apid international travel, which Samuel mentions as a feature of the twentieth century, had already been proposed in fiction in 1853 by Hans Christian Anderson in his story 'In Thousands of Years'. Andersen predicts that rapid travel will transform tourism: ‘There’s a lot to see in Europe!’ says the young American; ‘and we have seen it in eight days, and that can be done, as the great traveller' — a name is named which belongs to their age — 'has shown in his famous work: Europe Seen in Eight Days.'
[Original Danish text] H. C. Andersen: Eventyr 58: 'Om Aartusinder': 'I Europa er meget at see!’ siger den unge Amerikaner; 'og vi have seet det i otte Dage, og det lader sig gjøre, som den store Reisende' – et Navn nævnes, der hører til deres Samtid – ‘har viist i sit berømte Værk: Europa seet i otte Dage’. [Text from MS in the Royal Library, Copenhagen.
I don't include a reference to an English translation of the period because translations of Andersen have until recently been notoriously unreliable, as the Victorian Web recognises. In the nineteenth century his tales were not only moralised in English, but in some cases were translations from German versions. (A lot of Danish literature suffers from this two-stage transmission.) To make matters worse, nearly everyone insists of calling his tales 'fairy tales'. The translation below is my own. (I am strongly influenced by Elias Bredsdorff who supervised me in Danish at Cambridge in the 1960s.)
Clicking on either next link will return you to “Samuel on Telephones.”
Bibliography
Andersen, H. C. . 1805-75, Samlede eventyr Dansk Nationallitterært Arkiv (DNA), Det Kongelige Bibliotek. http://www.kb.dk/elib/lit/dan/andersen/eventyr.dsl/hcaev058.htm. accessed 26/04/2022.
Last modified 26 April 2022