their relationship was sexual.<ref>{{cite news |date=1 November 2001 |title=Hans Christian Andersen: The Life of a Storyteller |publisher=Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide |url=http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-7326345_ITM |url-status=dead |access-date=10 June 2009 |archive-date=2 September 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190902204559/https://www.nelsonbrain.com/shop }}</ref> Scharff had various dinners alone with Andersen and gifted a silver toothbrush to Andersen on his 57th birthday.<ref>{{cite news |date=26 April 2005 |title=Andersen's Fairy Tales |publisher=The Advocate |url=http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-29288855_ITM |url-status=dead |access-date=10 June 2009 |archive-date=2 September 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190902204559/https://www.nelsonbrain.com/shop }}</ref> Wullschlager asserts that in the winter of 1861–62, the two men entered an affair that brought Andersen "joy, some kind of sexual fulfillment, and a temporary end to loneliness."<ref name="Wullschlager3">{{Harvnb|Wullschläger|2000|pp=387–389}}</ref> He was not discreet in his conduct with Scharff, and displayed his feelings openly. Onlookers regarded the relationship as improper and ridiculous. In his diary in March 1862, Andersen referred to this time in his life as his "erotic period."<ref name="AndersenJ3">{{Harvnb|Andersen|2005|pp=475–476}}</ref> On 13 November 1863, Andersen wrote, "Scharff has not visited me in eight days; with him it is over."<ref name="AndersenJP477">{{Harvnb|Andersen|2005|p=477}}</ref> He took this calmly and the two thereafter met in overlapping social circles without bitterness, though Andersen attempted to rekindle their relationship many times without success.<ref name="WullschlagerP392–393">{{Harvnb|Wullschläger|2000|pp=392–393}}</ref><ref group="note">While on holiday, for example, Andersen and Scharff were forced to spend the night in Helsingør. Andersen reserved a double room for them both but Scharff insisted upon having his own.</ref><ref group="note">Andersen continued to follow Scharff's career with interest, but in 1871, an injury during rehearsal forced Scharff permanently from the ballet stage. Scharff tried acting without success, married a ballerina in 1874, and died in the St. Hans asylum in 1912.</ref><ref name="AndersenJPP477-479">{{Harvnb|Andersen|2005|pp=477–479}}</ref> According to Wullschlager, "Andersen's diaries leave no doubt that he was attracted to both sexes; that at times he longed for a physical relationship with a woman and that at other times he was involved in physical liaisons with men."<ref name="Wullschläger 2000" /> For example, Wullschlager quotes from Andersen's diaries:

<blockquote>"Scharff bounded up to me; threw himself round my neck and kissed me! .... Nervous in the evening" Five days later he received "a visit from Scharff, who was very intimate and nice". In the following weeks, there was "dinner at Scharff's, who was ardent and loving"<ref name="Wullschläger 2000" /></blockquote>

The claim that Andersen entertained "physical liaisons" with men has been contested by Klara Bom and Anya Aarenstrup from the H. C. Andersen Centre of [[University of Southern Denmark]]. They state:

<blockquote>it is correct to point to the very ambivalent (and also very traumatic) elements in Andersen's emotional life concerning the sexual sphere, but it is decidedly just as wrong to describe him as homosexual and maintain that he had physical relationships with men. He did not. Indeed, that would have been entirely contrary to his moral and religious ideas, aspects that are quite outside the field of vision of Wullschlager and her like.<ref>{{Cite web |last1=Bom |first1=Anne Klara |last2=Aarenstrup |first2=Anya |title=Homosexuality |url=https://andersen.sdu.dk/rundtom/faq/index_e.html?emne=homo |access-date=18 November 2023 |website=H.C. Andersen Centret}}</ref></blockquote>

Wullschlager, in fact, argued that, ''because'' of moral and religious ideas of his time, Andersen could not be open about his homosexual relationships.

Andersen also fell in love with unattainable women, and many interpret references to them in his stories.<ref>{{cite web |last=Hastings |first=Waller |date=4 April 2003 |title=Hans Christian Andersen |url=http://www.northern.edu/hastingw/hcandersen.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071123053333/http://www.northern.edu/hastingw/hcandersen.htm |archive-date=23 November 2007 |access-date=15 December 2012 |website=[[Northern State University]] }}</ref> At one point, Andersen wrote in his diary: "Almighty God, thee only have I; thou steerest my fate, I must give myself up to thee! Give me a livelihood! Give me a bride! My blood wants love, as my heart does!"<ref>{{cite web |last=Sørensen |first=Lise |title=The Tales of Hans Christian Andersen |url=http://scandinavian.wisc.edu/mellor/hca_summer/glossary/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120312093003/http://scandinavian.wisc.edu/mellor/hca_summer/glossary/bachelor.html |archive-date=12 March 2012 |access-date=2 April 2010 |publisher=Scandinavian.wisc.edu}}</ref> A girl named Riborg Voigt was the [[unrequited love]] of Andersen's youth. A small pouch containing a long letter from Voigt was found on Andersen's chest when he died, several decades after Andersen first fell in love with her. Other disappointments in love included Sophie Ørsted,{{Citation needed|date=July 2023}} the daughter of the physicist [[Hans Christian Ørsted]]; and Louise Collin,{{Citation needed|date=July 2023}} the youngest daughter of his benefactor Jonas Collin. One of Andersen's stories, "[[The Nightingale (fairy tale)|The Nightingale]]", was written as an expression of his passion for [[Jenny Lind]] and was the inspiration for her nickname, the "Swedish Nightingale."<ref>{{cite web |last=Oldrup |first=Thomas |date=2 July 2014 |title=H.C. Andersen og Jenny Lind |url=http://altomhistorie.dk/artikler/h-c-andersen-og-jenny-lind/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160825213227/http://altomhistorie.dk/artikler/h-c-andersen-og-jenny-lind/ |archive-date=25 August 2016 |website=Altomhistorie.dk}}</ref> Andersen was shy around women and had extreme difficulty proposing to Lind. When Lind was boarding a train to go to an opera concert, Andersen gave Lind a letter of proposal. Her feelings towards him were not the same; she saw Andersen as a brother, writing to him in 1844: "farewell ... God bless and protect my brother is the sincere wish of his affectionate sister, Jenny."<ref>{{cite web |title=Sangerinden Jenny Lind 1820 – 1867 |url=https://www.hcandersen-homepage.dk/?page_id=22484 |access-date=2 April 2010 |website=H.C. Andersen Information |archive-date=5 November 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181105222927/https://www.hcandersen-homepage.dk/?page_id=22484 |url-status=live }}</ref> It is suggested that Andersen expressed his disappointment by portraying Lind as the eponymous [[antihero]] of "[[The Snow Queen]]."<ref>{{Cite web |last=Connelly |first=Charlie |date=27 October 2021 |title=Jenny Lind: The very modern career of a 19th century superstar |url=https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/great-european-lives-jenny-lind/ |access-date=18 November 2023 |website=[[The New European]]}}</ref>