Hans Christian Andersen
Hans Christian Andersen (1805 – 1875) was a Danish author who penned plays, poems, novels, travel books, and autobiographies. His specialty, however, was literary fairy tales, and his works in that genre, which include The Little Mermaid and The Ugly Duckling, are among the most widely translated writings in the world and have been a staple of childhood for generations of children around the world.
Anderson’s own childhood was an unhappy one. Born to impoverished parents, he grew up in dire want, and as a child, his mother sent him to work in a local mill to help make ends meet. The childhood penury was compounded by a childhood homeliness, or ugliness, if you will, that made the young Andersen an object of teasing, mockery, and bullying by his peers – The Ugly Duckling was actually based on his own miserable childhood.
He overcame the sad childhood and dire poverty and harnessed those experiences into stories that impacted many. However, when he was not busy writing stories that would go on to feature prominently in the childhood of billions around the planet, Andersen liked to masturbate compulsively. And when not doing that, he liked to talk with prostitutes – and then rush back home to masturbate compulsively.
A celibate (which perhaps sheds some light on things), Andersen not only liked to masturbate a lot, he liked to keep meticulous records of his masturbation sessions, describing and listing them in his diary with a pair of plus signs (++), with sample descriptive entries reading: “When they left, I had a doubly sensuous ++“. In Paris, he liked to visit prostitutes and talk with them, then rush back to his hotel to put more ++ sign entries in his diary.
He also had a maudlin and needy streak and kept falling in love with people – both men and women – who did not reciprocate his feelings. He had a habit of writing cloyingly mawkish love letters to the objects of his affection, and frequently penned long tracts, gushing about his feelings to women whom he knew were uninterested and would turn him down – in a way, he throve on rejection. Then he would rush back home and earn more ++ entries for his diary.
