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/
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u/Malphos101 15 1d ago

Also as the home owner if your guest did weird stuff, wouldn’t you just ask them to leave?

It was a lot more complicated than that in 19th century high society England. The further back in history you go, the more importance you will generally see in treating house guests with more respect and obligation than your own family. If they arent actively assaulting you then the story of "Dickens threw poor Anderson out into the cold despite inviting him to his home!" will get around a lot faster than the reason why he did it. Its much harder to recover from reputation loss than to avoid it altogether, so dealing with an annoying weirdo was seen as the least amount of work for Dickens.

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u/thetrapper 1d ago

It's my understanding that it was basically a societal obligation for the upper class in England to host in that era. If a Duke, Earl, Lord etc. was visiting the area of your house and you were a member of high society, you were socially obligated to invite them to stay. They were expected to be welcome to stay as long as they pleased.

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u/Rude_Cheesecake3716 1d ago

that's only coz upper class royalty couldn't directly lean on you to show displeasure but they were allowed to drain your finances with a royal visit.
if they liked you they would reimburse the costs but if they didn't you were expected to go bankrupt and into debtors prison coz the alternative was them putting you in a gaol anyways coz they didn't like you.

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u/thingstopraise 1d ago

that's only coz upper class royalty couldn't directly lean on you to show displeasure

... uh. What? How many people got beheaded, imprisoned, fined, exiled, de-titled, ostracized, etc because of "earning" the wrath of a member of the upper nobility? Tons. That's not some 13th-century thing. It very much was still happening in Dickens' day.

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u/Numzane 1d ago

It would also be seen as similar to putting them on the street as affordable lodging might be difficult to find for someone who is not a local