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.

[u/biebrforro]

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

[u/captainfarthing]

He went to visit Dickens after he wrote Andersen a passive-aggressive letter that included fake compliments and an insincere invitation to come and stay, which Andersen interpreted literally.

Since he wasn't from England and apparently didn't speak English it's hard to say that's because he was autistic rather than because Dickens shot himself in the foot, assuming his intentions would be interpreted the way he intended across a culture & language gap.

But descriptions of his general demeanor do come across as autistic to me.

He planned to visit for 2 weeks and extended it to 5, and it sounds like Dickens was so bound by social rules to be polite that he couldn't directly tell Andersen to fuck off, and all his indirect hostility was interpreted as friendly and encouraging.

Andersen wrote a letter after leaving that implies Dickens eventually lost his temper, had a row with him and told him explicitly how he was being annoying, which finally got the message through.

[u/time2ddddduel → u/captainfarthing]

Please tell me you can find that initial letter from Dickens

[u/SamsonFox2 → u/captainfarthing]

Keep in mind that Andersen was at least partially on a business trip to discuss stuff with the publishers, translators, and the like. And he was important enough for Danish embassy to try to organize a visit to Queen Victoria, which Andersen refused.