The Rare Book and Special Collections Reading Room has about 1,000 books from or about Denmark in its holdings of over 1 million items. What follows is merely a quick glance at some of the notable Danish items in this remarkable collection. Most of these were published prior to 1801.

An important exception to this general rule is the Jean Hersholt Collection of Hans Christian Andersen. (Another exception is made for the first editions of the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, namely his Enten – Eller [Either/or] and Frygt og Bæven [Fear and trembling], both of which were published in 1843). In 1951, the Danish American actor Jean Hersholt declared that he would donate to the Library of Congress the marvelous assemblage of Anderseniana that he and his wife Via had collected, including many Danish first and contemporaneous editions, as well as translations published outside of Denmark. In 1953, the transfer was completed, and in the next year the Library of Congress published a Catalog of the Jean Hersholt Collection of Hans Christian Andersen. Containing some quite rare or even unique items, such as manuscripts, correspondence, and presentation copies, the Collection is considered the greatest of its kind outside of Denmark. Not just a collector, Hersholt was the first to translate all of Andersen's tales into English. Born in Denmark in 1886, Hersholt came in 1914 to the United States, where he had a long and highly successful career as an actor in motion pictures. He appeared in several hundred films, some of which, Grand Hotel and Dinner at Eight, for example, are regarded as classics. Offstage, he was active in numerous charitable organizations, for which he was honored after his death in 1956, when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences created a new Oscar, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award.

The Hersholt Collection includes a copy of the 1822 Ungdoms-Forsøg [Attempt of youth], Andersen’s very first book, and its 1827 reissue under the title Gjenfærdet ved Palnatokes Grav [The ghost by Palnatoke’s grave], both of which are extremely rare, as 283 of the original 300 copies were sold to a local grocer as wrapping paper (Catalog of the Jean Hersholt Collection, 1954, p. 22). Hersholt even donated a first issue of the first edition of Andersen’s debut fairytale collection, Eventyr fortalte for Børn [Fairytales told for children] of 1835–1842. Of these first printings, only a handful or so are known to still be extant (Catalog of the Jean Hersholt Collection, 1954, p. 25).

Of the many unique treasures in the Hersholt Collection, just four more will be mentioned here: (1) a copy of the fourth printing of H. C. Andersens Eventyr og Historier [H. C. Andersen’s fairytales and stories], inscribed by the author to Maria Feodorovna Dagmar, daughter of Denmark’s Christian IX and mother to Russia’s Czar Nicolas II; (2) the Billedbog [picture book], 140 pages of weighty, handmade paper containing poems and hand-colored collages, composed of cuttings of German, English and American magazines and illustrated newspapers, and created by Andersen and his patron Councilor of State Adolph Drewsen (1803-1885) for the eight-year-old Jonas Drewsen, the latter's grandson; (3) a collection of 35 letters from Andersen to his American translator, editor, and publisher Horace Elisha Scudder, exchanged between 1868 and 1874 (Catalog of the Jean Hersholt Collection, 1954, pp. 8–10); and (4) Mit Livs Eventyr. "Transcript, with numerous corrections and additions in Andersen's hand . . . . This third and last installment of Andersen's autobiography, 'My Life's Fairy Tale (sometimes called 'The Story of My Life') covers the period from April 2, 1855, to December 6, 1867. The original manuscript is at the Royal Library in Copenhagen, but the present transcript was made under the personal supervision of Andersen by a copier named Naumann. The author mailed this corrected transcript to Horace Scudder, who translated it into English" (Catalog of the Jean Hersholt Collection, 1954, p. 2).

After the British burned the Capitol in 1814, the Library of Congress’ core collection was reestablished through the sale of Thomas Jefferson’s personal library of 6,487 volumes for $23,950. Now on display in the Southwest Pavilion of the Jefferson Building, these books (and the replacements of those lost in the fire of 1851) from Jefferson’s personal library can be requested in the Rare Book and Special Collections Reading Room. Among them is a copy of the Danish Astronomer Tycho Brahe’s posthumous Astronomiae instauratae progymnasmata . . .[Preliminary exercises on renewed astronomy], which was published in Frankfurt am Main in 1648, and furthers Brahe’s research into the phenomenon of supernovae. Jefferson acquired this book, but the original copy was destroyed in the fire of 1851. The Library subsequently obtained a replacement copy.

The first printing of Gesta Danorum [Deeds of the Danes], the thirteenth-century chronicle of Saxo Grammaticus, is held in the Rare Book and Special Collections Reading Room. Gesta Danorum was continued by Arild Huitfeldt up to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in his Danmarckis Rigis Krønicke. Originally published in 1596-1603, the Library's edition of Huitfeldt's work dates to the mid-seventeenth century. Historian and playwright Ludvig Holberg is represented in the collections by more than 250 editions of his works, most notably a first edition of Dannemarks Riges Historie [History of the kingdom of Denmark] in the Rare Book and Special Collections Reading Room.

The Rosenwald Collection includes Denmark. Lex Regia, an illustrated edition of the Danish constitution printed in Copenhagen in 1709. The text of this important legal document is engraved and set with a full-page engraved border, decorated with beautifully rendered images from nature, including flowers, birds, lions, elephants, deer, and camels. The work contains a remarkable portrait of Frederic III, where his engraved likeness is set upon a calligraphic rendering of his body and a horse in motion. The designs were created by the Danish artist Claus van Moinchen and engraved by Andreas Reinhard.

A remarkable scientific work of Danish extraction in the Rare Book and Special Collections Reading Room is the Flora danica, which displays hundreds of hand-colored plates depicting Denmark’s botanical life. The Library of Congress possesses the first 17 volumes, which were completed under the editorship of Georg Christian Oeder, who followed the taxonomical principles of the Swedish botanist Linnaeus, classifying each plant species according to its reproductive parts. Oeder, who established the scientific arrangement of the work, and petitioned and received the patronage of the Danish crown, insuring the continuous publication of this botanical study, which continued into the twentieth century. The hundreds of hand-colored plates that accompany these volumes are some of the most beautiful and important produced in the eighteenth century. Flora danica is first and foremost a scientific work. Each of the flowers and plants studied includes a letter press description based on the Linnaean system and a large engraved image of the flower or plant. The engraving also includes a closely observed rendering of the root system of each plant as well as a depiction of the male and female parts. Each of the plates is beautifully colored by a contemporary hand with wash and watercolor. The copper engravings are not signed by either the artists or engraver, but are attributed to the printers C. & A. Philibert and their printing shop in Copenhagen. The importance of Oeder's Flora danica did not escape the notice of other naturalists in Europe and America. The Philadelphia botanist and author, William Barton, modeled his three-volume work, A Flora of North America, published in Philadelphia in 1820-23, after Flora danica, using not only similar nomenclature, but also the designs for the copper plates. Barton's work is the most important and beautifully produced work of botany published in America in the first quarter of the nineteenth century.

Lastly, mention should be made of one more Danish book of note: Friedrich Christian Schönau’s 1753 Samling af danske lærde Fruentimer, som ved deres Lærdom, og udgivne eller efterladte Skrifter have gjort deres Navne i den lærde Verden bekiendte, med adskillige mest historiske anmerkninger forøget [Collection of Danish learned women, who by their learning and published or posthumous writings have made their names in the learned world known, enhanced with several mostly historical remarks]. The title is self-explanatory, but the title page may require some elucidation. It depicts Leonora Christina, who would establish herself as the foremost Danish prose writer of the seventeenth century with the posthumous publication in 1869 of her memoir Jammers Minde [Memory of lamentation], which chronicled her captivity in Copenhagen’s Blaataarn [blue tower].