literary market. Children’s literature began to respond to the needs of children rather
than adults.
During the twentieth century, realism has been dominant, although the most original
and well-known authors are to be found at the interface between fantasy and realism.
The tradition of fairy tales has also been strong, prompted by authors like H.c.Andersen
in Denmark, Zachris Topelius in Finland and Astrid Lindgren in Sweden. In the period
between the wars the output relied heavily on traditional girls’ and boys’ stories. Modern
child psychology and literary modernism of the 1930s and 1940s encouraged
experiments and artistic innovations in children’s books; the most obvious examples are
found in Denmark and Sweden. Later mutual trends are the problem-oriented novel for
young adults in the 1970s, succeeded by the renaissance of fantasy and fairy tales in
the 1980s. The most interesting developments in recent years have been made in the
field of the picture book. One could even say that the basic idea of compartmentalising
children’s literature according to different ages is being called into question. Nordic
picture books in the 1980 and 1990s are often visually advanced and poetically
narrated, based on a close interaction between text and picture, and on the whole, they
seem to reject the traditional conception of a specific readership.
DenmarkThe first children’s book in Danish was Bøørne Spiegel [The Child’s Mirror] by Niels Bredal
(1568), an adaptation of Erasmus’s courtesy book De Civilitate Morum Puerilium. The
romanticist Adam Oehlenschläger introduced the Grimms’ tales in 1816. A first
collection of Danish folk-tales appeared in 1823, but the major edition of Danish folk-
tales, rhymes and songs was initiated by the folklorist Svend Grundtvig in the mid-
nineteenth century. A children’s collection of fables was made by H.V.Kaalund, Fabler
for Børn (1845). Original picture books appeared quite early. Of fundamental importance
are Johan and Pietro Krohn’s Peters jul [Peter’s Christmas], a verse tale with black and
white pictures (1866) and Hvorledes Dagen Gaaer for Lille Lise (1863) by Lorenz Frølich,
a delightful depiction of the everyday life of a little girl. As Frølich lived in France the
book first appeared in French, La Journée de Mlle Lili (1862).
In 1835 Hans Christian Andersen (1805–1875) published his first fairy tales, Eventyr
fortalte for Børn [Fairy Tales told for Children]. Up until 1874 he produced more than
150 tales and stories. Selections appeared in English in 1846. Andersen later dropped
‘told for children’ from the title, thus indicating an audience of all ages. These ambivalent
tales were originally based on folk motifs, but Andersen soon created a fairy tale canon
of his own. The usual order of events in the traditional folk-tale is reversed—objects of
everyday life are humanised. Andersen’s stylistic synthesis of oral and written language
also formed a new narrative discourse. Among the most popular of his tales throughout
the world are ‘The tinder box’, ‘The princess and the pea’, ‘The little mermaid’, ‘The
swineherd’, ‘The ugly duckling’, ‘The little match girl’, and ‘The snow queen’. Apparently
Andersen was well aware of his future world fame; he once wrote to a friend that the
fairy tales would make him immortal. His impact on children’s literature in the Nordic
countries has been exceptional.
692 THE WORLD OF CHILDREN’S LITERATURE