The index of works is, like several other initiatives on this website, developed on occasion of Hans Christian Andersen's bicentennial anniversary April 2nd 2005 and made possible by financial support from the HCA 2005 Foundation. The projects are coordinated with similar projects at the Hans Christian Andersen Museum and the Royal Library.

The Hans Christian Andersen Center (Lars Bo Jensen) has established an independent numbering system for this project, which embraces all of Hans Christian Andersen's literary works.

The index serves as a link index for the entire oeuvre of Hans Christian Andersen. Especially the fairytales have many relevant ressources attached: for every text there are links to the text in English and in Danish, reviews, Danish commentary, information about Andersen's life at the time of publishing of the text, and links to the bibliografies, in which you may find information both about the text itself and secondary literature. Example: The Tinder Box.

Each genre has been assigned a numerical sequence, which is described at the bottom of this document. The numbering follows the date of the first edition of the works chronologically without respect to language. This principle can be practised rigorously, because it is simple and provides a useful chronology.

The sorting of texts according to their date would be a fascinating project, but is in practice impossible. There are numerous texts whose history is not very well known, and how can we be sure when a text was finished? On the first entry in the diaries, by the first draft, the first recital for friends and acquaintances, or the first fair copy? This problem would result in innumerable doubtful cases.

To follow the date of the first editions makes sense, even if the chronology does not necessarily coincide with the genesis of the works, and places posthumously published texts last, regardless of their former history. This is a weak point in the principle. Its strength lies in its simplicity.

The index supplements Birger Frank Nielsen's outstanding bibliography Digterens danske Værker 1822-1875 (the complete works of Andersen) (1942), which remains a standard work, by its inclusion of titles first published in languages other than Danish. Thus Hans Christian Andersen's first official full-length autobiography, Das Märchen meines Lebens ohne Dichtung (The True Story of my Life, 1847), which was published in German by Lorck in Leipzig as early as 1847, but in Danish as late as 1942, is given its rightful place in the chronology. The same is true of several tales where the distance between the foreign and the Danish editions is not so great, and of Picturebook without Pictures, which also appeared in its final German form with 33 "evenings" in 1847. This edition was not published in Danish until 1854, although the first edition (20 evenings) had been published as early as 1839.

The division into genres follows that of Birger Frank Nielsen in his index of the works, but with certain important modifications: the category of "Novels and Short Stories" has been divided into "Novels" and "Other Prose Works", and the category of "Biographical Works" has been subdivided into "Autobiographies" and "Biographical Works". We have also added "Cycles of poems", so that "Melodies of the Heart", for example, can be categorised as an independent work.

As well as departing from Birger Frank Nielsen's index of genres, which resembles that of most later Andersen editions closely, the subdivision is different by categorising differently: Picturebook without Pictures has always been difficult to pin down. Birger Frank Nielsen places it among "Novels and Short Stories". The Society for Danish Language and Literature, which for many years has supervised the publication of annotated scholarly editions of Andersen's works, diaries and almanacs, has traditionally placed it among the travelogues, which may seem surprising, but bears witness to the difficulty of categorising this work. Here the sections of the Picturebook without Pictures, the individual "evenings", have been categorised as tales and the book as a collection of tales.

In addition to the 33 "evenings" from the Picturebook without Pictures and the "first Evening" from the original manuscript, the list of tales has been supplemented with other texts, which we (Lars Bo Jensen and Johan de Mylius) consider tales, three of them from the beginning of the oeuvre - "tales before the tales", i.e. "Dykkerklokken", (the diving bell), "Alferne paa Heden" (The elves on the moor) and "Et Børneeventyr" (A tale for the children). Another addition is "The Pigs".

As can be seen in the complete list of tales, which shows the "eventyrkode" (EK - i.e. numbered list of tales) used by Svend Juel Møller to identify tales in the volumes of Bidrag til H.C. Andersens Bibliografi (contributions to the bibliography of Hans Christian Andersen) (The Royal Library, Publications of the Department of National Bibliography, Copenhagen), the numbering system now used by the Hans Andersen Center also differs by 1) including the other texts mentioned among the tales, 2) by adding "De blaae Bjerge" (The blue mountains) and "Hansel and Gretel" and 3) by placing some texts differently as a consequence of adhering to the principle of chronology.

Since the making of this index several volumes of the latest Danish edition of Andersen's collected works, ANDERSEN, Dansk Sprog- og Litteraturselskab, have been issued. Much philological work has been made this for edition, and the books are an important supplement and reference for other Andersen works, including this index.

The division of genres in numerical sequences

Hans Christian Andersen's works are divided into a range of genres and categories. Each genre has been assigned a numerical sequence, which the works of that genre may employ as required. The fairy tales, for example, have ranges 1-300.

Genre Numerical sequence
Fairy tales1 - 300
Fairy tale collections301 - 400
Novels401 - 500
Other prose501 - 600
Drama601 - 700
Travelogues701 - 800
Autobiographies801 - 900
Biographical writings901 - 1000
Collected and miscellaneous works1001 - 1100
Papers, articles, letters and other writings1101 - 1200
Minor satiric and humorous writings1201 - 1300
Collections of poems1301 - 1400
Cycles of poems1401 - 1500
Poems1501 - 2900
Separate publications2901 - 3000

The purpose of assigning ranges of numbers to the genres like this is to leave a place open at the end of the ranges for such new works as may be found, and to make work-numbers easier to remember by letting the ranges start at nice round figures.