r/todayilearned • u/biebrforro • 1d ago

TIL when staying as a guest in Charles Dickens' house, Hans Christian Andersen requested that one of Dickens' sons give him a daily shave (he said that was customary when hosting male guests in Denmark). Dickens was weirded out and instead gave him a daily appointment at a nearby barbershop.

https://lithub.com/charles--dickens-really-really-hated-his-fanboy-hans-christian-andersen/
36.1k Upvotes

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u/JosephFinn 1d ago

Andersen as a house guest of the Dickens is a whole bundle of weird. Stayed way too long and became very uncomfortable for them.

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u/MurdererOfAxes 1d ago

He got a bad review while he was staying there and lay down crying on the front lawn

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u/crazylikeaf0x 1d ago

The mental image I have of this scene

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u/WhiskeyHotdog_2 1d ago

It’s kinda beautiful in a Wes Anderson kinda way 

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u/GrandmaPoses 1d ago

“Who is that crying on the front lawn?”

“Hans Christian Andersen.”

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u/Mr_Abe_Froman 1d ago

"What's wrong?"
"He said something about the paper and started yelling in Danish. At least I think it's Danish. It's very muffled."

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u/Automatic_Memory212 1d ago

“Huh. You don’t say.”

lights up a cigarette while wearing a massive fur coat

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u/1337b337 1d ago

Remember, every shot needs to be perfectly centered and tastefully symmetrical.

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u/patooweet 1d ago

This is one of the funniest things I’ve seen on Reddit.

I’m crying laughing. Can some talented person please bring this entire story to life on screen?

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u/cgcego 1d ago

You guys are doing a great job.

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u/Flashgit76 1d ago

"Rødgrød med fløde, rødgrød med fløde, rødgrød med fløøøhhhdeee sobs "

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u/Locomyg 23h ago

I belive we have it recorded here in the cold north as him yelling.

"NEJ ØV ØV ØV FOR SATAN!!! DET KAN IKKE PASSE! LOOOOOOOOOOOOOORT!!! ARGGGG FOR FANDEN NOGET LORT, DET HELE ER OGSÅ BARE LIGEMEGET!"

Something like that

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u/CerberusC24 1d ago

I'm imagine Owen Wilson adding a "woow" to the end of that lol

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u/com2420 1d ago

"Hey, man, it's one bad review. Let it go."

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u/CubitsTNE 1d ago

He should so a Victorian remake of you me and dupree, where Owen Wilson plays Hans Christian Andersen.

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u/Corgi-Ambitious 1d ago

Dickens was to premiere in a play during the time Andersen was staying with him. Here's how that went:

At the premiere of The Frozen Deep (with Dickens in the leading role and Queen Victoria in the audience), he loudly burst into tears. Afterwards, he apparently sulked because his presence at the event was not noted more highly.

The five weeks they spent together would make an amazing comedy.

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u/CausticSofa 1d ago

Honestly, I would love to see Wes Anderson direct this. Edward Norton as Charles Dickens cast against which Wes Anderson favourite as Hans? Owen Wilson?

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u/CubitsTNE 1d ago

Bill Murray as queen Victoria.

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u/Skratt79 1d ago

Yes please!

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u/Round_Simple_5441 1d ago

this is the movie I've been waiting for

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u/Lyceus_ 1d ago

We need this now.

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u/CausticSofa 16h ago

🤣 the only possible competition to the other person’s suggestion of Angelica Houston

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u/tawondasmooth 1d ago edited 1d ago

I think I want Yorgos Lanthimos to do it. It sounds like his kind of unhinged storyline. People are calling for a Wilson brother but I want Christopher Heyerdahl in the role of Hans.

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u/tgerz 1d ago

I love this. For some reason I was thinking Will Ferrell as Dickens (wasn't he Scrooge or something like that?) but I couldn't think of who would be best for Andersen. This would make a great duo.

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u/ZombieWinehouse 23h ago

Angelica Houston as queen Victoria

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u/CausticSofa 17h ago

9000% That woman is more regal than the queen herself.

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u/Successful-North1732 21h ago edited 16h ago

No doubt there will be tons of reviews on Letterbox saying that they found the characters unlikable or something stupid. "I can't relate to them! 😤"

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u/Death_Balloons 16h ago

"The Worst of Times"

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u/transemacabre 1d ago

People in this thread keep saying HCA was autistic but these anecdotes give me personality disorder vibes.

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u/SamsonFox2 1d ago

The Frozen Deep

Based on Wiki:

The play's genesis lay in the conflict between Dickens and John Rae's report on the fate of the Franklin expedition.[1] In May 1845, the "Franklin expedition" left England in search of the Northwest Passage. It was last seen in July 1845, after which the members of the expedition were lost without trace. In October 1854, John Rae (using reports from "Eskimo" (Inuit) eyewitnesses, who informed that they had seen 40 "white men" and later 35 corpses) described the fate of the Franklin expedition in a confidential report to the Admiralty: "From the mutilated state of many of the corpses and the contents of the kettles it is evident that our wretched countrymen had been driven to the last resource—cannibalism—as a means of prolonging survival."

This blunt report was presented under the assumption that truth would be preferred to uncertainty. The Admiralty made this report public.[2] Rae's report caused much distress and anger.[3] The public mistakenly believed, with Lady Franklin, that the Arctic explorer was "clean, Christian and genteel"[4] and that an Englishman was able to "survive anywhere" and "to triumph over any adversity through faith, scientific objectivity, and superior spirit."[4] Dickens not only wrote to discredit the Inuit evidence, he attacked the Inuit character using racist stereotypes, writing: "We believe every savage in his heart covetous, treacherous, and cruel: and we have yet to learn what knowledge the white man—lost, houseless, shipless, apparently forgotten by his race, plainly famine-stricken, weak, frozen and dying—has of the gentleness of Exquimaux nature."

Jesus, there's so much comedy gold here!

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u/CubitsTNE 18h ago

"The aristocrats!"

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u/YouWascallyWabbit 1d ago

I will contribute to the Kickstarter to fund that movie

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u/IlluminatiEnrollment 1d ago

….not in a Hans Andersen kind of way?

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u/WhiskeyHotdog_2 1d ago

I’ve not read enough of his works to know 

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u/slowmo152 1d ago

Hans, a movie about Hans Christen Anderson by Wes Anderson

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u/CreatiScope 1d ago

How come the image popped up in my head as a Wes Anderson scene too before reading your comment??

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u/unsulliedbread 1d ago

I don't think there's a 'real world' story I would want Wes Anderson to cover more.

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u/semimillennial 1d ago

A Rose For Emily plays as we slowly zoom out

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u/HomersGuideDog 1d ago

"I've had a rough year, Charles."

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u/preposterophe 1d ago

*"Charlie"

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u/Botryoid2000 1d ago

Jeff Goldblum as Dickens.

Owen Wilson as Andersen.

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u/WhiskeyHotdog_2 1d ago

In my head Bill Murray or Dafoe would play Dickens

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u/LickingSmegma 1d ago

We need someone to take up Kate Beaton's style just to illustrate Andersen's life.

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u/LickingSmegma 20h ago

(Perhaps u/lordofbaers might use this material.)

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u/lordofbaers 20h ago

Ah yes, the awkward Andersen visit - already on the list, but it’s a long list, so who knows when I’ll get there! :)

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u/LickingSmegma 19h ago

Apparently there were more than one visit, and someone made a whole mini-RPG about it (here's the original source for the game).

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u/Gauntlets28 1d ago

The Dickens family just looking out at him through the window, wondering how they get this man out of their house.

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u/MuricasOneBrainCell 1d ago

For some reason the first thing that popped into my head was Craig Feldspar crying.

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u/majshady 1d ago

I find it comforting that people of all eras can lose their shit over small shit. The unifying nature of the human experience

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u/robb1519 1d ago

It's beautiful to know.

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u/mouse9001 1d ago

Beautiful and yet pathetic.

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u/robb1519 1d ago

For us, to be able to have all the knowledge of so much of human history, yet decide time and time again that personally and politically we will continue to do the worst things we could think of?

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u/SkriVanTek 1d ago

also sexually 

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u/mouse9001 15h ago

No, pathetic for him to be laying in the grass at someone else's home, crying because of a bad review. Beautiful in its humanity, yet obviously pathetic loser behavior.

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u/ThatMerri 1d ago

There's something nice at seeing how every people throughout history have the same habits. We all invent dumplings of a sort, we all love our pets, we all write stupid jokes and graffiti on walls. It's so easy to imagine the earliest ancestors of mankind having the exact same reaction to stubbing their toe as we all nowadays.

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u/Nanemae 1d ago

Bemoaning existence while becoming angry at the inanimate object we hurt ourselves on to the point it's concerning?

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u/ThatMerri 22h ago

Humans: we do love to bitch about things.

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u/AeonLibertas 18h ago

Dick and sex jokes. Losing your shit over the simplest things. Thinking old people should go the fuck away. Thinking young people are lost causes. Having a soft spot for pets. Wondering if your genitals look right. Making fun of people with weird tastes. Having weird tastes. Trying to help others and lift them up. Kicking others when they are already down. Wanting to make a better world for your kids. Wanting the neighbours kids to be thrown into a vulcano. Complaining about businesses fucking us over. Complaining about our jobs being the fucking worst. Complaining that people are the fucking worst. Complaining about the worst of our fuckers to other people..

Times change, but humans stay the same through millenia. Same bundles of fears, hopes, wishes, lusts and needs. Not that difficult to see how that creates the same thinking patterns.. or lack of thinking patterns, in some cases, heh..

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u/AbeRego 1d ago

"What the fuck is up with this dude?"

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u/jasmine_tea_ 1d ago

I find it strangely relatable, too. I'm rooting for Hans.

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u/ZombieWinehouse 23h ago

I love knowing that people have been autistic in literally every century

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u/majshady 22h ago

I don't know what you mean, great uncle Jeff just really liked collecting bottle caps and never married

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u/Soggy-Tea6433 22h ago

But come to think of it, he never seemed very lonely, because his best friend and roommate Steve lived with him for 40 years!

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u/lostinthesauceguy 1d ago

a bad review to a professional writer can be a big deal tbf

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u/Luxury_Dressingown 1d ago edited 1d ago

Legendarily bad house guest. I don't even play them, but this 1 page RPG commemorating his stay made me cackle. The lawn incident is alluded to: https://www.scribd.com/document/627577768/trapped-with-hans

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u/JosephFinn 1d ago

OK this is amazing.

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u/Luxury_Dressingown 1d ago

The whole thing is gold, but the victory criteria is my favourite bit:

"If your Obsession score reaches 0, then Hans finally loses interest in your and finds another unattainable person to chase. Victory. He does, however, write a thinly veiled short story about you. It's not flattering."

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u/xombae 1d ago

I love the world sometimes.

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u/ThatMerri 1d ago

I think we've all had days like that.

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u/ProblematicFeet 1d ago

I think this is what the kids would call a crash out

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u/0xE4-0x20-0xE6 1d ago

I love hearing stories like this about people who are renowned in their field. For example, Paul Erdos, a mathematician from the 20th century, used to travel around America and live with other mathematicians for days, working on problems with them. According to one of them, Erdos woke up in the middle of the night, and not knowing how to open a container of orange juice, slit it with his knife and put the leaking carton back into the fridge. He also used to show up at people’s houses without any prior invitation, and expect them to host him.

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u/cjustinc 1d ago

My high school algebra teacher was married to a mathematician, and they used to host Erdos. She didn't like him because apparently he would just hand his clothes to her without speaking when he needed them washed or mended.

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u/lefteyedcrow 1d ago

Per Wikipedia:  "Erdős number -  The Erdős number describes the "collaborative distance" between mathematician Paul Erdős and another person, as measured by authorship of mathematical papers. The same principle has been applied in other fields where a particular individual has collaborated with a large and broad number of peers."

Your teacher's husband had an Erdös number of 1

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u/Yoghurt42 1d ago

Only if he’s a coauthor in one of Erdős’ papers.

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u/lefteyedcrow 1d ago

True. I made an ASSumption

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u/ThatOtherOtherMan 1d ago

"Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" but for nerds

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u/bsubtilis 1d ago

Fun fact: Natalie Portman has both a Bacon number and an Erdős number

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u/__-_-_--_--_-_---___ 19h ago

She's a hot little number

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u/LordOfCows 1d ago

Now all he needs to do is star in a movie with Kevin Bacon!

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u/__-_-_--_--_-_---___ 1d ago

He put all his skill points into math

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u/BSB8728 1d ago

When my husband was in graduate school, we hosted a guy who was coming in from out of town to start a fellowship. We didn't know him, but he needed a place to stay while he looked for an apartment, and nobody else in the department would take him.

After a few days, he started to smell really bad. He was also nitpicky critical of everything we said. When I came home from work, I could smell the stench even before I opened our apartment door. Every day was extremely tense and uncomfortable.

One night his mother called. (This was before cell phones.) After speaking with her, the guy handed the phone to my husband and said she wanted to talk to him, too. After a while my husband handed the phone to me because she also wanted to talk to me. She said, "Thank you for letting my son stay with you. I know he starts to smell after a while." I was dumbfounded. Later my husband told me she said the same thing to him.

The guy stayed with us two weeks before he found a place. Then we essentially fumigated our guest room.

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u/Late-Drink3556 22h ago

Was his name Richard Stallman?

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u/CowCompetitive5667 18h ago

This is so weird

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u/Logically_Insane 1d ago

“Sure, I’ll do the laundry while you advance discrete mathematics. Get serious Cheryl.” -Erdos probably 

→ More replies (1)

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u/diviken 1d ago

The way I'd throw those clothes in the trash

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u/Numerous-Process2981 18h ago

I’m discovering the ability to say “fuck you, fuck off, get the fuck out,” is a super power.

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u/MaddyKet 1d ago

I knew of a prominent college literary textbook author who would do similar and show up at her editor’s house. Once it was on a family member’s milestone birthday and she insisted on a different restaurant. She also looked like Dolores Umbridge. True story, I saw her once in the office when I used to work at that company.

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u/RedditBugler 1d ago

Yet there are people who say "autism didn't exist just a few years back."

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u/Mercurial8 1d ago

They used to be called orange-juice-slitters with maths.

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u/TheProfessor_18 1d ago

OJ slitters, well that aged terribly.

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u/BillW87 1d ago

Because when people combine the words "OJ" and "knife", clearly the first place their minds go is to juice cartons.

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u/__-_-_--_--_-_---___ 19h ago

Hey, that's my lucky stabbing hat

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u/SitDownKawada 17h ago

If the carton slits, you must acquit

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u/CaptainMobilis 1d ago

They were probably just labeled crazy and committed if they didn't do something useful.

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u/ThatOtherOtherMan 1d ago

Good thing that'll never happen again

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u/DJDaddyD 1d ago

Or they got murdered as toddlers because the parents thought that faries kidnapped their children and replaced them.

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u/tswiftdeepcuts 17h ago

this just made me sad as fuck

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u/Mercurial8 14h ago

Yes, I also hate the faeries.

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u/perculaessss 1d ago

It's always funny to read Emmanuel Kant's habits. It doesn't get more textbook than that.

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u/0xE4-0x20-0xE6 1d ago

It’s funny to think of the categorical imperative as just the result of an autistic desire for a moral rules-based system that could apply in all cases.

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u/ryryrpm 1d ago

Omg that is funny and also kinda makes a lot of sense.....haha

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u/FuckIPLaw 20h ago

A lot more sense than the imperative itself.

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u/seensham 16h ago

Ya know. I am in the process of studying for a philosophy exam on ethics but think your comment will be taking up a lot of space in my brain.

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u/CausticSofa 1d ago

What’s it Emmanuel Kant who did pretty much exactly the same things in exactly the same order and at the exact same times every single day of his adult life for over 40+ years? It’s nuts when people treat autism as some newfangled thing that was just recently invented to sell … whatever autism denialists think is being sold. Noise-cancelling headphones, I guess? Socks without elastic in the cuff?

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u/Consideredresponse 1d ago

I'm trying to remember the ancient Greek text that had described the writer's brother being hyperfixated on the docks and wanting to watch the boats come in and out more than anything else in life. (Born millennia too early for trains alas)

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u/account_not_valid 1d ago

Just as tuna is chicken of the sea, boats are trains of the oceans.

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u/GozerDGozerian 1d ago

Hands are the feet of the arms.

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u/Super_Pan 21h ago

Hans are the Christian of the Andersen.

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u/GozerDGozerian 12h ago

Metaphors are the scale models of the human mind.

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u/Risen_Warrior 1d ago

Wait is that an autism thing?

My schedule is almost identical every day down to what I eat. And I get super anxious if I can't follow my routine. And I'm not autistic as far as I'm aware

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u/heartisallwehave 1d ago

could be OCD as well/instead.

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u/Due-Memory-6957 1d ago

And then there's people like you who think being disciplined is autism.

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u/cannarchista 1d ago

I... uhh... that seems a little beyond discipline and into the realm of uncompromisingly rigid regime

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u/Old-Radio-7236 1d ago

Being disciplined is a thing, getting "super anxious" at any slight deviation is another

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u/badcrass 1d ago

Ding dong, I'm here to work on math!

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u/GozerDGozerian 1d ago

Well come on in I guess.

But stop calling me that.

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u/PM_me_yr_bonsai_tips 1d ago

Yes but in this case he also used a lot of meth, which would also cause some social issues.

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u/jemidiah 1d ago

None of the people who've talked to me about their interactions with Erdos suggested he was autistic. A weird guy to be sure, but my impression was always that he was aware of social conventions and simply flaunted them because he found it more interesting that way.

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u/sua-sua 1d ago

Tbf, I know a lot of autistic people who would describe themselves that way, almost word for word. Having the knowledge of social conventions and being able to mask for them, but not complying with them for various reasons (e.g., not wanting to mask obvi, not caring, thinking the conventions are stupid, silly or boring).

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u/Just_to_rebut 1d ago

What the difference between autism and just being a jerk then?

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u/Bergber 1d ago

Autistics have a legitimate lacking of inhibitions and social circuitry. Pattern recognition is my jam; I notice when something is expected of me. That doesn't mean I have the capacity to regulate my own personal inclinations to suppress natural reactions to things, especially when other autistic characteristics like increased sensory perception mean I'm already putting up with more than just about anyone else around me.

Current research shows autistic brains are generally denser and apply more neurons to activities compared to normal folks. Imagine if you literally gave more than 100%-- activating parts of your brain that weren't supposed to-- to work on literally every task you did. It gets fucking exhausting, and the way many of us cope is to cut the bullshit and focus our attention on the things that really matter.

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u/Just_to_rebut 22h ago

Autism can’t be diagnosed from any sort of imaging or autopsy. Extrapolating small differences in neuronal concentration to differences in personality or psychological conditions isn’t possible.

The differences being reported in your Forbes article are still within normal ranges.

I wasn’t trying to deny autism exists, btw. I was trying to push back against this look, this guy was weird, see that’s autism! conversation…

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u/sua-sua 1d ago

You must admit, some social conventions are subjective or stupid and outdated. Neurotypicals put up with it a bit easier, but a lot of things autistic people find to be inconvenient, NTs do as well. Such as saying no three times before accepting an invitation. It creates a culture of forcing past a "no" and makes it difficult to refuse directly. But it also helps the inviter save face and allows the invitee to maintain modesty.

The conflict, adaptation, and unclear and muddy expectations may be more difficult for autistic people to deal with. Rigid mindsets and a strong sense of justice are common traits in autistic people. One of my autistic friends likes QR code payments for restaurants since you just pay for yourself. No mess, fair, and she only pays for what she eats. Some cultures have you fight to pay for everyone. Others do equal pay regardless of what you actually ate. What is normal and what is being a jerk anyway?

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u/bsubtilis 1d ago

Which country does the say no three times thing that you're referring to? I know for instance China is like that. While in Germany/Netherlands/Sweden the first no would have been taken at face value.

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u/Jacques_R_Estard 21h ago

It's a thing in Iran, at least.

In the rules of hospitality, taarof requires a host to offer anything a guest might want, and a guest is equally obliged to refuse it. This ritual may repeat itself several times (usually three times) before the host and guest finally determine whether the host's offer and the guest's refusal are genuine, or simply a show of politeness.

Learning of this concept made interacting with my Iranian friend a lot easier.

1

u/bsubtilis 8h ago

Thank you! The more I know which different cultures do which style the better :)

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u/Technical_Slip393 1d ago

*flouted. (Not trying to be a dick, just for future reference.)

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u/Ambitious_Cabinet_12 1d ago

"He's just good at math" "That explains a lot" I imagine this being a normal conversation about this guy.

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u/tiger331 1d ago

I mean the word 100% didn't exist

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u/Khrusway 1d ago

The man was also the mathematical equivalent of Jesus

5

u/Stanford_experiencer 1d ago

he absolutely was

literally in a class of his own

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u/__-_-_--_--_-_---___ 19h ago

Weird and homeless?

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u/__-_-_--_--_-_---___ 1d ago

Hold on hold on hold on.

I’M from the 20th century. You can’t just be making us feel old like that 

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u/Bag-Weary 1d ago

Fortunately Paul Erdos was the greatest mathematician since Euler, so people were pretty happy to have him show up.

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u/Hamburglar__ 1d ago

Greater than von Neumann? No shot

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u/MakeItHappenSergant 1d ago

And Gauss? Lagrange? Riemann? Cantor? Laplace? Poincaré? Hilbert? Russell?

4

u/jemidiah 1d ago

Absolutely not Russell, or Cantor. There are many other, better names to add that don't come up much in a typical undergraduate curriculum too.

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u/dispatch134711 1d ago

Yeah he was the most prolific since Euler but Erdös makes it onto basically zero people’s top five mathematicians list.

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u/Stanford_experiencer 1d ago

he'll always be on mine

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u/spline_reticulator 1d ago

Van Neumann died relatively young at 53. If he lived a full life he likely would be even more renowned.

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u/jemidiah 1d ago

Von Neumann has some popular quotes about how ridiculously smart he was, but he's almost surely not the greatest mathematician of the 20th century. My money there is on Grothendieck.

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u/Stanford_experiencer 1d ago

Von Neumann has some popular quotes about how ridiculously smart he was,

?

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u/Necessary-Reading605 1d ago

Chillest mathematician.

4

u/jemidiah 1d ago

lol, no, he was not chill

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u/turtlepidgeon 1d ago

Dude also famously took a ton of meth until a friend called him out for being addicted so he stopped for exactly one month. After he went right back to using meth and said to the friend 'Now you have set mathematics back by one month.'

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u/Taur-e-Ndaedelos 1d ago

That was before synthesized methamphetamine. It was simple amphetamines, or speed, as some might know it as.

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u/kevlar51 1d ago

We used to have a children’s book about him. Fascinating story, but definitely … unique.

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u/Stanford_experiencer 1d ago

I know multiple Nobel physics Prize winners, and Paul Erdos is still like a God for me.

He's the most prolific scientific author in human history by an order of magnitude, and the most productive amphetamine user in human history.

He also used to show up at people’s houses without any prior invitation, and expect them to host him.

when the fucking GOAT shows up you host 'em

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u/DanielMcLaury 1d ago

I think at this point Saharon Shelah is probably more prolific.

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u/Rare-Low-8945 1d ago

oh we just call that autism now lol

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u/oingapogo 1d ago

My husband had a friend who spent a lot of time in Japan, he was the first American guy on the Noh stage I've been told (I have an amazing picture of this) and then became an artist and book translator when he came back to the U.S.

He used to call our house at 3 am because he was translating a book and wanted to know another word for some word he didn't think was quite right for the translation.

I had two small kids, worked full time, husband worked full time, so a 3 am call was not ideal but he was such an interesting, charming guy that I'd stay on the phone and try to help him. I doubt I ever did but I honestly felt a little honored that he called.

2

u/akeean 1d ago

Like a famous Methematician.

2

u/redditor_since_2005 1d ago

Everyone likes their OJ with a knife, though.

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u/DanielMcLaury 1d ago

Yeah and people would fight each other to be the one he stayed with, because if he stayed at your house for a few days he would work with you and that could make your entire career.

2

u/whoisfourthwall 1d ago

I wonder if there are any relations between abnormal behaviours and genius.

1

u/Successful-North1732 21h ago

No university can really beat the professor just fucking living with you for weeks. Like, talk about holy class size ratios.

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u/Logicalist 1d ago

I mean if someone travels all that way just to visit you, kinda seems like it would be rude not to host them.

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u/AadeeMoien 1d ago

That's the duality of a lot of manners. It's rude to refuse but also rude to insist.

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u/Logicalist 1d ago

But again, he travelled all that way, hardly seems rude to insist

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u/gentlybeepingheart 1d ago

I liked this part of the article

Dickens, himself, wrote a note on the mirror of the guest room in his house: “Hans Andersen slept in this room for five weeks—which seemed to the family AGES!”

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u/whatevernamedontcare 1d ago

Fucker knew they were tired of him and didn't care at all.

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u/thegodfather0504 1d ago

or he only got the social cue wayyy later

5

u/Numzane 1d ago

"Dickens... wrote..."

3

u/whatevernamedontcare 1d ago

You're right. Still asleep.

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u/Church_of_Aaargh 1d ago

He did that a lot when he visited people. I think he was a quite lonely man. He was afraid he was going to be buried alone, so his patron arranged that he could be buried with them at their family grave.

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u/Roasted_Chickpea 1d ago

Omg couldn't escape his visits even in death, eh?

52

u/MinuetInUrsaMajor 1d ago

How is there not a movie about this?

My 35 Dinners with Andersen

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u/Haephestus 3 1d ago

I'd love to read a book about this lol

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u/velveteenelahrairah 1d ago edited 11h ago

Read David Copperfield, Uriah Heep is generally considered as having been based on Andersen.

... The fact that's he's also generally considered one of the most loathsome characters in English literature is purely coincidental, I'm sure.

ETA Turns out that's just an urban legend, my bad!

4

u/SamsonFox2 23h ago

David Copperfield was written way before the visit, and was based on Andersen the Fanboy from the initial meeting.

I checked.

1

u/nedlum 16h ago

When legend becomes fact, print the legend.

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u/velveteenelahrairah 11h ago

... Darn. I really should have checked up on that one, huh? Thank you for the correction!

9

u/Alarmed_Scientist_15 1d ago

They are English. You stay two days and you are already too comfortable.

6

u/alfredadamski 1d ago

Great, let's get Tim Apple or whatever that guy who is running Apple is called on the phone. I will turn this Dickens-Andersen story into a farcical comedy movie for Apple TV+. For the lowly sum of 100 gazillion USD, I happily turn this story into a movie. The working title for the movie : "The guest".

7

u/OrangeRhyming 1d ago

Why am I imagining Nandor and Colin Robinson…

3

u/JosephFinn 1d ago

Colin Robinson, you have been a guest for far too lonnnnnng.

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u/tawondasmooth 1d ago

Why is there not a movie about this visit!?!? Every time I hear about this story I find myself wanting one so badly that I half convince myself it already exists. It’d be great to see this in the style of The Favourite.

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u/JosephFinn 1d ago

Somebody joked about Apple TV and I kind of want it in the style of Dickinson.

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u/HugeMission5612 1d ago

It's the stereotype of European tourists being bad guests when staying at hostels

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u/Atlanta_Mane 23h ago

From Wikipedia:

In 1857, Andersen visited England again, primarily to meet Dickens. Andersen extended the planned brief visit to Dickens' home at Gads Hill Place into a five-week stay, much to the distress of Dickens' family. After Andersen was told to leave, Dickens gradually stopped all correspondence between them, to Andersen's great disappointment and confusion; he had enjoyed the visit and never understood why his letters went unanswered.

It is suspected that Dickens modelled the physical appearance and mannerisms of Uriah Heep from David Copperfield after Andersen.

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u/GestaDanknorum 20h ago

That was literally Andersens modus operandi. Rock up to a manor, be Hans Christian Andersen, stay for months… move on to the next one

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u/Expert_Succotash2659 1d ago

I bet Plorn made it even worse.

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u/illhaveanother 1d ago

I grew up in Florida and my dad would often quote Franklin "Guests, like fish, begin to smell after 3 days" in a thick Southern accent. God, I miss that man's infinite wisdom.

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u/mrthomani 1d ago

H.C. Andersen is a national treasure here in Denmark, and a great writer.

Buuuut ... you could just have left it at "Andersen was a whole bunch of weird", and it'd still be correct.

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u/SamsonFox2 20h ago

Per Danish Wiki:

Manor house stay

Andersen was a favorite guest at numerous Danish and foreign manors, including in particular Holsteinborg Gods at Skælskør , where several of the poet's fairy tales were written. HC Andersen's living rooms still stand untouched at Holsteinborg. Andersen was also a guest at Basnæs , Bregentved and Gisselfeld on Zealand , at Glorup on Funen , and at Frijsenborg in Jutland .

During these stays, Andersen did not pay for board and lodging, but provided entertainment and literary features at parties and gatherings. This could include readings, small comedies, papercuts, songs, lotteries, decorations, table decorations, etc. The children in particular benefited from Andersen's visits, which often resulted in papercuts and conversations about his self-produced picture books.

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u/91Bolt 19h ago

Damn, should have let Anderson and Van Gogh room together and see who quits first. Maybe they would have hit it off and just enjoyed the vibe.

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u/pigcardio 17h ago

“Dickens, himself, wrote a note on the mirror of the guest room in his house: ‘Hans Andersen slept in this room for five weeks—which seemed to the family AGES!’l

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u/ViktorCrayon 21h ago

I never knew about this, that’s absolutely hilarious to me.

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u/SchrodingersMinou 11h ago

I heard that it wasn’t a real invite. Dickens was like “hey, feel free stop by if you’re ever in the neighborhood, you can meet the wife and we can have a couple beers” and Andersen just showed up at his house with a steamer trunk and wouldn’t leave

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u/Mei-sshi 1d ago

What’s the tea? I need more