The Princess and the Pea

"The Princess and the Pea" (Danish: Prinsessen på Ærten, lit. 'The Princess on the Pea') is a literary fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen about a princess who is tested to become the wife to a lonely prince. The tale was first published with three others by Andersen in a cheap booklet on 8 May 1835 in Copenhagen by C. A. Reitzel.

The tale is classified in the Aarne–Thompson–Uther Index as ATU 704, "The Princess and the Pea".

The story tells of a prince who wants to marry a princess but is having difficulty finding a suitable wife. He meets many princesses, but is never sure that they are real (Danish: rigtig, lit. 'rightful') princesses—until one stormy night, when a mysterious young woman drenched with rain seeks shelter in the prince's castle. She claims to be a princess, but the prince's mother, the queen, has doubts. She decides to test their unexpected guest by placing a hard uncooked pea in the bed she is offered for the night, covered by twenty mattresses and twenty featherbeds.

In the morning, the mysterious woman tells her hosts that she endured a rather restless night, kept awake by something in the bed that made her feel uncomfortable. The prince's family realizes that she is a princess after all, since only a true princess could be so delicate. The prince and the princess are happily married, and the story ends with the pea being placed in a museum, where it might still remain.

Researcher Jack Zipes said that Andersen, during his lifetime, "was obliged to act as a dominated subject within the dominant social circles despite his fame and recognition as a writer." He therefore had a mixed opinion of the upper classes, at the same time aspiring to them and scorning them. According to Zipes and other writers, this tendency found expression in Andersen's stories, where people like the princess undergo ordeals to prove their virtuousness.

While a 1905 article in the American Journal of Education recommended the story for children aged 8–10, "The Princess and the Pea" was not uniformly well received by critics. Toksvig wrote in 1934, "[the story] seems to the reviewer not only indelicate but indefensible, in so far as the child might absorb the false idea that great ladies must always be so terribly thin-skinned."

"The Princess and the Pea" spurred on positive criticism, as well. In fact, critic Paul Hazard pointed out the realistic aspects of the fairy tale that make it easily relatable to all people. He believed that "the world Andersen witnessed—which encompassed sorrow, death, evil and man's follies—is reflected in his tales," and most evidently in "The Princess and the Pea." Another scholar, Niels Kofoed, noticed that “since they involve everyday-life themes of love, death, nature, injustice, suffering and poverty, they appeal to all races, ideologies, classes and genders.” Moreover, Celia Catlett Anderson realized that one of the things that makes this story so appealing and relatable is that optimism prevails over pessimism, especially for the main character of the princess. This inspires hope in the readers for their own futures and strength within themselves.

In 1927, Austrian composer Ernst Toch published an opera based on "The Princess and the Pea", with a libretto by Benno Elkan. Reportedly this opera was very popular in the American student repertoires; the music, as well as the English translation (by Marion Farquhar), were praised in a review in Notes. The story was adapted to the musical stage in 1959 as Once Upon a Mattress, with comedian Carol Burnett playing the play's heroine, Princess Winnifred the Woebegone. In 1961, The Princess and the Pea was made into a television film starring Samantha Eggar. The musical was revived in 1997 with Sarah Jessica Parker in the role. It was revived again in 2024 with Sutton Foster in the role of Winnifred. A television adaptation of "The Princess and the Pea" starred Liza Minnelli in a Faerie Tale Theatre episode in 1984.