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Biography & Personal Stories
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The Houseguest from Hell: When Hans Christian Andersen's Visit Drove Charles Dickens Mad
When fairy tale author Hans Christian Andersen visited his idol Charles Dickens, his five-week stay became a nightmare. His bizarre behavior, including asking Dickens's son for a daily shave, destroyed their friendship and left the Dickens family utterly exasperated.
Meeting your heroes is a fraught experience, often best left to the imagination. Few stories illustrate this better than the disastrous summer visit of Danish fairy tale author Hans Christian Andersen to the home of his literary idol, Charles Dickens. What began as a correspondence of mutual admiration devolved into a five-week ordeal that would permanently sever their friendship, punctuated by social blunders, emotional outbursts, and one truly bizarre request.
A Friendship Forged in Ink
In 1847, Charles Dickens and Hans Christian Andersen met briefly and sparked an immediate connection. They were two of the most celebrated authors of their time, and their mutual respect was immense. Andersen, in particular, idolized Dickens. For a decade, they exchanged warm letters, with Dickens eventually extending a standing invitation for Andersen to visit him at his new home, Gads Hill Place in Kent. In 1857, Andersen finally took him up on the offer, promising a short stay of what was expected to be two weeks.
Five Weeks That Seemed Like 'AGES'
Andersen's 'short stay' quickly spiraled into a five-week encampment, much to the growing dismay of the Dickens family. The celebrated author proved to be a deeply awkward and demanding houseguest. He was prone to fits of melancholy, once throwing himself face-down on the lawn and weeping uncontrollably when he received a negative review of one of his books from a Danish critic. He struggled with English, often requiring a dictionary to communicate, and his social graces were, to put it mildly, lacking.
A Close Shave with a Bizarre Custom
The litany of social faux pas reached its peak with an astonishingly strange request. According to Dickens’s daughter Katey, Andersen approached one of Dickens’s sons and asked the young man to give him his daily shave. To justify the request, Andersen claimed it was a common custom in Denmark for a host's son to perform this service for a guest. Whether this was a genuine misunderstanding of English customs or a complete fabrication is unknown, but the Dickens family was utterly bewildered. Charles Dickens, thoroughly 'weirded out' by the proposal, politely declined on his son's behalf. Instead, he arranged for Andersen to be taken to the local barber in Rochester each morning for a professional shave, smoothly sidestepping the intimate and uncomfortable demand.
The Final Word
When Andersen finally departed after five long weeks, Dickens's relief was palpable and cutting. He immediately went to the guest room, wrote a note, and stuck it on the mirror for all to see:
Hans Andersen slept in this room for five weeks—which seemed to the family AGES!
Following the visit, Dickens ceased all correspondence. Andersen, seemingly oblivious to the chaos he had caused, continued to write, confused by the sudden silence. The friendship was irrevocably broken. The man who wrote enchanting fairy tales had become the villain in a real-life story of a houseguest who simply wouldn't leave.
A Cautionary Tale
The story serves as a hilarious and cringe-inducing cautionary tale about the perils of hero worship and the boundaries of hospitality. While modern interpretations might view Andersen's behavior through a more sympathetic lens of social anxiety or even neurodivergence, for Dickens, it was simply an invasion. It was a summer that proved even a master of fiction couldn't write a happy ending for a friendship doomed by a houseguest from hell.