“”My life is a lovely story, happy and full of incident.” So writes Andersen in the first line of his autobiography, which has the charm and felicitous phrasing of his well-loved fairy tales.”
— A.L.A. Catalog 1926
“The absolute candor with which Andersen lays bare his soul, the complete intentional or unintentional self-revelation, gives a psychological value to the book which no mere literary grace could bestow. . . . Andersen remained, until the day of his death, a child. His innocence was more than virginal; his unworldliness simply inconceivable. . . . He conceived of his life as a fairy-tale. . . . The feeling of the marvellous pervades the book from beginning to end.”
– Standard Catalog for Public Libraries: Biography Section (1927)