Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, what'll welcome back to the show. Happy holiday, Yeah,
Speaker 1: Happy holidays. I'm Eli, I'm Diana. We're so thrilled to
Speaker 1: have you on this very cold day. Or we're recording
Speaker 1: during this cold snap down in Atlanta. But y'all have
Speaker 1: heard people talking endlessly. I'm sure about the temperature these
Speaker 1: past few days. Uh. We are here with a special
Speaker 1: episode today that's like not a Christmas story, but it's
Speaker 1: based on the guy who wrote the ultimate Christmas story,
Speaker 1: Charles Dickens, Right, Christmas Carol, lovely little story. I don't
Speaker 1: know if you've heard of it, probably not familiar, but
Speaker 1: it's actually a ghost story immortalized by the muppets. I
Speaker 1: can't wait to watch. That's so good. It's a classic
Speaker 1: Christmas Eve movie. It's also one of the best movies
Speaker 1: ever made ever. So it's just that. Don't at me.
Speaker 1: But there is so much story to tell here today,
Speaker 1: so I say we get right into it. Because last
Speaker 1: time we learned about Hans Christian Anderson, the lifelong Virgin, who,
Speaker 1: in his heartbreak, wrote some of the most classic stories
Speaker 1: of all time. You know them, The Ugly Duck laying,
Speaker 1: the snow Queen, the Princess and the Pea, The Jerich
Speaker 1: Who Didn't Love Me Back, also known as the Little
Speaker 1: Mermaid um But. One of the most famous stories about
Speaker 1: Hans Christian Anderson is from the summer of eighteen fifty seven,
Speaker 1: when he spent five long weeks with England's most beloved author,
Speaker 1: Charles Dickens. And of course Hans was obsessed with him,
Speaker 1: you know Hans. But like the other objects of Hans
Speaker 1: Christian Anderson's desire, Dickens thought that this guy was maybe
Speaker 1: a bit too much. So let's hear about how Hans
Speaker 1: inserted himself into Charles's life, the extremely British drama that
Speaker 1: he was butting in on, and the scroogey reaction he
Speaker 1: got in response, Let's do it, hey French, come listen well,
Speaker 1: Elia and Diana gots joys to tell there's no matchmaking,
Speaker 1: all romantic tips. It's just about ridiculous relationship a lover.
Speaker 1: It might be any type of person at all, and
Speaker 1: abstract concept for a concrete wall. But if there's a
Speaker 1: story with the second glance ridiculous role that a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio, I do want to throw out
Speaker 1: that this episode was suggested to us by Arvid Gomez
Speaker 1: on Instagram at Kiss a Kissmas also had the distinction
Speaker 1: of being um the very first person to ever email
Speaker 1: us started the show. Thank you breaking that. Seal Rvid wrote,
Speaker 1: I had a small suggestion for an episode Hans Christian Anderson,
Speaker 1: the Danish author who terrorized Charles Dickens for weeks when
Speaker 1: he invited himself in. He had a very different view
Speaker 1: of love and sexuality too, which might be more the
Speaker 1: point of your podcast really, and of course that has
Speaker 1: been the point of this episode, as we've learned about
Speaker 1: Hans Christian Anderson now moving into two episodes, maybe even three,
Speaker 1: just so much to say about Hans and his feelings
Speaker 1: on love and sex and romance and all this stuff.
Speaker 1: So thank you so much for sending this in. Yes,
Speaker 1: a great suggestion. Yeah, we also have a listener named
Speaker 1: Lundy Jensen or at Randysens, who specifically asked for Dutch
Speaker 1: accents on our Instagram post about our last Hans Anderson
Speaker 1: started listening, it was like, I can't wait to hear
Speaker 1: your Dutch accents, and we decidedly did not do them
Speaker 1: in the last time because that is not an accent
Speaker 1: I'm familiar with. But now fine, we're doing you can thank, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you can thank, which is I just learned this her
Speaker 1: in in Dutch. So there we go in Dutch, in Danish,
Speaker 1: in Dutch, Dutchess, the language Danish, the people and they
Speaker 1: all right. There is so much more to say about
Speaker 1: Christian Anderson and his love life. In fact, he had
Speaker 1: many non lovers, amazing people, and we're just gonna have
Speaker 1: to bring you that next week. But right now we
Speaker 1: got to get into the reason for the season here
Speaker 1: and why the Hans Christian Anderson story fell into our
Speaker 1: lap for Christmas. In June of Anderson went to England
Speaker 1: for the first time, and while he was attending an
Speaker 1: aristocratic party there, he met the author Charles Dickens. Anderson
Speaker 1: was not at this point well known in England yet
Speaker 1: because his stories were only just being translated into English
Speaker 1: for the first time, so nobody there had really heard
Speaker 1: much about him. But Dickens, on the other hand, was
Speaker 1: at the height of his career. A Christmas Carol, Oliver
Speaker 1: Twist and Nicholas Nickleby had all been published already, and
Speaker 1: he was about to start releasing David Copperfield as a serial.
Speaker 1: Anderson called Dickens quote England's now living writer whom I
Speaker 1: do love the moment, and they had a brief and
Speaker 1: respectful conversation. At this part, um Anderson barely knew any English,
Speaker 1: but they were both known for writing depictions of poor,
Speaker 1: underclass people who were hit hard by the Industrial Revolution,
Speaker 1: so they had plenty to sort of talk about mid things.
Speaker 1: Try real hard, but you know, old Hans Christian Anderson.
Speaker 1: He gets intense fast after this meeting with Dickens. He
Speaker 1: immediately runs back to his place and he writes a
Speaker 1: let her home to his friends, and he's like, oh,
Speaker 1: my god, adjustment. Charles Dickens. He's like everything I ever
Speaker 1: could have dreamed of. He's perfect, he's amazing, he's everything.
Speaker 1: I love this guy. And Charles Dickens, I mean, he
Speaker 1: must have thought that Anderson was a pretty nice guy too,
Speaker 1: because a few weeks after Anderson got home, Charles sent
Speaker 1: him a package of some of his books and a
Speaker 1: little personal note, which Anderson probably immediately like ran and
Speaker 1: hung this note up on the inside of his locker,
Speaker 1: but he could see it every time he went to
Speaker 1: school and opened the door. Oh my friend, Charles Dickens,
Speaker 1: my best friend in the world. We're nailing it. So Anderson,
Speaker 1: of course like very giddy, very childish person as we've
Speaker 1: learned through the last episode. But Charles Dickens, in contrast,
Speaker 1: this guy is like Mr Cool. He's super dushing, and
Speaker 1: he's a bit colorful, and let's not forget that he
Speaker 1: is very very British, extra British. Michelle Dean writes on
Speaker 1: the Rumpus dot net that after nearly ten years of
Speaker 1: Anderson writing letters to Dickens all the time like they
Speaker 1: were now best friends in the whole wide world, quote,
Speaker 1: Dickens embraced the British tradition of passive aggression and sent
Speaker 1: what appears to have been a disingenuous invitation to Anderson
Speaker 1: to come and stay with him, sort of a letter
Speaker 1: of like a hello, if you're ever in the area,
Speaker 1: please stop by. I would love to see you. But
Speaker 1: Dean writes that while some say this letter was written affectionately,
Speaker 1: it quote was written with the kind of flourish that
Speaker 1: signals in since Sarah a tea, okay, so just some
Speaker 1: of that more British, like I'm telling you to come,
Speaker 1: I'd love to see you, but we know that doesn't
Speaker 1: mean come see me, right, A little bit of a hint,
Speaker 1: hint or just formality right, not sincere. I'm thinking about
Speaker 1: this lady who went to Iceland, and she was like,
Speaker 1: by the way, if you're American and you're in Iceland,
Speaker 1: don't say what we say, which is like, hey, we
Speaker 1: should hang out sometime or see you soon, or like
Speaker 1: one of those little things that we just say on
Speaker 1: top hint because they immediately go okay when yeah, oh oh,
Speaker 1: do you want to hang out again? Okay, how about tomorrow?
Speaker 1: I have some time? And you're like, oh shoot, I
Speaker 1: was just trying to be polite right now, I got
Speaker 1: a house guest. How are you today? Oh? Well, I
Speaker 1: stopped my tod this morning, and the first time I'll
Speaker 1: ever see my mother since the day since the day
Speaker 1: she left me when I was five years old, is tomorrow.
Speaker 1: And I'm a little nervous about it. And You're like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, I just meant how you're doing it,
Speaker 1: didn't really mean say good how and you So just
Speaker 1: a lot of cultural differences in the communication style there.
Speaker 1: But question, based on everything that we've learned over the
Speaker 1: past hour or so about Hans Christian Anderson, do you
Speaker 1: think that he picked up on the social cues and
Speaker 1: of course he did not. He took this letter completely
Speaker 1: seriously and he was so excited that he didn't even
Speaker 1: know how to respond. So instead of just writing back
Speaker 1: and being like, yes, I'd love to come, Anderson announced
Speaker 1: to the press that he would be traveling back to London.
Speaker 1: And by now he had become very well known across
Speaker 1: all across Europe, so this was like big news. Then
Speaker 1: he wrote to Dickens and said, I mean, I only
Speaker 1: want to come if you'll really want me to come.
Speaker 1: I will come, but only if you want me to
Speaker 1: And once again the British took over in Dickens and
Speaker 1: he wrote back, probably through gritted teeth, Oh, just of
Speaker 1: course I do. Nothing would make me happy. Uh do
Speaker 1: you soon? I guess. So. When Anderson showed up in
Speaker 1: England for his infamous eighteen fifty seven trip, he didn't
Speaker 1: really get much of a welcome. There wasn't even a
Speaker 1: carriage waiting for him at the station in Kent. He
Speaker 1: had to pay somebody to help him carry his bags
Speaker 1: and walked to Dickenson's estate, Gad's Hill. Now his first
Speaker 1: night there, Anderson found his room extremely cold, and in
Speaker 1: the morning he was offended to find no servant on
Speaker 1: staff to offer him a shave, which he explained was
Speaker 1: a common Danish custom, like, if I'm staying at your house,
Speaker 1: you have someone there to shave me in the morning.
Speaker 1: So instead, Anderson sent off for Charles Dickens's eldest son
Speaker 1: to come do it, which, of course, you know, the
Speaker 1: eldest son of famous author Charles Dickens. Being told come
Speaker 1: shave your house guest is like, I'm sorry. The hell
Speaker 1: do you want me to do? Is this? After that, Dickens,
Speaker 1: of course, finding this extremely strange, booked Anderson a daily
Speaker 1: appointment in town with a bar burr. This is where
Speaker 1: we go. So yes, right now. Charles Dickens, for his part,
Speaker 1: he was really going through it at the time. Actually,
Speaker 1: a friend of his had just died, and Dickens had
Speaker 1: promised this guy on his deathbed that he would help
Speaker 1: out his wife and children, and so as a benefit
Speaker 1: for them, he started producing several performances of his friend
Speaker 1: Wilkie Collins play The Frozen Deep, and Dickens and his
Speaker 1: daughters would act in this performance. Now at the premiere
Speaker 1: in the audience was Queen Victoria, the Prince of Prussia,
Speaker 1: the King of Belgium, and a gangly, awkward fifty two
Speaker 1: year old Gidey children's author who had basically invited himself
Speaker 1: over and during the premiere, Anderson, during Charles dickens death scene,
Speaker 1: burst into tears. He just started bawling in the center
Speaker 1: of the audience, which, of course, to all the royal
Speaker 1: British folks around, was just extremely awkward and uncouth, too
Speaker 1: much emotional express a sales Mr Anderson, I feel like
Speaker 1: as Dickens, I'd be like, I must be acting this ship.
Speaker 1: See this guy is upset. I think more he's just concerned.
Speaker 1: It's like, you're embarrassing me in front of Shut your mouth, Anderson.
Speaker 1: It's not literally not a worse person. You can be
Speaker 1: embarrassing me in front of Now. This was not the
Speaker 1: only time that Hans Christian Anderson awkwardly burst into tears. Apparently,
Speaker 1: while he was at the Dickens of State, he got
Speaker 1: word that his new novel To Be or Not to
Speaker 1: Be had gotten bad reviews, and this made him throw
Speaker 1: himself on the lawn and start sobbing yenz Anderson writes
Speaker 1: in Hans Christian Anderson's biography that Hans's reactions quote, we're
Speaker 1: not the least bit charming. No, I can imagine it's
Speaker 1: always awkward for someone to like burst into tears in
Speaker 1: front of you. Um. And I imagine especially at the
Speaker 1: Charles Dickens estate where he's like, yeah, I'm Charles Dickens.
Speaker 1: I've I've had a share of bad reviews. This isn't
Speaker 1: how a dignified men behaves in such instances. Is there
Speaker 1: a good way to respond to a bad review? Really? Yes? Uh?
Speaker 1: You look at a bad review and you go yeah, right,
Speaker 1: and then you walk away. Or honestly, if I'm being
Speaker 1: super honest to me, a bad review is uh, you
Speaker 1: want to look at it, and the first thing you
Speaker 1: want to think is can I learned something from this? Right?
Speaker 1: Do they have a legitimate point? Or even even even
Speaker 1: if even if I'm like, well, I disagree with you, Okay,
Speaker 1: Well you're the person who has to listen to my work,
Speaker 1: so I have to decide if you are representative of
Speaker 1: all listeners and I therefore should adapt, you know, because
Speaker 1: you're the ones to have to listen to it. Um
Speaker 1: Or do I say, okay, I don't. I am not
Speaker 1: responding to this. I don't care. It's not going to
Speaker 1: affect me and you move on and it stings a little,
Speaker 1: but screw him. That's how I feel. Very very, very
Speaker 1: few and absurd negative reviews we've gotten on this show.
Speaker 1: I guess that's what I mean, though, It's like, there's
Speaker 1: no way to publicly react to a bad review that
Speaker 1: is not going to make you look kind of silly
Speaker 1: or undignified or like you're taking it too personally or whatever. Sure,
Speaker 1: but throwing yourself down to the ground and having a
Speaker 1: tantrum definitely not the worst option. Now. One time, Hans
Speaker 1: visited the philanthropist Baroness Angela Boudette Coots, who was one
Speaker 1: of the most wealthy women in England, and YenS writes
Speaker 1: that Hans found the servants too elegant and didn't dare
Speaker 1: ask them to put more pillows on this bed, so
Speaker 1: instead he asked the Baroness herself, which is so awkward. Yes,
Speaker 1: First of all, she's like, that's not literally pay people
Speaker 1: to do this. Second of all, you're saying I'm less
Speaker 1: elegant than Like, what are you trying to say now?
Speaker 1: Charles Dickens tried to escape Hans as much as he could,
Speaker 1: and he used rehearsals for The Frozen Deep as an
Speaker 1: excuse to stay away, but the estate of Gad's Hill
Speaker 1: was his family's main house. There really wasn't much getting
Speaker 1: away at all. Anderson, you know, he probably did recognize
Speaker 1: the sort of awkward tension that he was creating, and
Speaker 1: of course he's going to work really hard to overcome that, which,
Speaker 1: again in Victorian England, is not what you do. He
Speaker 1: just made things more awkward by trying to cut through
Speaker 1: the tension, and his obsession with Charles Dickens made everyone uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: One time at dinner, Charles held out his arm to
Speaker 1: a visiting lady, who escort her into the room, and
Speaker 1: Hans Christian Anderson swooped in between them and grabbed his
Speaker 1: arm for himself, and as charles son Henry Rowe to
Speaker 1: quote leading father triumphantly into the dining room. Oh lord,
Speaker 1: Charles Dickens is like me, and Muggen is deaditely like
Speaker 1: look at mind his shoulder, like rolling his eyes. He
Speaker 1: did he just do? Yeah, And of course everyone is
Speaker 1: like teasing Charles Dickens for this, you know, when you've
Speaker 1: got that embarrassing friend. Yeah, but that is really just
Speaker 1: the beginning of Hans Christian Andersen's ridiculous antics at Charles
Speaker 1: dickens house. His awkward behavior drove Dickens absolutely nuts, but
Speaker 1: that might have been because Dickens was secretly having some
Speaker 1: marital problems in the background, and Anderson had no idea
Speaker 1: that he was making things a lot worse. So we
Speaker 1: will hear more about that right after these words, welcome
Speaker 1: back everybody now. Charles Dickens had ten children with his
Speaker 1: wife Catherine, and they mostly did not like Hans Christian
Speaker 1: Andersen either, probably especially that oldest son who's like I
Speaker 1: Ain shaven, another grown man. Charles daughter Kate called him
Speaker 1: quote a bony boar who stayed on and on. But
Speaker 1: he did connect a little with Charles's youngest son, five
Speaker 1: year old Edward, who was affectionately called Plorne. The first
Speaker 1: night Anderson was there, Clorine told him quote, I'll shove
Speaker 1: you out the window. I not only want you to leave,
Speaker 1: I want you to possibly hurt yourself or die. But
Speaker 1: Anderson won him over with his silly antics. Florin loved
Speaker 1: hearing Anderson speak in Danish because Hans is English was
Speaker 1: still pretty bad. It was maybe even worse than it
Speaker 1: was before the ten years ago when he was at
Speaker 1: that party. So every time Lauren heard a Danish word
Speaker 1: that kind of sounded like an English word, he would say,
Speaker 1: I understand Danish. It's just so close cute. I love
Speaker 1: a five girl being like no I I I understood that.
Speaker 1: YenS writes that later, when Anderson asked if Florin liked him,
Speaker 1: Florin gave a big smile and said yes, and now
Speaker 1: he would like to shove Anderson in the window. One time,
Speaker 1: Hans Christian Anderson made a big old daisy wreath and
Speaker 1: he wrapped it around the playwright Wilkie Collins top hat
Speaker 1: without him knowing. Wilkie was a friend of Charles Dickens.
Speaker 1: He was the one who wrote The Frozen Deep, And
Speaker 1: as they walked through town together, everybody was like pointing
Speaker 1: and laughing at Wilkie Collins. Of course, he had no
Speaker 1: idea why, and Charles Dickens kids were kind of like, okay,
Speaker 1: that's kind of funny, sort of like that like a
Speaker 1: kick me sign on. But Collins did get back at
Speaker 1: Anderson later though. He wrote a short story about a
Speaker 1: famous German writer named Harold von Wuff who stayed at
Speaker 1: the home of his English colleague Sir John and har
Speaker 1: Von is portrayed as quote a sentimental catture, a glutton,
Speaker 1: and an unhappy foreign bachelor. According to Yenz Anderson's biography,
Speaker 1: so very clearly this is meant to be Hans Christian
Speaker 1: Anderson and Colin Story says quote, there was no harm
Speaker 1: in hair von muf as for poor sir John. He
Speaker 1: suffered more than any of us for her. Von muff
Speaker 1: was always trying to kiss him. So they're really just
Speaker 1: you know, teasing Anderson about how obsessed with Charles Dickens
Speaker 1: he was. You know, I don't think he ever really
Speaker 1: tried to kiss him. There's definitely a few people that
Speaker 1: are like, maybe he felt romantically about Charles Dickens, but
Speaker 1: mostly he just like idolized him and worshiped him in
Speaker 1: the most annoying way. It's like a fanboy situation. Yeah. Now.
Speaker 1: Dickens also wrote letters to friends where he relentlessly teased
Speaker 1: Anderson and regularly made fun of him for being afraid
Speaker 1: of pickpocketers, because London kind of freaked Anderson out. This
Speaker 1: is a big, bustling city, and he apparently kept all
Speaker 1: his belongings in his boots when he traveled the city, which,
Speaker 1: to be fair, is pretty funny because this included a watch, money,
Speaker 1: a train schedule, a pocket book, a pair of scissors,
Speaker 1: a pen knife, and two small books. What kind of
Speaker 1: boots are you wearing? Just like stretched out around his legs.
Speaker 1: I always buy boots two slices. But when I go
Speaker 1: to London, like I'm imagining, you know, if you have
Speaker 1: a giant purse and you can't find anything, but that's
Speaker 1: his boots. He's like, I have got some chipstick in
Speaker 1: here somewhere. He's trying to pay for get his train schedule.
Speaker 1: It's like, oh no, it's the penknife again. He misses
Speaker 1: three trains because he can't get the schedule of his boot.
Speaker 1: He's got to like dump it all out in the
Speaker 1: middle of the station. Mary Poppins boots he's wearing. It's
Speaker 1: got like a reading lamp. He pulls out of him.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, amazing, Oh good hand sand of bitch.
Speaker 1: I made I know this would come in empty. I
Speaker 1: correcked myself up. But Dickens also shipped on Anderson's writing
Speaker 1: abilities and marked him for quote not being able to
Speaker 1: pronounce the name of his own book, The Improvisa Torre
Speaker 1: in Italian. He said, Anderson quote spoke French like Peter
Speaker 1: the wild Boy, and English like the deaf and dumb school.
Speaker 1: Yet Anderson wrote in his diary the quote Dickens says,
Speaker 1: I speak better not only day by day, but hour
Speaker 1: by hour. That's so rude. I mean, like Dickens out
Speaker 1: here like talking insane ship. He's like writing the rudest
Speaker 1: things about him to all of his friends. And then
Speaker 1: Anderson is like, wow, when we meet up, he's so
Speaker 1: friendly to me, He's so nice. So he's just a real,
Speaker 1: you know, back talking piece of shit. That's some British
Speaker 1: ship to do as well, to be like, I'm going
Speaker 1: to be rude as fucked you, but I'm going to
Speaker 1: hide behind my polite manners. That's why I'm being rude.
Speaker 1: It's because I can't be honest. What is that? And
Speaker 1: especially Victorian England, Yeah that's you, but not you your ancestors,
Speaker 1: you know, but yeah, no exactly where It's like he
Speaker 1: can't be straightforward to someone's face, that wouldn't be proper.
Speaker 1: But it's okay for me to talk mad ship about
Speaker 1: him behind his back, right, So I don't know, it's
Speaker 1: not like sad because you know, Anderson's expecting way more
Speaker 1: straight dealing, it seems, or needs to be told very clearly,
Speaker 1: you know how you feel, what you're thinking, because maybe
Speaker 1: he's like missing, maybe you know, he had some kind
Speaker 1: of autism spectrum type thing where he's like, I really
Speaker 1: can't like I need a very literal person yea, because
Speaker 1: because either way, uh, you know, in addition to being
Speaker 1: a foreigner and having totally different customs, Hans Christian Anderson
Speaker 1: we have seen is kind of like a child in
Speaker 1: so many ways, and his communication I think it reflects that.
Speaker 1: And he does sort of take things literally and expect
Speaker 1: you to say what you're saying. Yeah. Um, So there's
Speaker 1: definitely a communication barrier here. But to be fair, Hans
Speaker 1: Kristan Anderson did invite himself there to begin with, and
Speaker 1: was supposed to stay for two weeks and ended up
Speaker 1: staying for five. So you know, it's not like Dickens
Speaker 1: isn't rightfully piste off at this guy. Now, it's unclear
Speaker 1: exactly what brought this lengthy visit to an end. Some
Speaker 1: accounts say that Dickens finally got fed up and asked
Speaker 1: or told him to leave. Others say that Anderson just
Speaker 1: finally felt that he was unwelcome, and he left in tears.
Speaker 1: In either case, he did seem to know that he
Speaker 1: hadn't been the best guest, because he wrote to Dickens, quote,
Speaker 1: kindly forget the unfavorable aspect which our life together may
Speaker 1: have shown you of me. And Dickens barely responded to
Speaker 1: this in a letter where he just kind of described
Speaker 1: how the countryside had changed since Anderson left. Yes, since
Speaker 1: you left, the leaves of fallen off the trees and
Speaker 1: the fields are now brown. And then he never wrote
Speaker 1: or spoke to Anderson again out Yes, Dickens, in a
Speaker 1: hugely petty move, had a little sign made up that
Speaker 1: he placed on the mantle of the fireplace in the
Speaker 1: guest room where Anderson had stayed, and it said, quote
Speaker 1: Hans Anderson slept in this room for five weeks, which
Speaker 1: seemed to the family ages. What a plaque that's so rude,
Speaker 1: Olivia Retiguliano writes on lid hub quote This interlude does
Speaker 1: remind us that while sometimes you can meet your heroes,
Speaker 1: maybe just don't let your fans live with you in
Speaker 1: your house. Great advice. It can be easy to blame
Speaker 1: Hans Christian Anderson for his outrageous behavior here, and like
Speaker 1: we said, he's not blameless. I mean, he did invite himself,
Speaker 1: he stayed too long, he's throwing tantrums, he expecting things
Speaker 1: that he maybe shouldn't have expected. And Retigliano also calls
Speaker 1: Anderson quote insensitively sensitive, which can be real frustrating. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, he does seem like he's very wrapped up
Speaker 1: in his own emotions and it can't see how they
Speaker 1: affect other people. Maybe, but if we look a little
Speaker 1: closer and examined Charles Dickens's own behavior, it really seems
Speaker 1: like there was a lot more going on than just
Speaker 1: a bad house guest. Jens Anderson writes in Hans's biography
Speaker 1: that quote the Dickens family had always represented something of
Speaker 1: a Victorian ideal that became known around the world. I mean,
Speaker 1: this guy had a serious reputation, right. This is Charles Dickens.
Speaker 1: He infected Christmas. Is the guy who gave us Bob
Speaker 1: Cratchett and Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby. I mean, these
Speaker 1: are pretty relatable and virtuous heroes. By in Marge and
Speaker 1: everybody saw Charles Dickens as Mr Perfect. You know, he
Speaker 1: was a reflection of his work. But during Anderson's stay
Speaker 1: there in eighteen fifty seven, there was actually a lot
Speaker 1: of family drama going on in the background. Things weren't
Speaker 1: so perfect after all. You see. Charles Dickens had met
Speaker 1: his wife Catherine in eighteen thirty four, and they married
Speaker 1: quickly and for a while they were a super happy couple.
Speaker 1: Dickens wrote during period of their early marriage that even
Speaker 1: if he became rich and famous, he would never be
Speaker 1: as happy as he was with his wife in their
Speaker 1: small flat in Bloomsbury. Oh, Bloomsbury, can we capture the
Speaker 1: magic game? You go back again and have a co
Speaker 1: back to blooms three. But over the years, Charles started
Speaker 1: to resent Catherine and her lack of energy, and he
Speaker 1: found her to be an incompetent mother and housekeeper. He
Speaker 1: even blamed her for their ten children, saying he wanted
Speaker 1: to stop after four. I'm sorry, Dickens. Why to keep
Speaker 1: your dick into yourself if you don't want any more kids?
Speaker 1: You know how it works. I gotta maybe a little
Speaker 1: education for Charles Dickens on how he ended up with
Speaker 1: ten kids. Okay, also her lack of energy. She had
Speaker 1: ten kids. University of York says that letters were recently
Speaker 1: discovered that suggested Dickens actually tried to bend the law
Speaker 1: to have Catherine committed to a lunatic asylum to get
Speaker 1: her out of his hair. Unbelievable move from Charles missed
Speaker 1: perfect Dickens. Fortunately, a doctor named Thomas Took found that
Speaker 1: there was no evidence that she suffered from a mental disorder,
Speaker 1: and Dickens was so powerful at the time that Professor
Speaker 1: John Bowen says, it was really courageous of two to
Speaker 1: stand up for Catherine and say no, your wife is
Speaker 1: not insane, because this is Unfortunately, I don't think it
Speaker 1: was common, but it was certainly something that was done
Speaker 1: more than once. Yeah, he mentioned. Yeah, he mentions that
Speaker 1: the laws were ambiguous enough that this could happen. And honestly,
Speaker 1: the fact that Charles couldn't get it done was owed
Speaker 1: almost entirely to Took by stepping in and saying, I
Speaker 1: just I just can't let this one slide. Well, this
Speaker 1: is how you get those funny Well they're funny today,
Speaker 1: they're really not funny in context, but those funny lists
Speaker 1: of how reasons people were put in asylums from back
Speaker 1: in their women specifically and it's stuff like, I mean,
Speaker 1: like she's tired, or like she had an orgasm once
Speaker 1: or whatever. Like it's just like the most ridiculous ship.
Speaker 1: She told me she had a bad day once, outrageous.
Speaker 1: Something must be terribly wrong with her brain now. Professor
Speaker 1: John Bowen writes, quote, it's a gas lighting story, manipulating
Speaker 1: someone into doubting their own sanity. And it's also a
Speaker 1: story about professionals standing up against the rich and powerful.
Speaker 1: Big ups to Thomas too. Yeah, all of this drama
Speaker 1: between them was reaching ahead in eighteen fifty seven when Mr.
Speaker 1: Fairy Tales showed up on Dickens doorstep. Charles at this
Speaker 1: point was already trying to scheme his way out of
Speaker 1: his own marriage. Plus he had just gotten a bunch
Speaker 1: of bad reviews on his serial Little Dorit, and money
Speaker 1: was actually kind of tight for them, which he also
Speaker 1: blamed his wife for sounds a lot like throwing a
Speaker 1: little temper tangion. But in addition to those personal problems,
Speaker 1: he was also dealing with this recently deceased friend of
Speaker 1: his and the play that he was putting on in
Speaker 1: his honor. Then, to make matters worse, there was an
Speaker 1: actress in that play. Her name was Nellie Turning, and
Speaker 1: of course Dickens fell head over heels in love with
Speaker 1: this girl. I mean, he was forty five and rich
Speaker 1: and powerful and producing a play, and she was an
Speaker 1: eighteen year old actress. So you know, Taylor as old
Speaker 1: as plays. I guess now it's Victorian England and divorce.
Speaker 1: Obviously there's a crazy idea, especially for someone as prominent
Speaker 1: as Charles Dickens. Right, so he wasn't quite sure how
Speaker 1: to get away from his wife that he could hang
Speaker 1: out with his actress instead without it being a whole
Speaker 1: big scandal, but he was definitely trying to. He wrote
Speaker 1: in a letter to a friend of his at the time, quote, Paul,
Speaker 1: Catherine and I are not made for each other. What
Speaker 1: is now befalling? I have seen steadily coming every year
Speaker 1: she gets older. I don't know why she's no longer
Speaker 1: made for me. Ever since I noticed she wasn't a
Speaker 1: teenager anymore, I've seen this coming. I just couldn't bring
Speaker 1: myself to touch her body. I love that that like
Speaker 1: I've been seeing the steadily coming. Like you know, maybe
Speaker 1: no one else expected it. When I have repeated several
Speaker 1: times that I want her out of love my life
Speaker 1: and tried to have it committed to an insane asylum.
Speaker 1: But actually, I think this has been coming for a
Speaker 1: while now. Surprisingly enough, that's somehow speculated that there was
Speaker 1: an affair between Dickens and Nelly at this time, like
Speaker 1: physical affair, but if there was, it was kept very quiet,
Speaker 1: right right, Uh, speculation station. I mean, Hans Christian Anderson
Speaker 1: is hanging out with them, and Dickens is probably worried
Speaker 1: that he's going to blow the whole thing up, right,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Something about your nonsense is gonna end up.
Speaker 1: A curtain is gonna get pulled down, and I'm going
Speaker 1: to be caught red handed with my something somehow. I
Speaker 1: know you're going to ruin this for me. Where's the
Speaker 1: Dickens fars? He could have written out of this at
Speaker 1: any rate. Anderson seemed to be totally oblivious to this
Speaker 1: Dickens family feud while he was there in eighteen fifty seven,
Speaker 1: and only seemed to learn about their situation a year
Speaker 1: after he stayed with them. But the fallout would hit
Speaker 1: the obliviously sweet Danish author pretty hard, and we will
Speaker 1: hear more about that right after this. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: the show everybody. Now, Over the years after Anderson's visit,
Speaker 1: he had sent Dickens a few more packages, you know,
Speaker 1: copies of his books with heartwarming handwritten dedications inside, but
Speaker 1: Dickens neither read them nor responded. Do you think he
Speaker 1: just got him and threw him in a fire, like
Speaker 1: he didn't even open them? That would be sad. Anderson
Speaker 1: Yen's rights was quite simply frozen out, and despite knowing
Speaker 1: his behavior was not the best, Hans was really surprised
Speaker 1: to be completely ignored by this guy that he thought
Speaker 1: of as a hero and a friend. But as we said,
Speaker 1: Dickens was going through his own stuff at the time.
Speaker 1: Um he did separate from his wife Katherine officially, although
Speaker 1: it was kept quiet and while the exact causes unknown,
Speaker 1: rumors swirled around Victorian England about who and what and why,
Speaker 1: and lots of people had their own version of the story.
Speaker 1: It's almost as if all these Victorian British folks were
Speaker 1: like wound up so tight and can't share anything or
Speaker 1: say anything, are desperately thirsty for rumors to spread around
Speaker 1: and will go absolutely insane, like it's a drop of
Speaker 1: blood and a shark tank. They hear the slightest thing
Speaker 1: they go running into Mary. Did you hear Charles had
Speaker 1: an emotion today? By God call the Queen. It's all
Speaker 1: over the papers. Well way back in the day when
Speaker 1: Charles and Catherine were first courting each other before they marriage,
Speaker 1: Catherine's little sister, Mary Hogarth was always hanging around with them,
Speaker 1: and when Charles and Catherine got married, Mary came to
Speaker 1: live with them. This is super strange in Victorian England
Speaker 1: for a young single teenage girl to come live with
Speaker 1: a newlywed couple, like kind of cramped their style. That
Speaker 1: wasn't good for anyone, kind of strange. But she really
Speaker 1: helped out around the house. They both loved having her there,
Speaker 1: especially when Catherine got pregnant for the first time and
Speaker 1: Charles Dickens really took a shine to young Mary. He
Speaker 1: called her quote an intimate friend, a privileged sister, and
Speaker 1: a domestic companion. Philip Allingham of lake Head University says
Speaker 1: that Dickens was truly obsessed with her and used her
Speaker 1: as inspiration for some of his characters, such as Rosemaylie
Speaker 1: and Oliver Twist, Kate and Nicholas Nickleby, and Agnes In
Speaker 1: David Copperfield, which are all, you know, some of his
Speaker 1: strongest female characters his works. Dickens even trusted Mary's opinion
Speaker 1: of his writing more than his wife Katherine's, as ailing him,
Speaker 1: writes quote, trusting that her observations and reactions represented those
Speaker 1: of the common reader, unlike Catherine, who was just my wife,
Speaker 1: just so lazy, sitting around having six more kids. And
Speaker 1: I asked for I mean, but maybe that wasn't really
Speaker 1: a dig. Like maybe he's like, well, you're your classy
Speaker 1: lady or whatever. Mary's like younger, she's you know, you know,
Speaker 1: represents the regular folk or something. But when Mary was
Speaker 1: only seventeen, and after living with them for only a year,
Speaker 1: she died suddenly from unknown causes, probably heart failure stroke.
Speaker 1: Dickens wrote, quote, she died in my arms, and the
Speaker 1: very last words she whispered were of me. He took
Speaker 1: a ring from her finger, and he wore it for
Speaker 1: the rest of his life. He visited her graves so
Speaker 1: often that other visitors in the cemetery thought he was
Speaker 1: her actual brother. There is tons of research out there
Speaker 1: on just how big of an impact Mary Hogarth had
Speaker 1: on dickens writings and characters throughout his life because she
Speaker 1: was definitely a number one influence on him going forward. Man. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they even named their first daughter Mary, apparently at his insistence. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: I also like that, you know, she died in my arms.
Speaker 1: In her very last words she whispered aware of me,
Speaker 1: which you know according to him. But also I think
Speaker 1: Ailingham writes like, given Charles Dickens kind of ego centric city,
Speaker 1: it wouldn't be surprising if her last words were of him,
Speaker 1: because he probably made every conversation about himself, even with
Speaker 1: someone who's dying, And he said, Mary, don't leave me.
Speaker 1: Don't you know what that would do to me? She's like,
Speaker 1: You'll be all right, Mary, Mary, are you okay? Can
Speaker 1: you tell me what you think of this paragraph here
Speaker 1: before you go quick of it? And look Throughout dickens life,
Speaker 1: it was very off and young women that intrigued him
Speaker 1: and ended up being the model for characters in his books.
Speaker 1: We won't get into all of them, but there was
Speaker 1: a number of teenage girls that he kind of had
Speaker 1: obsessions with, no matter how much older he got. Very um,
Speaker 1: very Matthew McConaughey confused, Right, That's what I love about
Speaker 1: influences on my work, I keep getting older, they stay
Speaker 1: the same age. But historian Michael Slater writes that dickens
Speaker 1: own wife, Catherine, the woman he loved, the woman he married,
Speaker 1: the woman who birthed ten children with him, the woman
Speaker 1: he lived with for twenty two years. Quote, appears to
Speaker 1: have had less impact on his deepest imagination and art
Speaker 1: than any of the other women who hold an important
Speaker 1: place in his emotional history. So she's just not not
Speaker 1: worthy of inspiring him somehow. Kind of wonder what then
Speaker 1: got them together or if it was just the very
Speaker 1: fact that she was his wife that made him think,
Speaker 1: you know, oh, well, no, you're not that kind of special,
Speaker 1: You're not that kind of woman. You're just a wife. Yes,
Speaker 1: I was about to say, a wife and mother, not mysterious,
Speaker 1: not exciting maybe, or that like he liked these attachments
Speaker 1: that couldn't lead to something necessarily like this, like his
Speaker 1: wife's sister or something. It gave him maybe that energy
Speaker 1: or something, and made him imagine things that weren't real.
Speaker 1: You know, where's Catherine's real? She's right there. He can
Speaker 1: sleep at her any time, like there's no mystery to
Speaker 1: her for him, which says to me that he doesn't.
Speaker 1: Maybe didn't explore her very much because I bet she
Speaker 1: had more going on her brain than he was given
Speaker 1: her credit for. But who knows, Maybe she's a big dummy.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, at some point they fell
Speaker 1: in love right and got right. She had something going
Speaker 1: for maybe her worst, the worst thing she could have done,
Speaker 1: and say yes. If she had never said yes, he
Speaker 1: would be obsessed with his whole life. Maybe. But we
Speaker 1: can see that pattern continue because twenty years after Mary's death,
Speaker 1: this eighteen year old actress Nellie turn In was now
Speaker 1: Charles Dickens new focus and inspiration, and his attention drifted
Speaker 1: even further from his wife at this point. In eighteen
Speaker 1: fifty eight, the year after Anderson left Gad's Hill in tears,
Speaker 1: Charles and Katherine Dickens separated. Now we don't know exactly why,
Speaker 1: but the main rumor is that one day Katherine got
Speaker 1: a little package in the mail and she opened it
Speaker 1: up and what was inside but a beautiful bracelet thank
Speaker 1: you so much, with a note for the teenage actress
Speaker 1: Nellie Turning what the jeweler had accidentally delivered it to
Speaker 1: the wrong lady Oopsie doodle, which I mean in the
Speaker 1: jeweler's defense, Charles Dickens says, I bought this beautiful bracelet
Speaker 1: send it to my to my lover. He's like, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I know her. I'll bring it by. Everyone knows Katherine.
Speaker 1: Isn't this a plot in love? Actually? Oh god, I
Speaker 1: supposedly this is just the nail in the coffin for Katherine,
Speaker 1: who like just couldn't take it anymore. You know, you
Speaker 1: could try to put me in an asylum, but this
Speaker 1: is too far, sir. Bracelet bracelet, how dare you throw out? Also,
Speaker 1: Catherine Dickens uh famously had this badass snake bracelet. It's
Speaker 1: like in a museum in England somewhere. I saw some
Speaker 1: pictures of it. But it's awesome, nice. Yeah, obviously it's
Speaker 1: Victorian England. Their separation was kept as quiet as possible,
Speaker 1: but rumors started to circulate the Dickens and turn in
Speaker 1: We're having an affair, which Dickens ardently denied, saying, quote,
Speaker 1: all the lately whispered rumors are abominably false. Whosoever repeats
Speaker 1: them after this denial will lie as wilfully as foully
Speaker 1: as it is possible for any false witness to lie
Speaker 1: before heaven enough, what a claim is this some of
Speaker 1: that flourish that means insincerity that we heard about earlier,
Speaker 1: because that's what it sounds like to me. He's a
Speaker 1: little a little too upset. It is just to come
Speaker 1: out and say it didn't happen. And now that I've
Speaker 1: said that, if you say it did happen, you're obviously
Speaker 1: lying because I already said it didn't. Oh well, it's
Speaker 1: not the full proof defense. Thanking everybody. You're definitely the
Speaker 1: most reliable narrator of your own life. Now, this drama
Speaker 1: persisted for years because, of course things moved more slowly
Speaker 1: back then. It took a couple of weeks to reach
Speaker 1: a publication, right. But meanwhile, in eighteen sixties, so just
Speaker 1: about two years after the separation, sele old Hans Christian
Speaker 1: Anderson published a book in Germany about his travels, and
Speaker 1: it was called from de Heart and the World and Duped.
Speaker 1: And this book included a little story titled a Visit
Speaker 1: with Charles Dickens. Biographer YenS Anderson calls the writing quote
Speaker 1: a naive and sentimental portrait of his visit with Charles
Speaker 1: Dickens that was just about oh that the happy time
Speaker 1: that he had with all this big, happy family and
Speaker 1: jolly old England. But it's hard to say if Hans
Speaker 1: was just, you know, obliviously naive about his time there,
Speaker 1: or if he had deliberately fictionalized this story as sort
Speaker 1: of like a name droppy tale about how he and
Speaker 1: one of the world's most famous authors spent a lovely
Speaker 1: summer together and he laughed at my jokes, yes, and
Speaker 1: he loved me. One time he took me into dinner
Speaker 1: on his arm, right handsome. So it's just kind of
Speaker 1: weird behavior from Hans to publish this story again. Is
Speaker 1: he making it all up? Or is he just oblivious?
Speaker 1: And it's not unlike Hans to completely miss the point
Speaker 1: that he was the one who made Charles Dickens hate
Speaker 1: him right, I mean again, we know that he doesn't
Speaker 1: exactly pick up on social cues, but he also spent
Speaker 1: the rest of his life really confused as to why
Speaker 1: Dickens never talked to him again. Well, the story about
Speaker 1: his time at Dickens house went far and wide, and
Speaker 1: the European press and by now even the Americans we're
Speaker 1: all drooling over this selacious Dickens drama of his affair
Speaker 1: with a young actress. So when this hunky dory story
Speaker 1: about the idyllic time Anderson had with the beautiful Dickens
Speaker 1: family who never argued how a single problem when anyone
Speaker 1: came out, it just kind of added fuel to the fire.
Speaker 1: The contrast between these two stories, right, yeah, yeah, it
Speaker 1: was like this, like, oh, perfect time with a perfect family,
Speaker 1: and everyone's like comparing, contrasting with the next column over,
Speaker 1: which is like Dickens found too in Nellie's arms. Now,
Speaker 1: what's weirder still is that Hans Anderson definitely knew by
Speaker 1: this point that things were not going great for the
Speaker 1: Dickens family. In fact, some had even tried to pin
Speaker 1: the blame on him for the Dickens marriage falling apart.
Speaker 1: The novelist bs Ingeman wrote, quote, I suppose I ought
Speaker 1: not to say this, but Dickens and his wife lived
Speaker 1: together just fine until Anderson came to visit. Anderson is
Speaker 1: supposed to be so harmless, yet he's quite awful. He's
Speaker 1: caused thousands of troubles with women. Whenever he stays here,
Speaker 1: I fear for my wife. It will end with her
Speaker 1: running off with him. Come here, Lucy, let me hold
Speaker 1: onto you this mc sweeney's article, Christian Anderson like these
Speaker 1: were mostly silly accusations. I mean that the timing was
Speaker 1: kind of odd. But as soon as Anderson left this
Speaker 1: this famous visit, Dickens marriage fall fell apart. But either way,
Speaker 1: the association between Anderson and their separation was just locked in.
Speaker 1: Everyone thought those two things happened concurrently, right, But Anderson
Speaker 1: clearly must have been aware that there was some drama
Speaker 1: going on while he was there, because later his publisher
Speaker 1: even wrote him a letter in which he says that
Speaker 1: Charles Dickens head grated himself with this alleged affair. And
Speaker 1: Hans himself wrote a letter to his old buddy Edward
Speaker 1: Colin we learned about in the previous episode, and he
Speaker 1: told him quote, I have much to tell you and
Speaker 1: your wife about Dickens and his family life. I don't
Speaker 1: care to put what is holy private on paper. You
Speaker 1: never know what might be printed over the course of time.
Speaker 1: So he straight up knew there was some dirty details
Speaker 1: going around, and to that point, Charles Dickens himself was
Speaker 1: extremely private. In fact, he notoriously burned all of his letters.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, Hans Christian Anderson actually specifically requested
Speaker 1: that all of his letters be published after he died,
Speaker 1: so a very different approaches to what you know privacy
Speaker 1: meant to the two of them. Right, So, not only
Speaker 1: had Hans Christian Andersen barged in on dickens home and
Speaker 1: disrupted his family at a very difficult time, he then
Speaker 1: went back and like put his whole family unblast in
Speaker 1: this like weird idealized fiction about his time there. So
Speaker 1: obviously Charles Dickens was extremely offended, like about this, He's like,
Speaker 1: you can't just go out and talk about your time
Speaker 1: in my personal private home. Published that, I mean, like literally,
Speaker 1: this story was huge and royals were reading it in
Speaker 1: different countries all over Europe. So that kind of explains
Speaker 1: to me why Dickens never wanted to talk to him again.
Speaker 1: I could see that. I could see that, and he's like,
Speaker 1: that was not anybody's business. But also Anderson wrote the
Speaker 1: most lovely things about Katherine Dickens. He said she had
Speaker 1: quote big gentle eyes and a good natured smile, and
Speaker 1: he repeatedly compared her to dickens best female characters in
Speaker 1: his novels, like Agnes in David Copperfield, which we know
Speaker 1: Dickens based on Katherine's little sister Mary and not Katherine herself.
Speaker 1: That must have really got under his skin. No, not her,
Speaker 1: so is I didn't piss Charles off enough. It also
Speaker 1: screwed up his divorce proceedings because he's in court trying
Speaker 1: to paint Katherine as this incompetent wife and mother I
Speaker 1: meeting while there's a story going around, Oh, she's just
Speaker 1: the loveliest lady, her kids lover, everything's great. Damn, Dickens
Speaker 1: was already cutting his actual friends out of his life
Speaker 1: for siding with Katherine and his separation. So it's really
Speaker 1: no wonder that he spent the rest of his life
Speaker 1: completely ignoring the Danish children's author that he never really
Speaker 1: wanted to get to know in the first place. You
Speaker 1: wonder if Katherine's lawyers loved that piece be published. It
Speaker 1: was like, oh, she's an incompetent mother hall well Hans
Speaker 1: Christian Anderson says, she's the bomb exhibit A. Yes. Now,
Speaker 1: the English themselves were so thirsty for this drama that
Speaker 1: Anderson's book was, as Youngs calls it, quote like manna
Speaker 1: from heaven, Like, oh my god, you couldn't have asked
Speaker 1: for a better book. Drop during this wars right his
Speaker 1: Dickens family story was published in the magazine Bent Liz
Speaker 1: Miscellany with an editorial attach that basically was saying, like,
Speaker 1: oh wow, very bizarre that Dickens says his wife is
Speaker 1: such a monster, while Anderson is out here saying what
Speaker 1: a lovely family they are. But they also said, well, also,
Speaker 1: Hans Christian Anderson sucks because how dare he spilled the
Speaker 1: tea on this family's private life? Now we have no
Speaker 1: choice but to publish. I love that, Like, oh look
Speaker 1: at all these dirty details, and how dare you share
Speaker 1: them with us? Christian Anderson? Anyway, here they are published
Speaker 1: in our magazine across the world. You're running five thousand
Speaker 1: copies of them right now. It's almost like that meme
Speaker 1: with Mac from Always Sunny. He's like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: that's disgusting. Where where Hans Christian Anderson? How dare you
Speaker 1: say these things? Can we get that in writing? Please? Well?
Speaker 1: During a five month trip across Switzerland and Germany, Anderson
Speaker 1: spoke about and did readings from a visit with Charles Dickens.
Speaker 1: But he was also really moby around this time. He
Speaker 1: wrote quote, I am dejected. I wish to die and
Speaker 1: yet to live. I have no desire to be here
Speaker 1: at home, and yet I don't feel happy anywhere else.
Speaker 1: I feel as if I had thrown myself into the
Speaker 1: sea to let the waves carry me once again. They
Speaker 1: have carried me back to my own shores. Why I
Speaker 1: feel that that is so relatable. That's one of my
Speaker 1: favorite quotes of his. He's just like, I'm not happy
Speaker 1: at home, but I don't want to leave. I want
Speaker 1: to die, but I don't want to be dead, right,
Speaker 1: I just want to be dead for like a couple
Speaker 1: of days. I definitely feel that like we should have
Speaker 1: a day, or we could just be suspended in like
Speaker 1: an another dimension or something, or nothing we do or
Speaker 1: same matters and nothing has any effect on us. We
Speaker 1: have effect on nothing. Yeah, if only there was like
Speaker 1: a one to two year period where no one required
Speaker 1: anything of me and I could just stay at home,
Speaker 1: um and not associate with anyone, Surely I'd get a
Speaker 1: lot of work done in that time. Right, I don't
Speaker 1: count it because I feel like we were still had
Speaker 1: a lot of effectations and that was very stressful time.
Speaker 1: It was not a free time. Then, Nellie turn In
Speaker 1: and Charles Dickens never married, nor were they public about
Speaker 1: their affair, but she served as inspiration for characters like
Speaker 1: Lucy Manette in A Tale of Two Cities and a
Speaker 1: Stell Havisham in Great Expectations. There's not much evidence of
Speaker 1: their affair, as they were both careful not to document it,
Speaker 1: and like we said, Dickens was a notorious letter burner,
Speaker 1: so if he did write or anything got consigned to
Speaker 1: the flame. But when he died in eighteen seventy, Dickens
Speaker 1: left Nellie turn In one thousand pounds, which is worth
Speaker 1: about a hundred and seventy thousand U S. Dollars today,
Speaker 1: not shabby. He also gave her a trust fund income
Speaker 1: to ensure that she would never have to work again.
Speaker 1: Can I please have a short affair with a guy
Speaker 1: who decides to set me up on the line. But
Speaker 1: Charles dickens death was even harder on Hans Christian Anderson.
Speaker 1: He wrote in his diary quote on the evening of
Speaker 1: the ninth Charles Dickens died, as I read in tonight's newspaper.
Speaker 1: So we will never meet again on this earth, nor
Speaker 1: speak to each other. I won't receive an explanation from
Speaker 1: him as to why he never answered my later letters,
Speaker 1: which again is kind of weird that Charles Dickens died
Speaker 1: and Hans Christian Andersen's first thing is like, well, now
Speaker 1: he's never going to answer my question. They definitely are.
Speaker 1: That's what's so weird about these two. I mean, I
Speaker 1: really think there should be like, uh Will Ferrell John
Speaker 1: c Riley comedy about the two of them, because there's
Speaker 1: such an odd or it feels like Tommy Boy or
Speaker 1: something where you've got this like sweet dope and this
Speaker 1: like kind of hardened intellectual that just can't get along.
Speaker 1: But the dope is so like loving. He's like I
Speaker 1: just want us to be best friends forever, and the
Speaker 1: other guys like I don't have time for you. I'm busy,
Speaker 1: I have work, you know. Uh, there's just such a
Speaker 1: story there. But yeah, no, it's not like cons Christian
Speaker 1: Anderson wasn't the most annoying guy in the world during
Speaker 1: all this. I think it would be very hard to
Speaker 1: be friends with. Yeah, yeah, I mean look at the
Speaker 1: last story, like he's just his emotions are so intense
Speaker 1: and he doesn't understand them himself. So if he likes you,
Speaker 1: I don't think he knows the difference between like and love.
Speaker 1: You know, I think it once he like really feels
Speaker 1: feelings for someone in any way. He's like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I need this all the time. Never leave my side.
Speaker 1: We're destined to be together forever. And you're like, well,
Speaker 1: how about we're we just like each other and we're
Speaker 1: just friends. We just have a good time, right or
Speaker 1: all right, fine, do you want to have sex? And
Speaker 1: he's like, disgusting, how dare you suggest such a thing?
Speaker 1: I'm going to go home and plus uh so super
Speaker 1: just just a weird, bizarre relationship between the two of them.
Speaker 1: I mean, you can see the insensitively sensitive is a
Speaker 1: good description because he was just so wrapped up in
Speaker 1: his own feeling and he's like, doesn't seem to care
Speaker 1: how they affect other people or like I you know,
Speaker 1: he's not self reflective enough to say, oh, I am
Speaker 1: imposing my sensitivities onto people in places where it's not
Speaker 1: appropriate and I need to learn how to like rein
Speaker 1: it in save it for a friend or a private
Speaker 1: space or whatever, because it's just not it's just like
Speaker 1: ricocheting off other people and having problems. It's the perfect
Speaker 1: storm of incompatibilities because obviously Dick in this Victorian British
Speaker 1: society is really bad being direct and um thinks that, well,
Speaker 1: obviously you're going to pick up on my very subtle
Speaker 1: suggestions and gestures. Right. And on the other hand, you've
Speaker 1: got a guy who's, like we said, very childish, needs
Speaker 1: things kind of spelled out for and to begin with,
Speaker 1: but also always seems to kind of have his fingers
Speaker 1: in his ears, like la la la, I didn't hear
Speaker 1: the part that I should have heard. So between those
Speaker 1: two things, there was never going to be a clear
Speaker 1: line of communication between the two of them, right, and
Speaker 1: Charles Dickens, he was just too cool, you know. In
Speaker 1: Hans eyes, he's like, I have to be around you
Speaker 1: all the time, um, to the point where he even
Speaker 1: ignored the fact that this guy was a dick was
Speaker 1: an asshole. He's being a jerk. Yeah, because see why
Speaker 1: Jenny lynd was maybe the most successful because she is
Speaker 1: very like, you're my brother, we are as simples. I
Speaker 1: love you like a brother, hey, brother. She really hammered
Speaker 1: at home for him, true boy, Yeah, I mean Jenny
Speaker 1: Lynde Edward Collins and even some stories we'll get into
Speaker 1: in the next Hans Christian Anderson episode, a lot of
Speaker 1: them just very indirect with him. Um, but he seemed
Speaker 1: like a guy that it was hard to be direct with. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I see that. So I'm gonna quickly say another thank
Speaker 1: you to Arvid Gomez for this suggestion because it was awesome.
Speaker 1: But also when he reached out about it, he mentioned
Speaker 1: this like game that someone had made about Hans Christian Anderson.
Speaker 1: And what was so funny about that is that I
Speaker 1: had already seen that on my Twitter and I saved
Speaker 1: it so to play one day maybe, um, And so
Speaker 1: if you're interested in playing this game, please check it out. Um.
Speaker 1: It's someone on Twitter named Oliver dark sheer at Death
Speaker 1: by Badger. He made a like a tabletop RPG, like
Speaker 1: a Dungeons and Dragons kind of game where you trit
Speaker 1: your Charles Dickens and you're trying desperately to get Hans
Speaker 1: Christian Anderson out of your house. And it is so funny,
Speaker 1: like the options are great. So anyway, check that out.
Speaker 1: It's super super fun. Now. Look, like we said before,
Speaker 1: there's just so much more to tell about Hans Christian Anderson.
Speaker 1: I mean, I never dreamed in a million years that
Speaker 1: we look into this story and find so many love
Speaker 1: stories for a guy who never even had sex his
Speaker 1: whole life. But we've got to come back to it
Speaker 1: because like, for example, this guy was paraded around Paris
Speaker 1: by authors like Balzac and Alexandre Dumat and even Victor Hugo,
Speaker 1: and all these guys were out there just trying to
Speaker 1: get him laid. Amazing Victor Hugoes like, you've never done
Speaker 1: what I've done it eighteen times today when we talked
Speaker 1: in our show before about how these this era, these
Speaker 1: authors were like up to their faces in boobies, right,
Speaker 1: like they were always getting laid. So Hans Christian Anderson
Speaker 1: definitely the standout here. Uh. He also fell in love
Speaker 1: with the sister of a friend of his who fell
Speaker 1: in love back with him, but she was already engaged,
Speaker 1: so that wasn't gonna work out. And then he also
Speaker 1: loved this grand duke. They had a really passionate story
Speaker 1: together that ended in war, basically is what separated them.
Speaker 1: He also fell in love with this dancer who maybe
Speaker 1: loved him back, We're not really sure. And then a
Speaker 1: young friend of his who had a very similar end
Speaker 1: to Edward Colin as where you know, he just never
Speaker 1: really was straightforward with Hans that I don't like you
Speaker 1: like that, but I love you as a friend. So
Speaker 1: there's just so much more to tell. Of course, Hans
Speaker 1: was totally Hans about it every single time. We're just
Speaker 1: gonna have to get into all that in our next episode.
Speaker 1: Just gonna have to get a hanstall on all that. Wow,
Speaker 1: I tried. I don't think you did. It was an
Speaker 1: attempt like if we were Hans, Hansta like a hand
Speaker 1: like we're trying to get a handle on that. We're
Speaker 1: going to get a handle on that. Okay, if we
Speaker 1: were doing the composer handel, damn, it would be great.
Speaker 1: All right. I'll save it for if there's any story
Speaker 1: in Handle's now. But I'm super excited to get more
Speaker 1: into Hans Christian Anderson. Thank you again, Arvid for sending
Speaker 1: him our way, because clearly a rich will to draw from.
Speaker 1: I know, I saw a lifelong virgin and thought there
Speaker 1: wouldn't be much to say, and we've got three episodes
Speaker 1: that it's so stay tuned. I hope everyone enjoys their holidays,
Speaker 1: but could just go forth and be merry whatever you're
Speaker 1: doing this week? Yeah, and We hope you enjoyed this episode,
Speaker 1: as we always do, we love hearing from you. Reach
Speaker 1: out to us ridick Romance at gmail dot com. That's right.
Speaker 1: You can find us on Twitter and Instagram. I myself
Speaker 1: am at Oh great, it's Eli. I'm at Dianamite Boom
Speaker 1: and the show is at ridic Romance and we will
Speaker 1: see you next time. Love you five, so long, friends,
Speaker 1: It's time to go. Thanks so listening to our show,
Speaker 1: tell your friend's names, uncle's and this to listen to
Speaker 1: a show ridiculous. Well this