Localizing Hans Christian Andersen in Australia

Abstract The evolving reception of Hans Christian Andersen and his works in Australia over nearly two centuries can be traced through print media coverage of his works, local uses and adaptations of his texts, and public monuments. These sources reveal that Andersen’s novels and travelogues, valued primarily for their depictions of Danish society, initially entered the mid-nineteenth-century Australian market as an extension of their British circulation. As his fairy tales gained popularity and social currency, Andersen came to be considered a spokesman for Christian morals and British cultural norms, with pedagogical utility. In the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, Andersen’s works have been increasingly localized, serving as a source of inspiration for Australian artistic productions that raise social and environmental concerns, and providing parallels for Australia’s evolving geopolitical situation. This trajectory reflects Australia’s changing cultural identity from a settler-colonial outpost of the British empire to a multiethnic independent state, and a corresponding shift in the country’s cultural priorities from preserving White Britishness to asserting Australia’s cultural autonomy, merit, and diversity.