Latest / Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood / 88. Charles Dickens - Great Expectations, Terrible Reality

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88. Charles Dickens - Great Expectations, Terrible Reality · Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood

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Speaker 1: You're listening to an Airwave Media podcast. Hi everybody, and
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Speaker 1: welcome to Who Did What Now? The history podcast That's
0:22
Speaker 1: not your history class with me your host Katie Charlwood,
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Speaker 1: History Harlot and read of books. I would like to
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Speaker 1: thank everybody who has been rating and reviewing on Spotify
0:36
Speaker 1: and Apple podcasts and Google podcasts, who have been answering
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Speaker 1: the q and as and sharing and commenting and yeah,
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Speaker 1: those five star reviews. Yeah you really, you really went
0:48
Speaker 1: for it this year, didn't you, Like to everyone as
0:51
Speaker 1: well in the UK, he was doing it because I
0:55
Speaker 1: managed to hit number thirty on the UK Spotify chart
1:00
Speaker 1: just in time for Spotify wrapped, so that was that
1:04
Speaker 1: was a nice way end of the year. I mean,
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Speaker 1: I'd like to go higher just to just to annoy
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Speaker 1: some people more than anything else, because you know, I'm
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Speaker 1: petty and I'm at a point where I'm just pissed off.
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Speaker 2: I mean, things are doing okay.
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Speaker 1: I mean it's frosty, and I have to get ready
1:21
Speaker 1: for Disneyland Paris with my kids and everything's booked and
1:25
Speaker 1: that's fine, but clothes, I haven't got any clothes organized
1:31
Speaker 1: and my washing machine, how.
1:35
Speaker 2: Do I put this? Uh?
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Speaker 1: The water pipe leading into the washing machine froze and
1:42
Speaker 1: I cannot defrost it because it is under the ground.
1:46
Speaker 1: And yeah, yeah, we we we don't have clothes. I mean,
1:50
Speaker 1: I have some things. I can make things work, but
1:53
Speaker 1: the distinct lack of underwear is now starting to cause
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Speaker 1: a problem.
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Speaker 2: And now I'm.
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Speaker 1: Thinking, do I just go old school as if I'm
2:00
Speaker 1: trying to make wine, you know, chuck it in the bath,
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Speaker 1: stomp on it with the persol or whatever the fairy
2:09
Speaker 1: or I don't know not what of known bio like
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Speaker 1: washing powder, washing like washing gel, have any of it
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Speaker 1: and all of that in fabric conation or don't care.
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Speaker 2: Just stump stump stump stump stop. And so we used
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Speaker 2: to clean sheets in dooviys.
2:26
Speaker 1: I remember cleaning Doovey's in my ex's house and I
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Speaker 1: was unaware that he had never washed a doobe before
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Speaker 1: in his life, and things were coming out brown and yellow.
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Speaker 1: We all know what yellow.
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Speaker 2: Is, and I was just ell. But anyway, back to
2:49
Speaker 2: back to the start.
2:51
Speaker 1: I got a really lovely postcard actually from the Bar's
2:55
Speaker 1: Ankle High podcast. So it's like lovely just time for Christmas,
3:01
Speaker 1: because like there's not too much time to send things
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Speaker 1: away now, but they sent like a car and all
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Speaker 1: these beautiful stickers and it was just really really lovely.
3:13
Speaker 1: That being said, she says, I I have not been
3:19
Speaker 1: in the best of mids. I don't know if you
3:20
Speaker 1: can hear it, but my voice is still a little
3:23
Speaker 1: off because even though I am neuro divergent, I have
3:26
Speaker 1: ADHD and an anxiety disorder hand O CD and I
3:31
Speaker 1: don't know whatever other tom fuckery comes along with it,
3:36
Speaker 1: and so panic is generally my default setting. But I
3:41
Speaker 1: am just consistently stressed. It's just never ending, and my
3:46
Speaker 1: tolerance for shitty men has just reached its peak, like
3:52
Speaker 1: it's it's done. There is zero zelch nothing there. So
3:58
Speaker 1: so far this week I have had a con strategy, dude,
4:02
Speaker 1: like reach out to me and go on about how
4:04
Speaker 1: you can promote my podcast through my socials, and how
4:07
Speaker 1: he's had all these people go from like three hundred
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Speaker 1: followers to like thirty thousand followers, you know, just by
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Speaker 1: using him. And you know clearly he's not even looked
4:18
Speaker 1: at any of my socials because there's like almost three
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Speaker 1: hundred thousand on TikTok. There's like one hundred and fifty
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Speaker 1: something on Instagram, like you're not looking and you're reaching
4:28
Speaker 1: out to me, and like, the first thing you should do,
4:30
Speaker 1: as someone who is you know, involved in content strategy
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Speaker 1: is do your fucking research. And I get this shit
4:36
Speaker 1: all the time. And if you want me to promote something,
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Speaker 1: talk about something, share something, then you need to do
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Speaker 1: your bit. Like you're pitching me. You should know your shit, right,
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Speaker 1: And he just did not, And so I started getting snippy,
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Speaker 1: as I do with all these people, and he told
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Speaker 1: me I was high and mighty because I asked for
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Speaker 1: testimonials for turn podcasters who had my social media following
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Speaker 1: or more that he hate helped grow. And he called
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Speaker 1: me a bitch, Like you could have respond to that
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Speaker 1: with like, I don't have ten because I've only been
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Speaker 1: doing it so long.
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Speaker 2: But here's three, right, Three is enough to have?
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Speaker 1: You know. I tried and tested, you know, approach, and
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Speaker 1: then had this dude, Jamethy Jimithy. I mean his name
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Speaker 1: is James, but we have all decided, including the Bar's
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Speaker 1: Uncle High podcast, that his name is Jimithy. Oh yeah,
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Speaker 1: as doesn't matter. Most Irish go listen to them.
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Speaker 2: They're fibulous.
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Speaker 1: And of course the host of the Krakens Cabin podcast.
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Speaker 1: So yes, we have this dude. We I have this dude,
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Speaker 1: Jimithe who who feels the need to comment on a
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Speaker 1: video about a nation being bombed by the British Empire
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Speaker 1: and then bow for the artillery that was used to
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Speaker 1: you know, kill it citizens. He told me that I
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Speaker 1: was too angry, that my posts would do better and
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Speaker 1: that people would be more likely to listen to me
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Speaker 1: if I communicated better by being more approachable. Jimothy, you
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Speaker 1: absolute twat woffle approachable. I'm talking about people being murdered
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Speaker 1: and you want me to be approachable. Now. I understand
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Speaker 1: Katie that you're discussing a genocide, but have you considered
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Speaker 1: smiling more? Like, at what point is that a rational
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Speaker 1: thought in someone's head? Like where does that come from?
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Speaker 1: Like you should be nicer when you're talking about violent
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Speaker 1: assaults on women.
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Speaker 2: Naturally.
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Speaker 1: I called out Jimothy for tone policing a female academic
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Speaker 1: who knows more than he does, because you know, I'm
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Speaker 1: used to this. I get crap all the time. I
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Speaker 1: get death threats and rape threats and everything else that
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Speaker 1: goes with it. I get that, I deal with it,
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Speaker 1: and I get stupid stuff like this, telling me, did
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Speaker 1: it be more pleasant when I'm talking about horrific acts
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Speaker 1: committed throughout history like get ty fuck pal No.
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Speaker 2: And so I.
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Speaker 1: Did one of my silly little clap back videos, you know,
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Speaker 1: because I'm a petty bitch, and I did that, and
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Speaker 1: boy did Jimothy get well angry. He was just unable
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Speaker 1: to deal with the consequences of his actions and the
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Speaker 1: fact that other people started calling him out for his cleoly,
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Speaker 1: misogynistic and outright stupid statement. And then he started crying wolf.
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Speaker 2: Like he was.
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Speaker 1: He was trying to say that he was as if
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Speaker 1: he didn't actively choose to post a sexist comment. And
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Speaker 1: the funniest thing about it is he was going on
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Speaker 1: about how I had caused a mob to attack him,
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Speaker 1: when again, all I did was respond to his comment
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Speaker 1: with a silly joke, right, and He's like, your mob
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Speaker 1: is after melah blah blah blah blah, and I'm like,
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Speaker 1: as the mob in the room with us right now.
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Speaker 2: I did.
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Speaker 1: And so go to the point, I was just like
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Speaker 1: block all future comments from Jimothy because oh, I don't
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Speaker 1: have time for that. And when he realized, he was
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Speaker 1: just screaming into the void. He started commenting on my
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Speaker 1: stories and like sending me messages and I just started
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Speaker 1: screenshotting those and sharing them, and he was like, you're
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Speaker 1: bullying me. Oh no, I'm such a horrible billy for
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Speaker 1: publicly posting the horrible things that you were trying to
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Speaker 1: say to me privately. Again, read the Room. I always
8:58
Speaker 1: find that the people who are like, don't wash your
9:01
Speaker 1: dirty linen in public are always the ones with the
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Speaker 1: filthiest sheets.
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Speaker 2: But anyway, I know what you're thinking.
9:08
Speaker 1: You're thinking, it's been nearly nine minutes, Kerrie quid that
9:11
Speaker 1: jibber jabber in fact me, in fact you I will.
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Speaker 1: But first we've got to get our source on. Our
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Speaker 1: sources are Dickens by Peter Ackroyd, Charles Dickens by Joseph
9:27
Speaker 1: Lawrence Black, Dickens Family Authorship, Psychologic Perspectives on Kinship and
9:36
Speaker 1: Creativity by Lynn Kaine, Charles Dickens and the House of
9:40
Speaker 1: Fallen Women by Jenny Hartley, The Other Dickens. A Life
9:44
Speaker 1: of Catherine Hogarth by Lillian Nader, Dickens and Empire. Discourses
9:49
Speaker 1: of Class, race and Colonialism and the Works of Charles
9:52
Speaker 1: Dickens by Grace Mure Dickens and Women by Michael Slater,
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Speaker 1: The Invisible Women, The Story of Nelly Turning in Charles's
10:00
Speaker 1: Dickens by Claire Tomlin, Charles Dickens is Tragedy in Triumph
10:03
Speaker 1: by Edgar Johnson, And of course we have our old favorites,
10:08
Speaker 1: History dot com, Historyextra, and Biography dot Com. I use
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Speaker 1: it didn't comfortably good, then let's begin, Okay, So before
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Speaker 1: we really get into it, I do need to apologize
10:20
Speaker 1: to y'all because I know, I know, I said I
10:23
Speaker 1: was going to cover an alleged female serial killer, and
10:26
Speaker 1: I will, but I was really in the mood this
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Speaker 1: week to just talk about awful men. And you know
10:35
Speaker 1: I do like an awful author, as you know, I
10:37
Speaker 1: like to share that information. I've already covered James Barry
10:41
Speaker 1: and the mysterious death of Edgar Allan poem. Although just
10:46
Speaker 1: the life and then death of ed Grolm Pole. He's
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Speaker 1: not awful, was he He was? He was fine, I
10:54
Speaker 1: guess for the era. But like even in his time,
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Speaker 1: Charles Dickens was just an absolute shit. Now, if I
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Speaker 1: could go back in time and have a fistfight with anybody,
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Speaker 1: anybody in the world, Charles Dickens would be the one.
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Speaker 1: I would punch that man in his fucking face. I
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Speaker 1: absolutely would. But you know I am getting ahead of myself,
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Speaker 1: and we should start the story at the very beginning.
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Speaker 1: Charles Dickens was born on the seventh of February eighteen
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Speaker 1: twelve at one mile in Terrace in Portsmouth, or like
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Speaker 1: it's now Portsmouth, it was originally port Sea Island, because
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Speaker 1: of course it was so.
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Speaker 2: Yes.
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Speaker 1: He was born to John Dickens, a Navy pay office clerk,
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Speaker 1: and to Elizabeth Dickens, a woman, a woman who would
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Speaker 1: later go on to inspire Missus Nickleby and Nicholas Nickleby
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Speaker 1: and Missus McCall in David Copperfield, and Charles is the
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Speaker 1: second of eight children that these two have together. When
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Speaker 1: Charles is three years old, his father is relocated and
12:09
Speaker 1: they have to move to London. A year later, they're
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Speaker 1: in Surreness and then to Kent. Now luckily, up until
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Speaker 1: the age of eleven and the first few years of
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Speaker 1: his life go pretty well. He manages to get a
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Speaker 1: private education, He gets to go to two very good schools.
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Speaker 1: He is seeing clown performances, he is reading book after book,
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Speaker 1: even though he is ever so slightly dyslexic. It's pretty mild,
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Speaker 1: but it's there, and he is doing all right, and
12:38
Speaker 1: everything seems to be going fine up until the age
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Speaker 1: of eleven, because you see, a good life comes with
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Speaker 1: a cost. And unfortunately, mister Dickens Senior, he was in
12:50
Speaker 1: a fuck ton of debt. They were living beyond their means,
12:54
Speaker 1: and so when he was recalled back to the Navy
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Speaker 1: Clerk office, all the family moved back, apart from Charles,
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Speaker 1: who was still you know, in education. He was eleven,
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Speaker 1: he was boarding or whatever. And unfortunately, because of the
13:10
Speaker 1: you know, ever increasing and mounting debt, Charles's father gets
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Speaker 1: sent to debtors prison. And it's from this point the
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Speaker 1: thing swiftly turns shitty for the Dickens family because they're
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Speaker 1: without means, and yet at only eleven years old, he
13:24
Speaker 1: is having to lodge and board with like family friends
13:28
Speaker 1: or at one point staying in the literal like back attic,
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Speaker 1: not even the front attic, the back attic of the
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Speaker 1: agent or an agent of the insolvent court, so like
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Speaker 1: the debtors court, like he's just staying in one of
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Speaker 1: their like shack attics, because you know, they're kind enough
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Speaker 1: to let him stay there, because not really anywhere else
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Speaker 1: to go. And like, at this point, he's in school
13:54
Speaker 1: and sows his sister Francis, who's at the Royal Academy
13:57
Speaker 1: of Music, and every Sunday when they're off they go
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Speaker 1: to the Deator's prison to spend time with their father,
14:04
Speaker 1: which honestly would be a pretty bleak experience now, let
14:08
Speaker 1: alone back in Victorian England. And unfortunately for the Dickens children,
14:13
Speaker 1: there is no such thing as child labor laws at
14:15
Speaker 1: this point. And so when Dickens's heir is twelve years old,
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Speaker 1: he and Francis have no choice but to leave school.
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Speaker 1: Like they can't afford to stay, they have to earn
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Speaker 1: money for their family, and so he gets a job
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Speaker 1: at Warren's blacking factory, where he.
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Speaker 2: Sits for ten hours.
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Speaker 1: A day pasting the labels onto bottles of shoe polish.
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Speaker 1: It is a long day of not in its tedious
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Speaker 1: work that just empties the soul of all joy. And yeah,
14:53
Speaker 1: twelve years old, this is what he's doing. And at
14:56
Speaker 1: this point I could understand you feeling sorry for Arles Dickens.
15:01
Speaker 1: I mean, this is not a pleasant childhood at all,
15:04
Speaker 1: and yeah. One thing to remember though, is that a
15:07
Speaker 1: shitty childhood does not a shitty human make Like, just
15:12
Speaker 1: because things were bad doesn't mean you have to be
15:16
Speaker 1: a horrible trash human. As we know clearly, mister Dickens
15:21
Speaker 1: here does not stay forever with the shoe polish bottles.
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Speaker 1: He gets out because his father gets out of Debtors'
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Speaker 1: prison all because he lands in inheritance because Granny Dickens
15:36
Speaker 1: is dead.
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Speaker 2: Hooray I guess so, yeah.
15:39
Speaker 1: John Dickens is out of debtors prison and Elizabeth Charles
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Speaker 1: Dickens's mom argues that Charles should continue to work in
15:49
Speaker 1: the black in factory, like he should stay there, like
15:52
Speaker 1: it's good for him and so because his mom was like,
15:56
Speaker 1: you need to stay working, which he absolutely fucking despised.
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Speaker 1: Like at one point the factory had this window where
16:05
Speaker 1: people would just watch the children work, which listen, I
16:10
Speaker 1: get it, I get not to be able to watch
16:12
Speaker 1: you work, But like.
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Speaker 2: Your Victorian England, I feel like.
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Speaker 1: It's not the worst of situations you could be in,
16:21
Speaker 1: you know, for a twelve year old boy during this
16:23
Speaker 1: time period. Anyway, back to my point, because she's so
16:27
Speaker 1: like pro children working. This is what gives Charles Dickens
16:32
Speaker 1: the opinion that men should rule the wrist and women
16:36
Speaker 1: should just be stuck in the home being womenly and
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Speaker 1: doing women things right, just men are in charge. Like yeah,
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Speaker 1: or maybe she was worried about all of her family
16:48
Speaker 1: suffering financial ruin and anything up on the streets.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, no, Okay, who knew that.
16:54
Speaker 1: All you needed to have a misogynistic view of women
16:59
Speaker 1: was to have a working last job for a couple
17:02
Speaker 1: of months. That's not disconcerting at all. So after this,
17:05
Speaker 1: Charles Dickens ends up continuing his education at an academy
17:09
Speaker 1: in Camden, which yeah, he wasn't so keen on. After this,
17:13
Speaker 1: he gets a job as a junior clerk at a
17:16
Speaker 1: law office where.
17:18
Speaker 2: He is pretty well liked.
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Speaker 1: He's funny, he's smart, he can do really good impressions.
17:23
Speaker 1: He can memorize stuff, probably memorize things, you know, because
17:27
Speaker 1: of the whole mildyslexia situation makes things easier, you know.
17:31
Speaker 1: And when he wasn't working, he went to the theater
17:34
Speaker 1: like a fuck ton. He was at the theater constantly,
17:38
Speaker 1: like at one point he was going to one show
17:40
Speaker 1: every day and just like learning all the lines because
17:45
Speaker 1: you know, I can't really say anything on that because
17:47
Speaker 1: I was the person who used to rewind the VHS
17:51
Speaker 1: and then after that five minutes of I would watch
17:57
Speaker 1: the movie Grease all over again, so I can still
18:00
Speaker 1: quote it to this day. Didn't realize that that was
18:03
Speaker 1: a thing, but apparently, yes, yes, I can that into
18:08
Speaker 1: a frame Roger Rabbit. Anyway, when Charles Dickens wasn't at
18:12
Speaker 1: the Theater, he was at the College of Civilians now
18:16
Speaker 1: it was also known as the Doctor's Commons. It was
18:19
Speaker 1: basically this group of like lawyers or solicitors practicing civil law.
18:27
Speaker 1: So it's about like the Navy and the church and whatnot.
18:33
Speaker 1: See this like distant relative of his, like Thomas Charlton.
18:36
Speaker 1: He has a box there at the Doctor's Commons which
18:40
Speaker 1: he lets Charles Dickens use. And Charles at this point
18:44
Speaker 1: he has learned freehand. He's become a freelance reporter and
18:49
Speaker 1: he uses this to disadvantage and he ends up reporting
18:52
Speaker 1: on sort of the cases and shit there for like
18:56
Speaker 1: four years. And it's this which gives Charles Dickens his
19:02
Speaker 1: particular viewpoint on poverty, which is a pretty decent one
19:07
Speaker 1: to have. Like again, not great with women, but also
19:12
Speaker 1: pretty decent views on poverty and the way the poorer
19:15
Speaker 1: are treated, and is the situations here, you know, along
19:20
Speaker 1: with his lived experience that go on to inspire many
19:24
Speaker 1: of his novels. And Charles dickens, he is eighteen years old,
19:28
Speaker 1: he is reporting he is doing well in his life,
19:31
Speaker 1: and bam falls in love and he falls head over
19:36
Speaker 1: heels for the beautiful, astounding Maria Bidnell, who is the
19:44
Speaker 1: inspiration for Dora in David Copperfield. So he is just
19:51
Speaker 1: again madly, madly in love with her. And originally he's
19:55
Speaker 1: seen as a really good prospect for Maria, Like initially
19:58
Speaker 1: they see him as a pretty acceptable suitor. But but yeah,
20:04
Speaker 1: her family start getting a bit worried, like what if
20:06
Speaker 1: the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, and he
20:08
Speaker 1: is in fact just really bad with money and will
20:12
Speaker 1: put our daughter in a lifetime of peril in debt,
20:15
Speaker 1: you know, not to care on that, And so they
20:18
Speaker 1: start putting obstacles in the way. I also found it
20:21
Speaker 1: really funny that her mom kept getting his name wrong,
20:24
Speaker 1: And now I'm wondering if it was deliberate just to
20:27
Speaker 1: like bug him.
20:29
Speaker 2: But yeah, so she would.
20:30
Speaker 1: Do that, and they would just try and keep them apart,
20:34
Speaker 1: and eventually they end up sending Maria off to Paris.
20:40
Speaker 1: Although full of unrequited love. Charles Dickens at the age
20:44
Speaker 1: of twenty, you know, he's.
20:45
Speaker 2: Still trying to live his life.
20:46
Speaker 1: He's trying to move on, and he's trying to decide
20:49
Speaker 1: what he wants to do with his life. Does he
20:51
Speaker 1: want to be a clerk by day reporter by night?
20:55
Speaker 2: Not really.
20:56
Speaker 1: He wants fame. Doesn't know why he wants it, but
21:00
Speaker 1: he wants to be famous. He wants to be known,
21:03
Speaker 1: like this is his thing. Like he's just so obsessed
21:06
Speaker 1: with being important, right, yeah, right, And so he goes
21:14
Speaker 1: to the theater, he joins the Garrett Club, and he
21:20
Speaker 1: gets an audition, you know, to act, and he decides
21:23
Speaker 1: he's going to do this impression of Charles Matthews, who's
21:27
Speaker 1: this like really big comedian at the time, and lo
21:30
Speaker 1: and behold, he misses the audition because and a kid,
21:36
Speaker 1: you know, he had a cold, a cold now the
21:39
Speaker 1: flu I could understand pneumonia, but he had the sniffles
21:44
Speaker 1: and missed his audition. Like there was no co ruppers
21:48
Speaker 1: at that point, Charles, there, you.
21:49
Speaker 2: Could have made it. You could have made it.
21:52
Speaker 1: But yeah, before he manages to miss another audition, Charles Dickens,
21:56
Speaker 1: you know, decides to just lean into the whole writing
22:00
Speaker 1: thing like it's good. He knows what he's doing. I'm
22:04
Speaker 1: lucky for Dickens. Here, his maternal uncle offers him a
22:09
Speaker 1: job on the Mirror of Parliament, which is a political newspaper.
22:14
Speaker 1: So he works in the House of Commons and basically
22:17
Speaker 1: gets a job as a political journalist. Now he turns
22:21
Speaker 1: twenty one and he throws himself a coming of age party.
22:25
Speaker 2: Woo cold dude.
22:27
Speaker 1: That being said, I mean, live your own life like that.
22:29
Speaker 1: That's a cool thing to do. Throw your own party,
22:32
Speaker 1: invite everyone, including the Beatles. So Maria shows up, remember
22:38
Speaker 1: the big love of his life when he wants to
22:40
Speaker 1: marry the most beautiful and wonderful girl in the world,
22:44
Speaker 1: who fucking insults him. She's been studying in Paris, she
22:49
Speaker 1: is worldly. She's come back, probably with some kind of
22:51
Speaker 1: accent and keeps saying cross instead of croissant because you know,
22:58
Speaker 1: she is now so French.
23:00
Speaker 2: So she comes back. She comes back. Oh eh ma petitian.
23:07
Speaker 2: Oh god, that's just some bad fridge. And so she.
23:09
Speaker 1: Comes back and she's at this party and she just
23:12
Speaker 1: fucking insults him. She calls him a boy, implying that
23:17
Speaker 1: he is not in fact a man, not a manly
23:20
Speaker 1: man like you.
23:21
Speaker 2: Know, the French.
23:24
Speaker 1: And so this is the final nail in the coffin
23:28
Speaker 1: of this relationship. And after this, Maria goes on to
23:32
Speaker 1: marry mister Henry Winter. No.
23:35
Speaker 2: I don't know who mister Henry Winter is.
23:37
Speaker 1: I just know that he's the guy that got the
23:40
Speaker 1: girl that Charles Dickens was after.
23:42
Speaker 2: And what does Dickens do. He leans into his work.
23:45
Speaker 1: He's doing political journalism, he's writing short stories. He is
23:50
Speaker 1: writing them under a pseudonym called Bones because like his
23:54
Speaker 1: brother called him Moses, which then somehow ended up as Mos,
23:58
Speaker 1: which ended up as Bose. And yeah, it's not it's
24:02
Speaker 1: not a great trajectory, but it is there, and people
24:06
Speaker 1: know it's him that's writing, which is the funniest thing.
24:08
Speaker 1: And they're like, why, like you already have a weird name,
24:11
Speaker 1: why you're writing under a weirder one. So yeah, while
24:15
Speaker 1: he's doing this, he's also being an absolute ars. I'm
24:20
Speaker 1: not sure how the best way to put this, but
24:23
Speaker 1: Charles Dickens was the equivalent of a human hip poster.
24:28
Speaker 1: So what he would do is he would deliberately try
24:30
Speaker 1: and annoy people.
24:31
Speaker 2: He would trow, you know, So he would go.
24:34
Speaker 1: Up to people in the street and just start talking
24:36
Speaker 1: nonsense at them or shout at them and just do
24:38
Speaker 1: things to make them leave, which is bad enough, but
24:43
Speaker 1: like he used to do weird shit to women as well,
24:46
Speaker 1: Like there's reports of him doing this more than once,
24:49
Speaker 1: which is really fucking weird and legitimately creepy as fuck.
24:56
Speaker 1: There's reports of him doing this near the beach or
24:59
Speaker 1: the very least beach adjacent. He would just go up
25:03
Speaker 1: to women, give them a fireman's lift, like chuck him
25:06
Speaker 1: over his shoulder, carry them towards the water, and would
25:11
Speaker 1: tell them that he's going to murder them. Women he
25:15
Speaker 1: didn't know, random women in the street. He found this
25:20
Speaker 1: particularly funny, Like this was a hobby. He did this
25:25
Speaker 1: more than once and this amused him to no end.
25:29
Speaker 1: Like imagine that it's Victorian London. You are promenading and
25:35
Speaker 1: next thing you know, some random dude grabs you, which
25:41
Speaker 1: again not a very good thing to do socially. That's
25:44
Speaker 1: a big no. No carries you away, takes you to
25:48
Speaker 1: the fucking water and is saying all the ways that
25:52
Speaker 1: he is going to end your life.
25:56
Speaker 2: Not cool, not acceptable.
26:00
Speaker 1: What the actual fuck is wrong with this, Matt, like
26:04
Speaker 1: the couple months of working in the shoe polish factory. Honestly,
26:07
Speaker 1: shouldn't done this to your brainmate anyway. When Charles Dickens
26:11
Speaker 1: is twenty two, he gets a job at the Evening
26:15
Speaker 1: Chronicle basically the Morning Chronicle decided to have like an
26:19
Speaker 1: evening version run by George Hogarth, who happens to be
26:23
Speaker 1: the Morning Chronicles like music editor, and so Dickens starts
26:27
Speaker 1: spending a lot of time with Hogarth and his three
26:30
Speaker 1: eligible daughters, Georgina, Mary and Catherine. And from this moment
26:37
Speaker 1: Dickens is gaining traction, like he is rising the ranks professionally, socially,
26:42
Speaker 1: and he ends up getting all of these great collaborators
26:45
Speaker 1: and friendships. Like things are going well for Dickens. Frankly,
26:50
Speaker 1: everything is coming up Millhouse and Dickens starts writing and
26:54
Speaker 1: publishing the Pickwick Papers, so he is paid by by
27:00
Speaker 1: the installment like the volume. So this is the era
27:05
Speaker 1: of the Penny Dreadful, where like the novel at the
27:08
Speaker 1: time wasn't really seen as like super high class because
27:12
Speaker 1: and these stories were made for public consumption, so they
27:17
Speaker 1: weren't seen as you know, high tier by any stretch
27:20
Speaker 1: of the imagination. But the public really liked his work
27:25
Speaker 1: and so he kept writing. Now there's this common misconception.
27:30
Speaker 2: That he was paid by the word. He wasn't.
27:33
Speaker 1: He was paid by the volume. It was by installment.
27:36
Speaker 1: So yeah, that's why he's so wordy, That's why he
27:39
Speaker 1: describes things in great detail, especially the further on you
27:44
Speaker 1: get in his novels. It's because he's paid by volume,
27:48
Speaker 1: because he is just you know, squeezing, you know, every
27:54
Speaker 1: last bit of juice out of it. He is just
27:56
Speaker 1: getting every last drop, which I mean you can understand.
28:00
Speaker 1: And for someone who was afraid of debt, now things
28:04
Speaker 1: are going well for him personally too, because because between
28:08
Speaker 1: installments two and three of the Pickwick Papers, Catherine Hogarth,
28:15
Speaker 1: who he met at the age of nineteen, they get
28:19
Speaker 1: engaged and then married. Yeah, they get married at Saint
28:24
Speaker 1: Luke's Church in Chelsea and London on the second of
28:27
Speaker 1: April eighteen thirty six, and they have like a wee
28:30
Speaker 1: honeymoon in Kent and then they return back home. Well,
28:35
Speaker 1: back to the lodgings. So yeah, pretty sharply after that
28:39
Speaker 1: in January, like the first of their ten children is born,
28:43
Speaker 1: so like Charles Junior. And so in chronological order, we
28:46
Speaker 1: have Charles, Mary, Kate, Walter landor Francis, Alfred, Dorsey, Tennyson,
28:54
Speaker 1: so many names, Sydney Smith, haldemand Henry Fielding, Dora, Annie
29:01
Speaker 1: and Edward. Like just the further down the list they go,
29:05
Speaker 1: the bigger the names get. Like, Okay, now, Charles and
29:09
Speaker 1: Catherine Dickens do end up getting their own house together,
29:12
Speaker 1: but then his brother and her sister move in, and
29:16
Speaker 1: so they're together not for a long time, And Charles
29:20
Speaker 1: Dickens gets very very close to Catherine's sister Mary. Now
29:26
Speaker 1: I'm not saying it was weird. I'm just saying that
29:31
Speaker 1: he was incredibly close and was very distraught at her passing,
29:37
Speaker 1: even though he did not know her very well nor
29:41
Speaker 1: especially by the standards of the era. But in the
29:44
Speaker 1: few months that she lived there, they ended up becoming
29:48
Speaker 1: so close that after a brief illness, Mary ends up
29:52
Speaker 1: passing away in Charles Dickens's arms, and Charles Dickens was
29:57
Speaker 1: so upset at her passing that he couldn't write, like
30:01
Speaker 1: he had to stop writing because Mary was seventeen when
30:05
Speaker 1: she died, and he just had to stop. He couldn't
30:08
Speaker 1: take it. He was delaying, Like the Pickwick Papers and
30:12
Speaker 1: the installment of All Over Twest. It was just a break, which.
30:17
Speaker 2: He didn't do.
30:17
Speaker 1: He didn't stop for shit. He just kept writing, you know.
30:21
Speaker 1: And surprise, surprise, she ends up being the inspiration for
30:25
Speaker 1: some lovely women in his novels. But professionally, things were
30:30
Speaker 1: just absolutely dandy for him.
30:31
Speaker 2: He was doing well.
30:34
Speaker 1: Like he was so popular at this point that the
30:38
Speaker 1: higher classes were reading it. Stuff. It wasn't just you know,
30:43
Speaker 1: I mean the middle class who could read. But weren't
30:45
Speaker 1: you know, OHI mighty. This was the Queen herself, Like
30:50
Speaker 1: Queen Victoria, who at this point was still pretty young.
30:53
Speaker 1: She was reading all Over Twist, she was reading the
30:56
Speaker 1: Pickwick Papers, she was reading Charles Dick and stuff. He
31:00
Speaker 1: was legit at this point. That being said, he wasn't
31:03
Speaker 1: super happy with his publishers. He was like buying off
31:07
Speaker 1: one and like sending off the rights to another. He
31:09
Speaker 1: was just trying to get shit sorted right, And he's
31:12
Speaker 1: just being his usual RCA self and it's during this
31:17
Speaker 1: point that it's noted that he's being very flirty with women.
31:23
Speaker 1: He is sort of being initially casually flirty with like
31:27
Speaker 1: the fiance of this person and the girlfriend or you know,
31:31
Speaker 1: acquaintance of that person, and he's doing all this stuff.
31:36
Speaker 1: And it's one of the fiances here that he does
31:40
Speaker 1: this like weird kidnapping shit too, eleanor Pickin, which just
31:46
Speaker 1: sounds like someone out of his novels. Like she's engaged
31:53
Speaker 1: to the best friend of his lawyer, right, which feels
31:59
Speaker 1: like a bad mood to be involved in it anyway,
32:02
Speaker 1: And he's being a charming for yourself. But he does
32:06
Speaker 1: that weird beachy kidnapping shit again, and this is the
32:11
Speaker 1: last recorded time of him doing that, thank Christ.
32:15
Speaker 2: But honestly, I.
32:17
Speaker 1: Feel like, typically if someone is you know, of the
32:22
Speaker 1: habit of stealing, threatening, assault and violence on women, and
32:27
Speaker 1: you know, murder, I feel like that is not a
32:30
Speaker 1: person one should want to associate with or tolerate the
32:34
Speaker 1: behavior of. Now, call me a woke, millennial, angry feminist liberal,
32:40
Speaker 1: whatever the fuck you want, but to me, that just
32:44
Speaker 1: doesn't pass the vibe check. Luckily, from his owner, she
32:48
Speaker 1: is smart and wise enough to just keep the fuck
32:52
Speaker 1: away from this absolute weirdo. Now when Charles Dickens is
32:56
Speaker 1: not being an absolute scumback to women, He's doing, He's
32:59
Speaker 1: doing writing, And you know, here's the thing, he did
33:02
Speaker 1: write some pretty good books. And I am of the
33:05
Speaker 1: opinion that you can absolutely separate the art from the
33:10
Speaker 1: artist as long as the artist is dead and can
33:14
Speaker 1: no longer profit on their work to support their shitty
33:17
Speaker 1: viewpoint and our lives. Anyhow, he is writing Nicholas Nickleby
33:22
Speaker 1: the Old Curiosity Shop, Barnaby Rudge, a Tale of the
33:25
Speaker 1: Rights of eighty Master Humphrey's Clock series, like he is.
33:30
Speaker 2: Just boom boom boom boom, writing, writing, writing. So Charles
33:34
Speaker 2: Dickens ends up doing this tour of.
33:36
Speaker 1: Scotland because he has to go up to Edinburgh to
33:39
Speaker 1: do like a talk or whatever. He's in Edinburgh, he
33:42
Speaker 1: has some time before he has to do this whole
33:45
Speaker 1: you know, speech situation, and naturally he decides to take
33:50
Speaker 1: a little.
33:50
Speaker 2: Ramble through a graveyard, as we all do. Now.
33:54
Speaker 1: I make jokes about this, but I genuinely enjoy really
33:58
Speaker 1: old graveyards. Now, yeah, at this point, the graveyard shouldn't
34:03
Speaker 1: have been that old but yeah, he is trudging through
34:07
Speaker 1: it and you know, looking at the gravestones, and he
34:11
Speaker 1: comes across the gravestone of one Ebenezer Scrooge.
34:22
Speaker 2: Well, I say Scrooge. His name is.
34:25
Speaker 1: Ebenezer Lennox Scroggy. And he was a quote unquote meal
34:31
Speaker 1: man and basically he sold cornmeal like he sold green
34:37
Speaker 1: like that was his job. But being merely dyslexic, he
34:41
Speaker 1: thought it said Scrooge and then it said mean man.
34:46
Speaker 1: He got it, he got it mixed up. And this guy, Ebenezer,
34:54
Speaker 1: he was known for being just like a womanizer and
34:57
Speaker 1: a partier and just a promiscuous party animal. Like he
35:03
Speaker 1: got in trouble with the Church of Scotland twice. The
35:08
Speaker 1: first time because he shagged one of his servants, which
35:12
Speaker 1: you know is an abusive power at the best times.
35:14
Speaker 1: But they weren't so much worried about that then about
35:17
Speaker 1: the fact that they had a child out of wedlock
35:21
Speaker 1: and he interrupted the general assembly of the church by
35:28
Speaker 1: groping a countess like he grabbed her bum.
35:33
Speaker 2: Like who what this yep?
35:39
Speaker 1: And that is that is who Charles Dicken's based Ebenezer Screwjohn,
35:44
Speaker 1: Like that's that's where he got the name, but made
35:47
Speaker 1: him miserly and mean and just penny pinching, and yeah,
35:52
Speaker 1: ruined the name Ebenezer, which is just a pretty cool name.
35:55
Speaker 1: So two years later he writes that in the meantime,
36:00
Speaker 1: after Edinburgh, he ends up taking away trip to the States.
36:04
Speaker 1: I mean, he doesn't go alone. He goes with his
36:07
Speaker 1: wife Catherine. He brings her too in their head into Massachusetts,
36:11
Speaker 1: and it's Catherine's sister, Georgina that's at home with the
36:15
Speaker 1: kids and she basically becomes like a housekeeper for them,
36:20
Speaker 1: which hmm. There's issues with Georgina because she spends an
36:29
Speaker 1: awful lot of time with mister Dickens, and there's rumors
36:35
Speaker 1: they had an affair, you know, and it's kind of yeah,
36:42
Speaker 1: it's going to come into it more later on, but
36:44
Speaker 1: we'll get to it. But yeah, Charles and Catherine are
36:47
Speaker 1: in Massachusetts. He ends up doing a week tour of
36:51
Speaker 1: the States, and he's just pissing people off where he goes.
36:54
Speaker 1: So the first thing he does is he's doing this
36:56
Speaker 1: tour and he's doing talks about plagiarism of his works
37:00
Speaker 1: in the States and like international copyright law because at
37:03
Speaker 1: this point there wasn't any and I think we said
37:07
Speaker 1: this in the ed graland Poe episode that just people
37:10
Speaker 1: were just republishing like British and European works in America
37:15
Speaker 1: and being like it's mine, now go fuck yourselves. So
37:19
Speaker 1: he ends up convincing like a bunch of other writers
37:22
Speaker 1: to like sign a petition for him to bring to Congress,
37:25
Speaker 1: and the press is just like, who the fuck is
37:29
Speaker 1: this English twact?
37:31
Speaker 2: What is he doing? Why is he doing this? Like
37:33
Speaker 2: would just.
37:34
Speaker 1: Stay in your lane? But yeah, he's doing these these
37:38
Speaker 1: talks and he's gone around and he ends up eventually
37:42
Speaker 1: in like Canada and on the stage like he's doing
37:46
Speaker 1: comedies because.
37:47
Speaker 2: The man just fucking loves attention.
37:50
Speaker 1: When he finally returns to England, he is working on
37:54
Speaker 1: his Christmas stories, and again Ebenezer Scrooge a Christmas Carol,
37:59
Speaker 1: so that one comes out, followed by the Chimes the
38:02
Speaker 1: following year, and then the cricket on the hearth the
38:05
Speaker 1: year after that. Now you may not have heard of
38:08
Speaker 1: the other ones, because shockingly enough, a Christmas Carl is.
38:12
Speaker 2: The only one to involve muppets.
38:14
Speaker 1: Now, no cheeses for as meisus as a quality line
38:19
Speaker 1: and I will not hear anything against it, like I
38:22
Speaker 1: actually still quote hate wave this is.
38:25
Speaker 2: My island in the sun.
38:28
Speaker 1: Although I should say I once wrote a pantomime and directed,
38:32
Speaker 1: actually a pantomime based on a Christmas Carol. I had
38:36
Speaker 1: the ghost of Christmas Present come out like as a present, and.
38:42
Speaker 2: The oh my goodness, the.
38:45
Speaker 1: Ghost of Future yet to come ended up doing charades
38:50
Speaker 1: because there was supposed to be mute and it was
38:52
Speaker 1: very silly, but yeah, yeah, yeah, anyway, I had like
39:00
Speaker 1: a choir singing like Carol singers outside as Scrooge walks past,
39:05
Speaker 1: and he's being bothered and they're outside going dig the
39:10
Speaker 1: halls with bows of hall fall no a lot, and
39:12
Speaker 1: he's like telling them to shut up, and then they
39:16
Speaker 1: like snap to him and be like, there goes mister Humbug,
39:19
Speaker 1: there goes mister grim. If there was a prize for
39:22
Speaker 1: being mean, the winner would be him, which I can
39:26
Speaker 1: putely plagiarized offer him up at Christmas Carol because it's
39:30
Speaker 1: quality and I would never regret that. So yeah, Christmas
39:36
Speaker 1: Carol ends up catching the hearts of just Victorian England
39:42
Speaker 1: in London, and it starts bringing back his whole concept
39:47
Speaker 1: of a wholesome Christmas, because Caroler is back in the day,
39:51
Speaker 1: they weren't exactly the pillars of the community. Christmas was
39:59
Speaker 1: just a big party. People were getting absolutely slashed. Carol
40:03
Speaker 1: singers would go around to people's houses and sing and
40:06
Speaker 1: demand food and other such goodies, and if you did
40:10
Speaker 1: not provide it to them, they would break into your
40:13
Speaker 1: house and steal your shit and beat you up. And
40:17
Speaker 1: this ended up as a more sort of nostalgic, wholesome situation,
40:22
Speaker 1: and you know, also highlighted the issues of you know,
40:27
Speaker 1: the working class and the poor good things, you know,
40:33
Speaker 1: not denying the being good about the poor stuff, but
40:35
Speaker 1: you know, terrible to women. So he is really getting
40:40
Speaker 1: into Christmas Carol and it just becomes.
40:42
Speaker 2: His bread and butter for a while.
40:45
Speaker 1: And he ends up and he ends up living around
40:48
Speaker 1: Europe for a bit. He goes to Italy, he goes
40:50
Speaker 1: to Switzerland. He ends up riding Dombey and Son and
40:54
Speaker 1: David Copperfield. So around about this time he ends up
40:58
Speaker 1: finding out about this dud working for his brother's firm,
41:03
Speaker 1: and this fella Powell. They were friendly, they were getting
41:06
Speaker 1: on and Powell was like a poet and a writer too,
41:10
Speaker 1: and there was an embezzlement. It is brother's firm, and
41:14
Speaker 1: it looked like Powell was responsible, right, And Powell ends
41:19
Speaker 1: up going to America and writes this book about you know,
41:23
Speaker 1: great English authors and writes a less than pleasant piece
41:28
Speaker 1: on Charles Dickens and Charles being the completely rational and
41:33
Speaker 1: not at all you know petty man that he is,
41:37
Speaker 1: writes to the magazines and newspapers in the States and
41:42
Speaker 1: tells them that Powell is a forger and a thief
41:45
Speaker 1: and just this awful, awful person. And this ends up
41:49
Speaker 1: with Piell getting arrested and Charles Dickens ends up being
41:54
Speaker 1: sued by Piell for you know, libel or you know, slander,
42:00
Speaker 1: and Charles Dickens ended up going to his brother's firm
42:03
Speaker 1: asking for like written confirmation that Pill was, you know,
42:06
Speaker 1: the thief, and I I guess sure, So they write
42:08
Speaker 1: some shit down frohim, and then they realize that Dickens
42:12
Speaker 1: here was planning to use it in court, and they
42:15
Speaker 1: straight up refused to give any more information and Charles
42:19
Speaker 1: Dickens has to settle out of court because he doesn't
42:22
Speaker 1: have evidence about what pilled it.
42:26
Speaker 2: AnyWho.
42:27
Speaker 1: Dickens then gets a job as the editor of the
42:32
Speaker 1: daily News. It's like this liberal paper in London, and he.
42:37
Speaker 2: Doesn't do well with it.
42:39
Speaker 1: He lasts what I don't know, ten weeks before just
42:43
Speaker 1: quitting because he just can't deal with the stress of
42:45
Speaker 1: the job. After this, he ends up taking a break
42:48
Speaker 1: and goes to one of his favorite places to holiday,
42:51
Speaker 1: France and Charles he had he had.
42:56
Speaker 2: A weird hobby now how to put it.
43:00
Speaker 1: Ah, he liked to look at bodies, the dead bodies.
43:06
Speaker 1: They He used to go into the Paris Public Morgue
43:12
Speaker 1: just for fun. He would just go in and stare
43:15
Speaker 1: at corpses for fun. He would watch dead bodies as
43:24
Speaker 1: an act of recreation. Now I can understand being drawn
43:28
Speaker 1: to the macabre, and I can understand, you know, doing research,
43:33
Speaker 1: but considering the significant lack of corpses or relevant information
43:38
Speaker 1: regarding corpses and Charles skins, you know, bibliography.
43:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know there's something he did just for kicks.
43:46
Speaker 1: And he would visit here regularly, Like every time he
43:49
Speaker 1: visited Paris. He was in the fucking morgue. He said himself,
43:54
Speaker 1: and I quote, I am dragged by an invisible force
43:58
Speaker 1: into the morgue.
44:00
Speaker 2: Yeah.
44:00
Speaker 1: One time he made one of his pals come with
44:03
Speaker 1: him and then made fun of him for not being
44:05
Speaker 1: comfortable staring at corpses. Wow, what a kind of considerate
44:12
Speaker 1: friend you are, mister Dickens. So he ends up going
44:17
Speaker 1: to see a beheading because you know, the gating is
44:21
Speaker 1: still very much being used in France, like it's still
44:24
Speaker 1: used to like the nineteen.
44:25
Speaker 2: Sixties or something.
44:27
Speaker 1: So yeah, in the mid eighteen hundreds, very much still
44:31
Speaker 1: you know, used quite a bit. And so after this
44:36
Speaker 1: person is you know, gating decapitated, Charles Dickens takes some
44:41
Speaker 1: time to go and just have we poke how we
44:45
Speaker 1: look around and just you know, observe the human remains
44:51
Speaker 1: that had just been killed in front of him. No,
44:56
Speaker 1: not weird, No, it's absolutely fucking weird. So what's around
45:00
Speaker 1: about this time that Dickens starts receiving correspondents from Maria,
45:05
Speaker 1: his first love. Now they are both married at this point,
45:08
Speaker 1: you know, to other people, and they start thinking of
45:13
Speaker 1: we know, what could be and they're flirting and you know,
45:17
Speaker 1: he's kind of fantasizing about it, and they agreed to
45:20
Speaker 1: have this secret meeting without you know.
45:23
Speaker 2: Either spouse.
45:25
Speaker 1: And Maria writes to him and she tries to prepare
45:27
Speaker 1: him for their meeting, like I'm not exactly the same
45:30
Speaker 1: as I was twenty four years ago, because you know,
45:32
Speaker 1: I'm not a teenage girl anymore. And they meet and
45:37
Speaker 1: Charles is absolutely disgusted, like he is well mad that
45:43
Speaker 1: she is middle aged. You know that she looks her
45:45
Speaker 1: age and that she's also gained weight. And he's just like,
45:50
Speaker 1: I mean, she is the inspiration for Flora, and he says,
45:55
Speaker 1: we all have had our Flora's mine is living and
46:00
Speaker 1: extremely fat. What the actual fuck, Charles Dickens. But yes,
46:10
Speaker 1: this conveniently brings me back to Catherine, Charles Dickens's wife.
46:14
Speaker 1: Now their second youngest child, Dora Anna. She is born
46:17
Speaker 1: and she is sick and frail, like from the get go,
46:22
Speaker 1: and she doesn't make it to her first birthday. At
46:25
Speaker 1: eight months old, she suffers convulsions and passes away, and
46:32
Speaker 1: Charles Dickens calls his wife as in a hospital she's
46:36
Speaker 1: not well, and he basically sends word, your daughter is dead. Now,
46:41
Speaker 1: I understand that grief makes you do awful things, but like,
46:45
Speaker 1: this is the mother of your children, This is your wife,
46:48
Speaker 1: This is the person you promised to love and to hold,
46:51
Speaker 1: you know, and like throughout her entire existence, like Catherine
46:57
Speaker 1: is described as you know, joyous and fun and consider it.
47:02
Speaker 1: You know, she's never gloomy. Like even Charles Dickens at
47:05
Speaker 1: this point is saying that she's just a great woman,
47:08
Speaker 1: a great wife, friend. And she ends up suffering from
47:14
Speaker 1: a depression and she is struggling because you know, her daughter,
47:22
Speaker 1: her youngest child, passed away and this.
47:25
Speaker 2: Isn't the first kid that's died.
47:27
Speaker 1: This is the second that didn't survive into adulthood. And yeah,
47:31
Speaker 1: she's struggling, and this would be a perfectly reasonable time
47:37
Speaker 1: for their marriage to fall apart, but it doesn't because
47:42
Speaker 1: they go on to have another child. Like she wasn't
47:47
Speaker 1: you know, hypnotizing him to shagger or anything like. This
47:50
Speaker 1: is an active participant in.
47:52
Speaker 2: This scenario, Like you got involved.
47:55
Speaker 1: So it wasn't as if he wasn't being a husband
48:00
Speaker 1: or whatever, because he was still stipping her. And like,
48:03
Speaker 1: things have been going well for Catherine up until this point,
48:06
Speaker 1: because like she just published a cookbook, you know, and
48:12
Speaker 1: then you know, her daughter passes away and her husband
48:16
Speaker 1: acts like, well, he's cruel and distant obviously, but then
48:20
Speaker 1: he's you know, wanting to be close and all that
48:23
Speaker 1: other shit. Yeah cool, And they have another child, which
48:28
Speaker 1: again active participant in. So Dickens goes on to write
48:33
Speaker 1: Bleak House, Hard Times and Little Dorrit and he ends
48:39
Speaker 1: up working closely with like playwrights and stuff, and he's
48:43
Speaker 1: getting stuff going all about working as a publisher editor
48:49
Speaker 1: and contributing to journals like Household Words all the year round,
48:55
Speaker 1: using these mediums to you know, attack government, which you
48:58
Speaker 1: know fair enough, but.
48:59
Speaker 2: Also to be you know, quite racist.
49:02
Speaker 1: So an explorer ends up dying because you know, he
49:08
Speaker 1: didn't know what he was doing because he's in the
49:10
Speaker 1: fucking Arctic, and his team resulted to cannibalism, and so
49:16
Speaker 1: he blames the Inuits because clearly it's the people's fault
49:21
Speaker 1: that these white dudes decided to go somewhere they didn't
49:25
Speaker 1: belong and do things they shouldn't be doing.
49:28
Speaker 2: Yep.
49:29
Speaker 1: And then after the Indian Rebellion of eighteen fifty seven,
49:33
Speaker 1: were you know, the Indian subcontinent basically just revolts upon.
49:38
Speaker 1: The East India Company did a whole episode on that.
49:41
Speaker 1: Go back and check it out, and it's funny because
49:46
Speaker 1: they kept calling it the Indian Mutiny and Charles Dickens.
49:51
Speaker 2: He says that.
49:52
Speaker 1: He wishes he was the commander in chief in India
49:55
Speaker 1: so that he would be able to quote do my
49:58
Speaker 1: utmost to external the race upon whom the stain of
50:02
Speaker 1: the Late Cruelties rested. He wanted to kill Indians for
50:09
Speaker 1: being mad they were being you know, colonized and looted.
50:16
Speaker 2: Again. Totally what the fuck?
50:19
Speaker 1: What the actual fuck?
50:21
Speaker 2: Not reasonable? Not okay anyway.
50:25
Speaker 1: In eighteen fifty seven, Charles Dickens is working on this
50:29
Speaker 1: play called The Frozen Deep, which is, you know, based
50:33
Speaker 1: on this home cannibalism situation in the Arctic, right, and
50:39
Speaker 1: and he hires this beautiful young seventeen year old actress,
50:44
Speaker 1: Ellen Turning I think was known as like Nelly at
50:48
Speaker 1: the time. And he just is head over heels. He's infatuated.
50:56
Speaker 1: He decides he loves this pretty young thing. This rich
51:01
Speaker 1: old man is in love with his pretty young thing.
51:05
Speaker 1: And this is where Charles Dickens starts becoming an absolute cockwombo,
51:09
Speaker 1: because what he does is not only does he start
51:11
Speaker 1: an affair with this you know, seventeen year old actress,
51:15
Speaker 1: but he also absolutely gaslights Catherine. He convinces her at
51:22
Speaker 1: least tries to that they're not having an affair. He
51:24
Speaker 1: has the dressing room locked so that she can't walk
51:27
Speaker 1: in on him shagging his mistress. On top of that,
51:32
Speaker 1: he gets like a bookcase put in between their bed
51:36
Speaker 1: and he is he is unhappy with Catherine because after
51:41
Speaker 1: twenty two years of marriage and birthing ten children, she
51:45
Speaker 1: had the audacity to become fat, Like he is mad
51:51
Speaker 1: that his wife gained weight in Victorian England, Like the
51:58
Speaker 1: winters are cold, man, you need the extra, That's what
52:01
Speaker 1: I'm saying. But he is just so done with her,
52:07
Speaker 1: and he's think, was it there is a story you
52:12
Speaker 1: put like a wall would in their beds, but it
52:14
Speaker 1: was a bookcase bookcases between them, you know, so that
52:18
Speaker 1: she wouldn't touch him, because he was just repulsed by
52:21
Speaker 1: her because she was old, you know, by being her
52:24
Speaker 1: age and also still younger than him. And it gets
52:30
Speaker 1: to the point where she receives a bracelet that's meant
52:36
Speaker 1: for Ellen, and she just can't deal with it anymore,
52:43
Speaker 1: Like she is very aware that her forty five year
52:47
Speaker 1: old husband has an eighteen year old mistress, and Catherine
52:53
Speaker 1: is so utterly heartbroken that she just can't be there anymore.
53:00
Speaker 1: Can't be in a relationship with obviously this cheating, lying man,
53:05
Speaker 1: and you know their affairs can like this open secret, right,
53:11
Speaker 1: And Charles Dickens could not get a divorce.
53:13
Speaker 2: I mean he could, like technically, but it.
53:15
Speaker 1: Would have been such a fucking scandal. It would ruin
53:18
Speaker 1: his reputation, it would ruin his earnings. He would be
53:20
Speaker 1: buggered right, absolutely bollocked. So instead of doing that, he says,
53:26
Speaker 1: fuck this for Geba soldiers. And what does he do
53:29
Speaker 1: but starts an actual letter writing campaign to destroy the
53:33
Speaker 1: reputation of his wife. So she moves out, and he
53:37
Speaker 1: claims of all of their children. So there's eight of them,
53:42
Speaker 1: will seven at this point because Charles Junior is old
53:45
Speaker 1: enough to be financially stable in look after himself, and
53:48
Speaker 1: so he goes and lives with his mom. Now Catherine's
53:54
Speaker 1: younger sister, Georgina stayed with Charles Dickens and his mistress
53:59
Speaker 1: who then moved in. And he was there with all
54:03
Speaker 1: of us kids, or seven of us kids, with Georgina
54:07
Speaker 1: and Ellen, and he is putting out the papers that
54:15
Speaker 1: she is mentally unwell. Catherine is mentally unwell, and he
54:19
Speaker 1: tries to have her committed to an asylum. Now. I
54:22
Speaker 1: don't know if you've ever seen a Victorian mental institution,
54:27
Speaker 1: but they are abhorrent. They are terrifying, they're disgusting. They're
54:32
Speaker 1: in the places you want to be. And he wanted
54:35
Speaker 1: to put her there. That is how little this man
54:40
Speaker 1: thought of her. So he is out tarnishing her reputation
54:45
Speaker 1: left and right. He is going on about how she's
54:50
Speaker 1: mentally ill. She is a donkey. She is not his
54:54
Speaker 1: intellectual equal. She is an unloved and unloving mother, you know,
55:02
Speaker 1: because she had, you know, a state of depression after
55:07
Speaker 1: her youngest daughter died. Like what with the fuck man?
55:12
Speaker 1: Like you were sad too, Like people are allowed to grief.
55:16
Speaker 1: You do not get a monopoly on grief, motherfucker. Anyway,
55:22
Speaker 1: the man does not try to stop ruining her reputation
55:26
Speaker 1: for the rest of his life, like ever. But he
55:30
Speaker 1: can't divorce her, or he won't divorce her because doesn't
55:32
Speaker 1: want to ruin his reputation. And he can't really be
55:35
Speaker 1: public with Ellen because the scandal would ruin his entire reputation,
55:40
Speaker 1: it would tarnish the brand. Oh yeah, I actually forgot this.
55:44
Speaker 1: He blames her, He blames Catherine for them having so
55:48
Speaker 1: many children, as if he was not shagging her, like
55:53
Speaker 1: you had sex, you had unprotected sex, like this is
55:56
Speaker 1: the result.
55:57
Speaker 2: Man, I don't know what to tell you, Like.
56:00
Speaker 1: Even the Victorian should know. This is basic biology, right,
56:04
Speaker 1: And he wanted no more children after their fourth one,
56:06
Speaker 1: because he said it was causing them financial strain.
56:09
Speaker 2: Like you could have just not had sex. You could
56:12
Speaker 2: have just chosen to not do that. That was your choice.
56:15
Speaker 1: You could just I don't know, master, break into a
56:18
Speaker 1: copy of you know, the Morning Chronicle, I don't know,
56:21
Speaker 1: whatever works for you.
56:23
Speaker 2: And he didn't do that.
56:25
Speaker 1: He chose to do this instead. And like he is
56:28
Speaker 1: the one who wanted custody of their children, like he
56:32
Speaker 1: knew he was going to financially support them one way
56:34
Speaker 1: or the other. Like he is the one who demanded
56:37
Speaker 1: custody guardianship, like he would have been awarded them anyway,
56:40
Speaker 1: being the man. But he could have just let her
56:43
Speaker 1: have them. But that would have fucked up his reputation,
56:46
Speaker 1: wouldn't it. But luckily he had her sister Georgina living
56:51
Speaker 1: there to raise them for him. So while he said
56:55
Speaker 1: it's about tarnishing his estranged wife's reputation, he's trying to
56:59
Speaker 1: build his own and is it philanthropy? Is it? I
57:03
Speaker 1: mean it still is, but is it, you know, altruistic
57:10
Speaker 1: or is it him trying to protect himself maybe to
57:15
Speaker 1: a little of them calling me a little from columbe.
57:17
Speaker 1: But he's approached by the Great Ormond Street Hospital and
57:21
Speaker 1: you know, to raise money, and so yeah, he gets involved.
57:25
Speaker 1: He does some public readings and they raise money. Has
57:29
Speaker 1: a After this, Dickens goes on a bunch of reading
57:33
Speaker 1: tours all through the UK, so he's over England and Scotland.
57:38
Speaker 1: He ends up over in Ireland for a bit and
57:40
Speaker 1: he's doing like the journalism thing as well. But after
57:43
Speaker 1: this he ends up reading A Tale of Two Cities
57:45
Speaker 1: and Great Expectations. Now, when he's forty eight, in September
57:50
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty, he does something. I mean, it's us it's suspicious, right.
57:57
Speaker 1: He puts a bonfire at the back of his house
58:00
Speaker 1: and starts burning his letters. So he is destroying correspondence
58:05
Speaker 1: and not just him, Allen is doing it too. They're
58:08
Speaker 1: burning so much stuff, so they're letters to each other
58:12
Speaker 1: and business letters day like that's it. Everything else is
58:16
Speaker 1: just up in smoke. Like why that being said? According
58:24
Speaker 1: to Dickens's daughter Kate. He and Allen had a son together,
58:30
Speaker 1: but the son didn't like survive infancy, so there's no
58:35
Speaker 1: baptism records, there's no like burial records, nothing exists. So
58:42
Speaker 1: was he still born? Was he born at all?
58:45
Speaker 2: Like it's just a mystery. Was he just hidden until
58:48
Speaker 2: he died?
58:49
Speaker 1: Like what what happened?
58:51
Speaker 2: Is it real?
58:52
Speaker 1: Is it not?
58:53
Speaker 2: Like it's so it's so weird, Like why make it up?
58:57
Speaker 2: Like what's the purpose?
58:59
Speaker 1: You know, Like Charles Dickens was dead at that point,
59:02
Speaker 1: you couldn't do anything to him, Like making up a baby.
59:05
Speaker 2: Just seems weird.
59:07
Speaker 1: Right. When Dickens is fifty, he's offered ten thousand pounds
59:12
Speaker 1: to do a reading tour of Australia, which is just
59:15
Speaker 1: ridiculous amount of money, Like I would take that now
59:20
Speaker 1: for a reading tour of Australia, let alone, like whatever
59:23
Speaker 1: the exchange rate is?
59:25
Speaker 2: Like so much money?
59:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, And he ends up like turning it down.
59:32
Speaker 2: I don't know for reasons, but he does.
59:37
Speaker 1: So. Three years after this, he is traveling back from
59:42
Speaker 1: Paris with Ellen and her mum and they are involved
59:47
Speaker 1: in this Staplehurst rail crash. So this train is just
59:52
Speaker 1: coming down the tracks and it's an absolute disaster. The
59:59
Speaker 1: trains first seven carriages just go off this bridge that
1:00:07
Speaker 1: was I mean it was under repair so it wasn't sturdy.
1:00:09
Speaker 1: And the only carriage that was left on the track
1:00:14
Speaker 1: was the very one that Charles Dickens was traveling in.
1:00:18
Speaker 1: So there are people penned under like railway cards.
1:00:25
Speaker 2: They are.
1:00:27
Speaker 1: Just the injured, just explain about people are dying all
1:00:33
Speaker 1: around and he's walking over with a Flaska whiskey, trying
1:00:37
Speaker 1: to give people drinks and you know, trying to deal
1:00:40
Speaker 1: with the horror. It's not going to be a pleasant
1:00:43
Speaker 1: sight for anyone to be involved in. But on top
1:00:49
Speaker 1: of this as well, he has to keep it quiet,
1:00:54
Speaker 1: like he is trying to hide the fact that he
1:00:57
Speaker 1: was there because they were traveling back from Paris, him
1:01:01
Speaker 1: and his mistress and his mistress's mother. Like he had
1:01:04
Speaker 1: left a manuscript he was working on for like a
1:01:06
Speaker 1: mutual friend, he left in the carriage and because he
1:01:09
Speaker 1: didn't want it left there, he didn't want be able
1:01:11
Speaker 1: to know he was there.
1:01:12
Speaker 2: Initially he had to go.
1:01:13
Speaker 1: Back and get it and there was an inquest about
1:01:16
Speaker 1: the crash, and Dickens managed to avoid being like included,
1:01:21
Speaker 1: because he did not want it out there that, you know,
1:01:25
Speaker 1: he was having an affair that he was with somebody
1:01:27
Speaker 1: when he shouldn't have been. He didn't want it known
1:01:30
Speaker 1: that he was with this woman half his age, like scandal,
1:01:35
Speaker 1: Victorian scandal. Dickens ends up traveling to the States to
1:01:40
Speaker 1: do some readings. Again. He was supposed to go before
1:01:43
Speaker 1: the Civil War, but then, you know, the Civil War happened,
1:01:46
Speaker 1: so he had to wait till that finished. And so
1:01:48
Speaker 1: he goes over and he's hobnobin and he's schmoozing, and
1:01:52
Speaker 1: he's doing his readings all over the place, and he's
1:01:55
Speaker 1: doing this lecture tour and he just makes it home
1:01:59
Speaker 1: or makes it on the boat, should say, before he
1:02:01
Speaker 1: has to like pay taxes on his lecture, which I
1:02:05
Speaker 1: mean fair. So when he's around fifty six fifty seven,
1:02:10
Speaker 1: when he's back in the UK, he starts doing a
1:02:13
Speaker 1: series of farewell readings and he's traveling around Ireland, Scotland, England,
1:02:19
Speaker 1: and he was supposed to do like one hundred readings
1:02:22
Speaker 1: in total starting in October. But by the time April comes,
1:02:28
Speaker 1: he starts having these like fits of paralysis. He's seizing
1:02:32
Speaker 1: up he's having issues, and then he has a stroke. No,
1:02:38
Speaker 1: I'm not a medical doctor. However, even I know that,
1:02:42
Speaker 1: you know, a stroke is not exactly conducive to you know,
1:02:47
Speaker 1: a nationwide reading tour. He listens to his doctors and
1:02:50
Speaker 1: he cancels the tour and he ends up working on
1:02:54
Speaker 1: his final book, The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Now, after
1:02:58
Speaker 1: a while Dickens was, you know, well enough to do
1:03:01
Speaker 1: some penal readings for some sponsors and shit. And he
1:03:06
Speaker 1: does twelve performances and by the time he gets to
1:03:11
Speaker 1: the last one, things are not looking good for Charlie
1:03:14
Speaker 1: boy here. And in May eighteen seventy he does his
1:03:17
Speaker 1: last public appearance. He is at a banquet with the
1:03:22
Speaker 1: Prince and Princess of Wales and it's at the Royal Academy.
1:03:27
Speaker 2: A month later, Dickens suffers another.
1:03:29
Speaker 1: Stroke in the official abode of Ellen in Peckham. He
1:03:36
Speaker 1: ends up getting moved back to Gad's Hill, which is
1:03:38
Speaker 1: his official address, and the next day, the ninth of
1:03:43
Speaker 1: June eighteen seventy, at the age of fifty eight, Charles
1:03:48
Speaker 1: Dickens passes away. Charles Dickens wanted, you know, like a quiet,
1:03:55
Speaker 1: like very private funeral. But you know, he was like
1:03:59
Speaker 1: the most fas author at the time, and so naturally
1:04:03
Speaker 1: he gets buried at the poet's corner of Westminster Abbey,
1:04:07
Speaker 1: Casina kind of a big deal. Now. Before he passed away,
1:04:11
Speaker 1: he managed to put in place provisions for Ellen so
1:04:16
Speaker 1: that she was independent and she had access to money
1:04:19
Speaker 1: and that she was taken care of right. And as
1:04:22
Speaker 1: for Catherine, well, no such provisions were there for her.
1:04:27
Speaker 1: When she finally passes away nine years later, upon her deathbed,
1:04:33
Speaker 1: she asks the letters that Charles Dickens wrote her be
1:04:38
Speaker 1: handed over to the British Museum, like she'd kept them
1:04:41
Speaker 1: all this time, for decades upon decades. She had kept
1:04:47
Speaker 1: the love letters, all the correspondents, and she has one
1:04:51
Speaker 1: simple request to let the world know that he loved
1:04:56
Speaker 1: me once. Charles Dickens, Fuck you. She was a delight
1:05:03
Speaker 1: and you fucked her up like you absolute cockwombo. I
1:05:08
Speaker 1: am so like leavied, leavied at him and his self
1:05:16
Speaker 1: satisfying shitty existence. Oh I helped the poor, Yeah, but
1:05:20
Speaker 1: you destroyed other people's lives like it doesn't give you
1:05:25
Speaker 1: a free pass.
1:05:27
Speaker 2: Like, yes, he did some good things. A broken clock
1:05:30
Speaker 2: is out.
1:05:31
Speaker 1: Right twice a day, Ridge Worge. But yeah, but yes,
1:05:38
Speaker 1: you highlighted the issues of the poor. Were you racist? Yes,
1:05:43
Speaker 1: he's also anti Semitic. Like I don't know if you've
1:05:45
Speaker 1: ever read Oliver Twist, but Fagan is Jewish, he's Jue
1:05:50
Speaker 1: coded and he's like this criminal and you'll notice that
1:05:54
Speaker 1: a lot in his works, like you're usually that when
1:05:57
Speaker 1: they do exist in his novels are our criminals and thieves.
1:06:01
Speaker 1: And just like, it's weird when Shakespeare, who was just
1:06:04
Speaker 1: full of like dick jokes, is a more respectful person
1:06:09
Speaker 1: than you. Like that that doesn't happen. But yes, Good
1:06:14
Speaker 1: to the Poor produced the second best Muppet movie. Listen,
1:06:19
Speaker 1: I will stand by a Muppet treasurer Island Tell the
1:06:23
Speaker 1: Day I Die. I fucking love Tim Curry and I
1:06:27
Speaker 1: fucking love Jim Jimmy Jim Jimmy Jimjimmy Jim Jim. It
1:06:30
Speaker 1: has Billy Conley, it has Rosa cl and potatoes. You
1:06:33
Speaker 1: know what, I don't know which one's better. I love both.
1:06:36
Speaker 1: They're so different. You have Michael Kain who's just acting like,
1:06:40
Speaker 1: you know, the most like Oscar Worthy performance, so just
1:06:46
Speaker 1: in it. And then you've got Tim Curry, who's just
1:06:48
Speaker 1: like the pantomime Dame Like, I just don't know how
1:06:51
Speaker 1: to it's amazing. It's just pure gloriousness. Anyway, So ends
1:06:59
Speaker 1: our story on Charles Dickens. If you liked my retelling
1:07:03
Speaker 1: of this tale, feel very waiting for you five stars.
1:07:06
Speaker 2: I deserve it.
1:07:07
Speaker 1: If you want to help donate to stuff, you can
1:07:11
Speaker 1: always go to the tip jar. There's the Patreon, and
1:07:15
Speaker 1: I think that's it. Actually, I don't think i'll get
1:07:17
Speaker 1: anything else. I need to work on the merch again
1:07:20
Speaker 1: because I've got some merch in the patreon, but it
1:07:23
Speaker 1: only comes after a period of time. But it's tough
1:07:26
Speaker 1: when you're doing it, like oh, by yourself, don't forget.
1:07:29
Speaker 2: You can follow me on the socials.
1:07:31
Speaker 1: I'm on Instagram, TikTok whatever the Twitter is called now
1:07:36
Speaker 1: a squiggle and a dot maybe I don't know.
1:07:38
Speaker 2: I don't know. And Facebook.
1:07:41
Speaker 1: I guess I should do more things on it. I
1:07:43
Speaker 1: just don't right, it's a recommendation time. Okay, you know
1:07:48
Speaker 1: what we're watching. You were all watching them up at Christmas, Carol.
1:07:51
Speaker 1: If you don't know, there's something wrong with you, awful
1:07:54
Speaker 1: bad watch it bring some joy in your life, damn it.
1:07:58
Speaker 1: Christmas Joy Rasulo the rat in a tiny suit, Like,
1:08:06
Speaker 1: what more do you want? Do I need to say?
1:08:09
Speaker 1: The cheese is for missus Lyon again. I mean, we
1:08:11
Speaker 1: all know it's golden and it just does. For reading,
1:08:17
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go with Hercule Paros, Christmas lesson a loove,
1:08:20
Speaker 1: my Agatha Kresty, deal with it. And for listening, I'm
1:08:28
Speaker 1: going to suggest predacted History. Actually listen to the podcast.
1:08:31
Speaker 1: If you don't, he's great, listen to Himy's fab So
1:08:35
Speaker 1: go do that, and with that, I shall bet you
1:08:38
Speaker 1: good night, adieus
1:08:41
Speaker 2: Of what is in my friends, Bye bye