...Aarets tolv Maaneder, Tegnede med Blæk og Pen (The Twelve Months of the Year, Drawn by Ink and Pen)
The book was originally sold at the auction of Edvard Collins books for 2 kroner on November 2 1886, as number 1216. The dedication to Eduard Collin says:
Eduard Collin
Our friendship, Eduard, is poetry itself
By the form, - and yet true contents inside.
We deeply know the other’s soul and thoughts,
We will share our desires and woes,
And the heart beats faithfully against heart,
While the lips enounce the form’s “Thou”.
- For poetry in our present life,
We yonder thank with – brother’s kiss and you.
The most devoted of the friends
December 15 1832
...The naval officer Vilhelm Pedersen (1820-1859) was the first illustrator of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales
As a part of the collaboration between the publisher Lorck in Germany and Hans Christian Andersen a complete illustrated edition of the poet’s fairy tales was planned. As illustrator Hans Christian Andersen recommended the hitherto unknown naval officer Vilhelm Pedersen. Vilhelm Pedersen, who died at an early age in 1859, illustrated 80 of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales and stories. His drawings were diligently copied to woodcuts, but unfortunately the delicate parts of the original drawings were lost. Pedersen’s line is well-known, and the soft and graceful illustrations go well with the tone in Andersen’s fairy tales.
Exhibition of Books in The Hans Christian Andersen Museum
April 2 - August 28 2007
Hans Christian Andersen: Aarets tolv Maaneder, Tegnede med Blæk og Pen (The Twelve Months of the Year, Drawn by Ink and Pen), 1833
Early in April 2007 the Odense City Museum’s yearbook, Fynske Minder 2007 (Funen Memories 2007), was published. In the book you can read three articles about the poet Hans Christian Andersen. The museum took the opportunity to exhibit the objects related to the three articles.
Therefore, from Hans Christian Andersen’s birthday on the 2 of April and for the rest of the month you could visit a small exhibition in the library of The Hans Christian Andersen Museum.
The exhibition was shown in the library – or “The Work” which the room is also called –because of the books being at the centre of the exhibition. The articles in the yearbook and the exhibition in the museum were, among other things, arranged because of two unique book acquisitions by the Hans Christian Andersen Museum in 2006
These acquisitions were the Funen Military Library’s (Fyenske Militaire Bibliotheks) Hans Christian Andersen books, and a copy of Andersen’s cycle of poems, Aarets tolv Maaneder, Tegnede med Blæk og Pen (The Twelve Month of the Year, Drawn by Ink and Pen), wherein he in poetic style has written an incredibly touching and thought-provoking dedication to his friend, Edvard Collin.
Futhermore, 2007 was remarkable because of the centenary of Astrid Lindgren’s birth: Part of the exhibition dealt with the first books Hans Christian Andersen and Astrid Lindgren received themselves early on in their lives, and also the books by Hans Christian Andersen which Astrid Lindgren had a close relation to, and which she kept on her bookshelves.