and I am so here for more people knowing stories like the time Charles Dickens tried to give HCA a polite 'well if you're ever in town, say hi'" and instead got a month and a half of the world's worst houseguest

Oh, he was so weird!

weirdest dude, KNEW how weird he was, kept living his weird little life to the fullest

a true disaster bisexual in ever sense. he was so weird

I ... how did I not know any of this???

this is amazing

there are letters

...I want to play this when I get home

the letters are GREAT they're so full of like. Frothing fandom

anderson once spent an entire afternoon sobbing facedown in the dirt of dickens' garden over a bad literary review.

very "mr dickens I AM YOUR BIGGEST FAN can I sniff your socks sometime?"

LOL YEAH

like dickens wasn't very NICE about any of this but anderson seems like... way too much

and dickens is just like "....... WELL I'M SURE THEY MISS YOU AT HOME"

"WHICH IS WHERE YOU SHOULD GO. HOME"

but he did NOT go home

he stayed another 3 weeks

for people who wanted a less-reductive version of this story, Charles Dickens really, really hated his fanboy Hans...

Good

hilarious

GOD I knew he was very dramatic and prone to falling in love like. serially. but I had never heard of this particular story

I know that the point is mostly how weird he is and holy crap it's so funny but also can we just talk about how much Dickens put the dick in his name??? like holy cow what a mean girl

I have been reading some of the link and ... this seriously still blows my mind. that it's the first instance I hear about any of it

Ah yes... Hans.

Worst guest ever

Dickens was very high society and English and being passagg was part of the culture there

you don't TELL someone when you find them distasteful

that would be uncouth

I wouldn't have survived that society

man yeah. And I kind of feel for HCA as someone else who can also be A Lot but is self-aware and insecure about it

the line between "nah you're fine" and "oh my god CAN YOU STOP" is so thin sometimes

I've been on both ends of it and it's not comfortable to anyone

God I feel that