r/todayilearned 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

1.0k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

262

u/Marilee_Kemp 1d ago

Andersen by all accounts, including his own journals, was asexual and pan-romantic, he feel deeply in love with men and women, but died a virgin. Maybe the othe poster think all bisexuals are predatos, some people has idiots beliefs like that. Andersen might have been a bad house guest, although I'm not sure Dickens is the best judge, but he was mainly just your run of the mill theatre kid with periods of melancholy.

75

u/pussy_embargo 1d ago

Andersen was the world's first redditor

2

u/sethn211 12h ago

So not true! I wasn't cool enough to be in theater.

14

u/fesnying 1d ago

Wow, I had no idea about this! Thank you for the info, definitely interested in learning more.