From the Hans Christian Andersen biography "The Life of Hans Christian Andersen. Day By Day", written by DPhil Johan de Mylius:
1840
Tribute from the students at LundJourney in Europe and the Orient.
1840: Tribute from the students at Lund
3 February
First performance of Mulatten (The Mulatto. Original Romantic Drama in five Acts). The play is staged a total of 21 times during HCA's life. This work provides HCA with an income of 800-1000 rdl.
5 February
The Mulatto is published as a book. The play is, with its depiction of the pariah and sexuality to be found within the tension between the social spheres, from lower to upper levels, a dramatic counterpart to the novel O.T.
Early 1840
Swedish translation of O.T. is published under N.H. Thomson's Bibliothek af Den Nyaste Litteraturen (Stockholm).
11 March
The vaudeville monologue, Mikkels Kjærlighedshistorier i Paris (Mikkel's Love Stories from Paris), is performed for the first time at the Royal Theatre. Performed 3 times during HCA's life.
13-20th April
To Skåne once again. Via Malmø to Hyby.
17 April
Tribute from the students at Lund, Sweden.
13 May
En Comedie i det Grønne (A Comedy Out in the Open Air. Vaudeville in one Act) (Adapted from Dorvigny and Kotzebue) is staged at the Royal Theatre. Music by Edv. Helsted. 33 performances during HCA's life.
Receives a fee of 40 rdl. for the play, something HCA later feels is out of proportion with the success of the play. Requests in 1842 that the fee by adjusted to 100 rdl.
4th - 24th June
Visits Nysø.
27th - 30th June
Sees the coronation ceremony held at Frederiksborg Castle.
24th July - 11th August
Summer journey to Odense and Glorup Estate. Attends a concert in Fåborg, where he sees the Voigt family once again (Riborg's family) and her husband.
1840: Journey in Europe and the Orient.
27 October
Release of Comedy Out in the Open Air (En Comedie i det Grønne).
31 October
HCA departs on a journey which would last almost one year, returning to Denmark on 13th July 1841. This journey would provide him with background material for En Digters Bazar (A Poet's Bazaar). Before the trip he had read, whilst staying at Hyby Estate in June 1839, Voyage en l'Orient, a book by Lamartine.
Earnings from The Mulatto were to pay for the journey, at least the first part of it. HCA hoped to be paid an equal amount for (sales of) The Moorish Maid (Maurerpigen) (800-1000 rdl.). This anticipated extra income was to finance the journey on to "the Orient".
3 - 4th November
Stays with Conrad Rantzau Breitenburg, count of the estate at Itzehoe.
6 November
Visits the poet K.F. Gustzkov (who belongs to the radical "young Germany") in Hamburg and hears Franz Liszt play at a concert.
9 November
Pays a visit to the publisher Vieweg in Braunschweig.
10 November
Travels by train for the first time. The trip from Magdeburg to Leipzig (approx. 110 km) lasted from 7 am till approx. 10.30 am. This is the train trip HCA describes in his famous passage in En Digters Bazar (A Poet's Bazaar), namely the chapter "The Railway". Here he calls the railway "a master piece of the mind and says that he has now:
"...with all my consciousness, seen God face to face, as it were, [....]. Emotion and imagination are not the only rulers within the realm of poetry. They have a brother, equally powerful, called intellect"
11 November
Seeks out Mendelsohn-Batholdy during a rehearsal of Beethoven's Symphony no. 7. in Gewandhaus. Dinner with the Brockhaus family (the publisher himself was in Paris).
14 November
Visits Fr. Compe, a book seller in Nürnberg.
17th November - 1st December
Staying in München. Spends time with the poet H.P. Holst. Visits the painter Fr.L. Storch for the first time on 17th. Storch was, like HCA, from Funen. Attends a concert on the 21st with the pianist Sigismund Thalberg.
18th - 23rd November
Publication of "Die Seejungfrau" (The little Mermaid) in Magazin für die Literatuer des Auslander (Magazine of Foreign Literature) (Berlin).
26th November - 3rd December
"Die Seejungfrau" is published in Frankfurter konversitionsblatt.
27 November
Visits the painter Kaulbach at his studio:
"a pale young man with the face of a genius, but with a tortured look. He knew who I was and shook hands with me tenderly, gave me an explanation in print of his latest work which stood before me, painted on cardboard",
(the diary, same day).
Kaulbach becomes a life long friend of HCA and later creates a widely distributed illustration of HCA's story "Engelen" (The Angel).
29 November
Visits the philosopher Schelling.
2 December
Departure from Munich. Goes through Innsbruck, Brenner, Bolzano, Verona, Mantova and Bologna to Florence (12-13th December); continues via e.g. Perugia, Assisi, Foligno, Terni, Civita Castellena and Nepi to Rome.
December
Also in December, release of Billedbog uden Billeder af H.C. Andersen. Ny Samling. Helliget mine svenske Venner (Picture Book without Pictures by Hans Christian Andersen. New Collection. Dedicated to my Swedish Friends), including the evenings 21-30 (no. 22, 24, 25 and 27 had been printed in Denmark earlier in the year). Printed in Hertha, Svensk-Dansk Nyärsgäfva för 1841.
A new Swedish collection of HCA's fairy-tales is released in Lekkamraten (the shared title of several booklets, first issued in December 38, published by L.J. Hierta). Additional booklets are released before Christmas 1841 and 1842 (the last one including "Den lille Havfrue" (The little Mermaid), which HCA had recommended to Hierta, in a letter dated 16th April 1839, as a fairy-tale which would be more suitable for Hierta's Läse-Bibliothek, as it was "intended more for adults".
In this month there is also the publication of Johan Ludvig Heiberg's Nye Digte (New Poems), in which HCA's dramatic writing is labelled as fit for the theatre in hell. (in: A Soul after Death (En Sjæl efter Døden).
18 December
Maurerpigen (The Moorish Maid. Original Tragedy in Five Acts) is staged at the Royal Theatre (performed 3 times in total). HCA's earnings from this fiasko amount to just 300 rdl, rather than the expected 800-1000. HCA is therefore obliged to apply to the king for extra travel grants from the fund ad usus publicos, so as to be able to reach Constantinople.
Mrs Heiberg had refused to play the lead role in The Moorish Maid, and Heiberg himself had been against the play being accepted at all. On this occasion, HCA has a falling out with the Heibergs. And it was Heiberg who had introduced HCA to the literary scene in the late 1820's.
19 December
Maurerpigen (The Moorish Maid) is released as a book.
19th December - 24th February 1841
In Rome.