Encore: Charles Dickens | The Final Curtain | 4

Summary

Podcast Summary: Legacy — "Encore: Charles Dickens | The Final Curtain"

Original Legacy Productions | Air date: December 30, 2025
Host: Afua Hirsch & Peter Frankopan

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Episode Overview

In this special encore episode of Legacy, Afua Hirsch and Peter Frankopan revisit Charles Dickens' later years, exploring his dramatic final act in both life and literature. The hosts scrutinize Dickens' personal complexities, public reputation, entrepreneurial innovation, and lasting literary and cultural influence. Throughout, they ask: Does Dickens deserve his legendary status, or does his troubled private life complicate his legacy?

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Dickens at the Height of Fame — and Scandal

• Global Literary Icon ([00:52])
  • Dickens, having reached the pinnacle of fame, owns his dream home and is revered internationally.
• Separation and Secret Affair ([01:12])
  • His separation from wife Catherine scandalizes Victorian society.
  • He harbors a secret relationship with Nelly Ternan, an actress—potentially ruinous in that era.

2. The Staplehurst Train Crash (1865)

• Dramatic Retelling ([02:14-04:45])
  • Dickens survives a deadly train crash alongside Nelly Ternan and her mother.
  • Urgency to both save others and conceal his relationship with Nelly—balancing heroism and personal crisis management.
• Legacy Management
  • Dickens is acutely aware of his public image:
    • "Do you know me? We know you very well, Mr. Dickens." ([04:04])
  • Later appears as a hero on the front of the penny press.
• Aftermath
  • Dickens suffers from flashbacks; tries to recast the incident as selfless, but also as a reputational defense.
    • "He genuinely tried to get people out...but also recognizing he was thinking about his legacy..." (Afua, [05:32])

3. Dickens’ Complicated Personal Life & Public Persona

• Victorian Morality and Hypocrisy ([06:28-09:40])
  • Fear of exposure as an adulterer; publishes denials in newspapers.
  • Afua notes: his advocacy for morality and compassion contrasts with his treatment of his own family.
  • The suffocating demands of celebrity:
    • "Maybe he's one of the world's first global celebrities..." (Peter, [07:09])
• Uncertainty and Speculation around Nelly Ternan ([09:02-10:43])
  • Details of their relationship remain elusive—destroyed correspondence, circumstantial evidence, and contested claims regarding secret children.

4. Dickens and France: A Tale of Two Cities

• Francophile Transformations ([11:21-12:44])
  • Becomes enamored with Paris, its culture, and its writers.
  • Signs letters as “Charles Dickens, Francais, naturalizer and citoine de Paris” ([12:44])
• A Tale of Two Cities
  • One of his most famous works, notable for its iconic opening line:
    • “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” (Read at [14:23])
  • Both hosts reflect on the emotional power of Dickens’ endings:
    • "They really speak to me… Maybe I'm a..." (Peter, [15:54])
    • "Maybe I'm just projecting...But it's like Dickens does not give airtime to that kind of self doubt." (Afua, [16:02])

5. Literary Success & Entrepreneurial Innovation

• Serial Publication and Mass Appeal ([16:32-18:33])
  • "A Tale of Two Cities" serialized weekly, selling 100,000 copies per issue.
  • Follows up with "Great Expectations," another major critical and popular hit.
• Performance and Monetization ([20:09-21:50])
  • Pioneers the paid author tour—performing dramatic readings of his stories, "commoditizing himself" as Afua puts it.
  • Earns enormous sums touring in Britain and the US.
  • "He loves a performance...But in 1858 he sets off on a properly paid tour...and he's really leaning into the most action packed, heart wrenching scenes from his novels here.” (Afua, [20:30])
• The Toll on Health
  • Reveals his extreme dietary and drinking habits to endure the tour:
    • "At seven in the morning in bed, a tumbler of new cream and 2 tablespoonful of rum…At 12, a sherry cobbler and a biscuit..." (Letter quoted at [22:30]).

6. Dickens’ Final Years and The Last Curtain

• Declining Health and Addiction ([23:36])
  • Dickens worn out by relentless tours, struggling with gout, alcoholism, and laudanum addiction.
• His Emotional Last Reading ([24:16-26:43])
  • Physical frailty barely allows him to reach the stage; audience is moved to tears:
    • "From these garish lights, I vanish now forevermore. With a heartfelt, grateful, respectful and affectionate farewell." (Dickens’ final stage words, [26:43])
• Death and Burial ([29:08-32:13])
  • Dickens dies at age 58. Despite his wishes for a simple burial, the nation demands a public funeral at Westminster Abbey—one of the first for a cultural figure, not a statesman or soldier.

7. Assessing Dickens' Legacy

• Cultural Impact and Lasting Fame ([33:46-39:05])
  • Debate over the “Shakespeare to novels” label.
  • Dickens as cultural phenomenon: Dickensian beyond literature, shaping our ideas even of Christmas.
• Criticisms and Blind Spots
  • Afua points out the lack of nuanced female characters and Dickens’ erasure of Britain’s colonial realities, calling it a "huge failure":
    • “He failed to pay attention to that. That matters to me because those were stories that would have meant something to me had he told them.” ([38:31])
• Enduring Relevance
  • Despite failings, Dickens’ works are still read, adapted, and referenced worldwide.
  • "The fact that they have still got a resonance and a relevance is telling us something specific about them.” (Peter, [35:48])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Dickens' Legacy-Conscious Heroism
  • "You don't think the first question 'do you know who I am?' That's quite telling, isn't it? ... He's got an eye already on his legacy.” (Peter, [06:07])
• On Dickensian Hypocrisy
  • “He created that hypocrisy. He chose to write these books and propagate this message while also living a private life that was quite radically at odds…” (Afua, [08:32])
• On Dickens as Performer & Entrepreneur
  • “He's worked out how to commoditize himself...I think you probably write in a different way if you're trying to think about who your audience is and trying to reach them.” (Peter, [20:57])
• On Dickens as “Shakespeare to novels”
  • "How many authors or creatives in general become an adjective in the way that Dickensian is..." (Afua, [35:48])
  • "In terms of fame and celebrity, yes...like Shakespeare, it's one bestseller after another.” (Peter, [33:53])
• Critique of His Portrayal of Women and Empire
  • “His female characters are really thin and feed into tropes about sex and gender ... He failed to pay attention to class and poverty and unfairness [in Britain's colonies]...” (Afua, [37:27-38:31])
• On the Writer’s Life
  • "Writing books is difficult, it's selfish, it's narcissistic...what Dickens was doing was moving away from his past to try to be something special." (Peter, [41:08])

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Important Timestamps by Topic

• Introduction & Context: [00:27–01:57]
• Staplehurst Train Crash: [02:14–05:06]
• Public Persona vs. Private Life: [05:32–10:43]
• Dickens in France / Tale of Two Cities: [11:21–14:23]
• Iconic Opening of Tale of Two Cities: [14:23]
• Dickens’ Literary Technique & Emotional Impact: [15:11–16:32]
• Entrepreneurial Innovation & Readings: [20:09–22:30]
• Health Decline & Performance Toll: [22:30–24:06]
• Final Performance & Farewell: [24:16–27:00]
• Death & Funeral: [29:08–33:02]
• Comparisons to Shakespeare & Lasting Legacy: [33:46–36:44]
• Critical Assessment of Dickens’ Shortcomings: [37:27–39:05]
• Reflection on Reading Dickens Today: [39:38–40:24]
• Three Words and Favourite Works: [42:09–43:18]
• Favourite Quotes: [43:23–43:57]

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Favourite Quotes (with Attribution and Timestamps)

• “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...”
  — Charles Dickens, read by Narrator ([14:23]); chosen by Afua ([43:23])
• “There is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humour.”
  — Charles Dickens, quoted by Peter ([43:28])
• "Have a heart that never hardens and a temper that never tires and a touch that never hurts."
  — Charles Dickens, quoted by Afua ([43:47])
• "From these garish lights, I vanish now forevermore. With a heartfelt, grateful, respectful and affectionate farewell."
  — Charles Dickens’ words to the audience ([26:43])
• "I rest my claims to the remembrance of my country upon my published works, and to the remembrance of my friends upon their experience of me."
  — Charles Dickens, from his will (read at [31:15])

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Episode Takeaways

• Dickens was not only a great writer but a master of managing his public image, pioneering literary performance, and cultivating a mass audience.
• His legacy is complicated—not only by entrepreneurial success and cultural influence but also by personal failings, selective social conscience, and the very public nature of his private turmoil.
• The episode exemplifies how enduring creative legacies provoke admiration, debate, and reflection across generations.

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[End of Summary]

Transcript

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[Peter Frankopan]

Hello and welcome to a special Legacy.

[Afua Hirsch]

Encore episode where we take a short break over the Christmas period. We're dipping back into the archive to revisit some of our favorite episodes and.

[Peter Frankopan]

We can't start anywhere better than with Charles Dickens the Christmas Carol.

[Afua Hirsch]

We'll let the episode speak for itself, but before we do, here's a quick reminder that the full back catalogue is always there for you to explore.

[Peter Frankopan]

Hello and welcome to the final episode of our series on Charles Dickens. We left you at the end of the last episode with Dickens having made it right to the top. He's bought the house on the hill that he dreamt about as a child. He's acclaimed as a writer from Russia to America, as a modern great. He's one of the most famous men in the whole of Britain.

[Afua Hirsch]

But he has shocked London society by separating from his wife Catherine. And he has a secret, one that could ruin him if it becomes public.

[Peter Frankopan]

From Wandery and Goal Hanger I'm Peter Frankerpan. I'm Afua Hirsch and this is Legacy, the show that tells the lives of the most extraordinary men and women ever to have lived and asks if they have the reputation that they deserve.

[Afua Hirsch]

This is charles dickens. Episode 4 the final curtain.

[Peter Frankopan]

Ninth of June 1865, Kent. Charles Dickens looks at his pocket watch and then at the two women sitting opposite him on the Folkestone to London train. They should be easily back by 5pm he smiles at the younger of the two women, admiring her angular features. Suddenly the carriage jolts twice, lurching forward and back. Passengers are screaming and crying out in a confusion. He feels someone grabbing him. Let us join hands and die, friends, says a panicked looking Nelly Ternan. She was the young woman he was smiling at. The other woman, Nelly's mother screams. Dickens tries to calm them. He tells them to stay put and try and keep very still as the carriage is swaying alarmingly. He will go and find out more. Only after he's carefully climbed out of the train can he see the chaos. Part of the track on the bridge over the river Bolt at Staplehurst has been missing the engine and Dickinson's own carriage has jumped the gap, but the rest of the train smashed down into the river. Dickens carriage is now hanging from its Coupling the bottom end touching the riverbank, he can hear groans and wailing from the other carriages, at least one of which is smashed into pieces. Thank goodness he and the Turnans had been in first class at the front. But now he faces another problem. He must not be seen with Nelly. He spots guards running frantically around the train. Do they recognize him? Shouting to one of them, he asks, do you know me? We know you Very well, Mr. Dickens. All the more reason to get both women out of this train and away from the scene as fast as possible. He runs back to the carriage to help them out and away. He picks up a bottle of brandy and his hat. Nellie is clutching at her neck. She has lost some jewelry. Dickens promises he'll try to find it. She just needs to go. Once they're out of sight, Dickens brushes himself down and breathes. Now he can make his presence known more formally. It would be good to help out. Looking behind him to make sure they are far enough away, he calls to the guards again, let me know what I can do. I have brandy.

[Afua Hirsch]

This is selflessness and heroism, but also crisis management. In his personal reputation, Dickens is later seen on the front of the Penny Illustrated paper, a popular London weekly at the time. He could already, in that moment of crisis, see how different the story would be if it was about who he was traveling with, rather than the fact that he was helping injured passengers.

[Peter Frankopan]

The train crash at Staplehurst in 1865 leaves 40 injured and 10 people dead. But Dickens and Nellie and Mrs. Turnan are unhurt. Although Dickens children later say that he suffered flashbacks, a nervous episode, for some time to come. And it seems that the accident happened because the workmen had been replacing rotting railway timbers, but had the wrong information about the next train to come up the line.

[Afua Hirsch]

Dickens wanted to be the hero, and he did do things, as we've established earlier in this series, to help people. He genuinely tried to get people out of the ruined wagons during this train crash. And that swig of brandy and the water in his hat could have saved lives. He also saved the life of another boy, Edward Dickinson, and later had him to Gad's Hill for Christmas. All the ingredients of a classic Dickens story. But I think we can acknowledge that genuine altruism, while also recognizing that he was thinking about his legacy and how people would think about him. Peter.

[Peter Frankopan]

But you don't think the first question do you know who I am? That's quite telling, isn't it? That he's thinking about bad news coverage, potential implosion, and if they do know who he is, then the fact that he acts as a hero. You know, he's got an eye already on his legacy because he's talking to John Forster. He's been already appointed as his biographer. So these kinds of acts, they're more complicated than just stepping in to do good, aren't they?

[Afua Hirsch]

I think it's important to think about what it would have meant for him if he'd have been discovered as an adulterer in Victorian Britain.

[Peter Frankopan]

But would it have been so bad?

[Afua Hirsch]

I mean, that's the question. He's already publicly separated from his wife, which is a scandal and causes the disapproval even of people close to him. It's a big deal to do that at that time. It's hard for me to tell whether it was the idea of having an affair with a young woman or whether it was the fact that she was an actress and she wasn't from a more genteel family. I mean, as we know, infidelity was not exactly any more unusual then than it is now. It's just a question of what it would have meant for his reputation had it been widely known.

[Peter Frankopan]

But Dickens was so famous that when there are rumors that spread after he splits up from his wife and moves out, that Dickens has to publish letters in the Times and the New York Times denying that he's having an affair and insisting that it's an amicable split. And so it's not just his family and his household that's divided and his friends. It's the whole world taking a view about his private life. And again, because maybe he's one of the world's first global celebrities. A slightly clunky word, but means that people have opinions about him. What he does in his private life matter just because it allows people to judge him.

[Afua Hirsch]

It's also a question of what he's known for. I think, Peter, you know, there's this famous case in privacy law based on Naomi Campbell. She went to Narcotics Anonymous and she was photographed by paparazzi coming out of an NA meeting. And she sued, saying it was a violation of privacy. And the press said they were correcting a false impression she'd given cause. She'd publicly said she didn't have any addiction issues. And so the whole case stemmed on, is there a right of public interest? If somebody has misled the public about who they are to correct it, that justifies a violation of privacy that otherwise wouldn't be permitted. And, you know, I think of that with this Dickens case because Dickens was known not just as a famous writer, but A writer of A Christmas Carol on Oliver Twist, he was the voice of morality and social conscience. He was urging people to do better, to be kinder and more philanthropic and empathetic. And you can imagine if the press had got hold of his affair, the kind of coverage it could have created. So it feels like the stakes for him were really high. But that also doesn't excuse him, because the reality is he created that hypocrisy. He chose to write these books and propagate this message while also living a private life that was quite radically at odds, especially with how he treated his wife and children, with the public Persona he spread.

[Peter Frankopan]

It looks to me that there's a bit of smoke and fire. You know, Dickens in the early 1860s, takes nearly 70 trips to France. He loves Paris, but as one of his biographers says, maybe he has installed Nelly in a house in northern France where she became pregnant in 1862, and that baby died as an infant. When Dickens dies, two of his children say that he had a son with Nellie. But, you know, recent biographers say that there's no proof. In fact, Peter Ackroyd in 1990 goes even further and says it's inconceivable that they might have been in a relationship. But I think the treatment of Catherine speaks for itself about the public way that that was done and that Dickens is having to write about who he's sharing a bed with in the national press.

[Afua Hirsch]

It's a shame we don't know more about Nellie and what she thought and felt and did and didn't agree to. All of her letters to him, his letters to her have been destroyed. There are things like accounting references that suggest he was paying for her to have a house in Peckham with her mother. And as you said, all these trips, that kind of amount to circumstantial evidence. But it's true. There's nothing completely conclusive. I think the idea that it's inconceivable is wishful thinking. And I do feel a bit skept of these male biographers who place men like Dickens on this high moral pedestal. There's plenty that is known and proven, even what his own children later said about him to suggest he was a very problematic character. I don't think there's anything inconceivable about it. But it's also not that surprising or original. I mean, man gets to a certain age, has a midlife crisis, turns on his wife, hey, presto. Finds this young, pretty woman attractive and wants to reinvent himself. I mean, that is the most ordinary story in the world, but there are pushbacks.

[Peter Frankopan]

So when he go to the United states for a second time in 1867, as it happens, he loses his diary and it's later found and not returned to him, but reveals that he was seeing Nelly regularly and he'd wanted her to travel with him on the American tour, but the organizers thought that the scandal would be too great. So it doesn't really come out any more than that. But we know that Nelly later marries, has children and lives until 1914. But that chapter of Dickens life is a painful one. But it's also he's not just getting out of England only to see Nelly. Even he probably takes out of France. What about Dickens's love affair with France and with Paris?

[Afua Hirsch]

He is becoming a firm Francophile and a huge fan of Paris. And it's interesting because his first trip, decades earlier, he was not complimentary about France. He regarded it as less civilized.

[Peter Frankopan]

But then he spends Christmas there in 1846 and he learns to speak French fluently. He also admires French writers like Balzac, although slightly. Strangely, he says that French writers have greater liberty to be able to write exactly what they want, whereas British ones are restricted by societal expectations, which I'm not sure that's absolutely correct.

[Afua Hirsch]

He also enjoyed the lifestyle and built environment of Paris. He's getting into cafe culture and the illuminated shops. But also this is the era now that Paris is getting that famous makeover from Baron Hausmann and the city is being rebuilt, designed to be more sanitary, livable, navigable, unlike London, which at that time remained this kind of higgledy piggledy mix of slums and medieval streets. So there's much for somebody as reform minded and public works oriented as Dickens to admire in Paris. And then of course there are the writers. I mean, you mentioned Balzac, but he's now becoming friends with Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas. He's getting to know the leaders of the 1848 Revolution that overthrew the monarch, because remember, he is a republican and fascinated by revolution.

[Peter Frankopan]

And Dickens feels so comfortable in France and in Paris that in fact he signs off one letter home during one of his days as Charles Dickens, Francais, naturalizer and citoine de Paris, French by nature and citizen of Paris. So his love affair with Paris is profound. And so it's no surprise that his next novel should be split between Paris and London. A story with perhaps the most famous opening line in literary history.

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[Narrator/Reader]

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair. We had everything before us, we had nothing before us. We were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way. In short, the period was so far like the present period that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received for good or for evil in the superlative degree of comparison only.

[Afua Hirsch]

That is an incredibly memorable way to open a novel.

[Peter Frankopan]

That opening line gets quoted again and again and again. You know, the Simpsons, Star Trek and the Avengers films as well. But it has a great finishing line too, doesn't it?

[Afua Hirsch]

It is a far, far better thing that I do than I have ever done. It is a far, far better rest than I go to, than I have ever known. These are the last words of the alcoholic, cynical lawyer Sydney Carton as he climbs the steps to the guillotine, sacrificing himself to save the husband of the women he loves. The thing about Dickens, right, is that it can be a little bit corny, a little bit of a cliche, like too good to be true. And yet you can't help but be moved by it.

[Peter Frankopan]

God, I would take that any day. You know, self sacrifice, the redemption, the forgiveness. They really speak to me. Maybe I'm a.

[Afua Hirsch]

No, they reach me too. I love Tale of Two Cities and I am always moved by it. Maybe I'm just projecting. It takes an incredible amount of confidence as a writer to create endings like that that kind of neatly come together without being self conscious that it is a little bit too convenient. But it's like Dickens does not give airtime to that kind of self doubt. He just creates the stories he wants to create and of course they become enduring stories for the ages.

[Peter Frankopan]

And he also captures history. You know, if you're thinking about France in the 17 and 1800s, Paris, revolution and the guillotine are the kind of most important symbols of all of that. So ending the book with a head being separated from its shoulders on the one hand straightforward and obvious thing to do, but at the same time, what else would you lead up to? You know, he's a master of drama and some of that is because he understands that cadence of leaving things on the cliff edge. So he publishes A Tale of Two Cities in a new magazine, yet another one. He set up this one called All Year Round and he writes it not monthly but weekly. And the first issue sells 100,000 copies. And to give that some scale, that's double the daily sale of the Times, right. So this is huge in terms of its visibility, the platform, the voice, the popularity, but also it's a big money spinner. He makes huge amounts of cash and.

[Afua Hirsch]

As if that is not enough, one year later he publishes what many consider to be his greatest novel right off the back of A Tale of Two Cities. Great Expectations.

[Peter Frankopan]

So those back to back hits, I mean, I don't know what you're thinking, afraid, but I'm thinking Wham in 1983, 1982, to do young Guns and Club Tropicana and wham rap in 12 calendar months. You know, it's kind of gold to have that kind of touch. It's something you're not looking completely.

[Afua Hirsch]

I just don't think Dickens could have dreamed of almost 200 years later getting compared to Wham. I think that he's now surpassed. You don't think in the greatest fantasy.

[Peter Frankopan]

About his legacy, the great creatives in the sky, that George Michael and Charles Dickens are sitting on a cloud, comparing notes. So Great Expectations, it begins at Christmas, one of Dickens go to's. And it's also set in classic Dickens land, both real and imagined. The backdrop for the sweeping story of Pip, an orphan again, another Dickens go to are the marshlands of Kent and Rochester and the streets of London, the law courts, Soho, the River Thames. And it's often bleak and really dark, but crammed with other memorable characters like Jaggers the lawyer or Magwitch the convict.

[Afua Hirsch]

I find Great Expectations so dark and depressing, it's actually quite hard to read. But this is Dickens bleak era and it's deliberately bleak, it's intentionally dark. One of my favorite characters is Ms. Havisham. She's an iconic gothic character and we see her so memorably for me in this novel, sitting at the wedding breakfast of the wedding that never happened. She lives, haunted for life by this tragedy. And it's such a poignant and lasting image.

[Peter Frankopan]

But this is all about not getting what you want, about disappointment, about failure, about not understanding yourself. And, you know, although at the end redemption is part of it too, it is dark and it's filled with sorrow. Do you think this is being inspired because he's being successful? It's a sense of guilt? Or do you think he's testing and trying things that are new?

[Afua Hirsch]

I read one biographer who hypothesized that all Dickens characters represent the good and the bad elements of his own life, his own character. And I really see that in Great Expectations. I think Pip's story is one a failure, as Clare Tomalin, his biographer puts it. Failure to understand what's happening to him, failure to win the girl he loves, failure to save his benefactor, failure to make anything of himself. He just redeems himself morally and that's enough after all he's seen. And it's enough for the reader too. And I wonder if this is Dickens exploring that part of himself that does feel that he's failed.

[Peter Frankopan]

And failure sells. People love that stuff. What's interesting is that Dickens is really an entrepreneur as well. I've really learned that by thinking about his life more that he's not just this great writer and great communicator, great connector in his complicated personal life. He's also constantly trying to think about how to monetize. And he comes up with a sort of semi podcast way of making money again.

[Afua Hirsch]

He loves a performance and he's been doing occasional free readings, same for a while. But in 1858 he sets off on a properly paid tour, charging Britain to come and see him read adapted melodramatic scripts from his stories. And he's really leaning into the most action packed, heart wrenching scenes from his novels here.

[Peter Frankopan]

It's not just that he's trying to make money, he's taking a risk. No one's done this before and you don't know whether anybody's going to turn up or not. And why would you go and turn up to hear somebody read Something out from a page where you're not engaging, you're not asking questions. But he's worked out how to commoditize himself. And the fact he tries that again and again and again in different ways, different platforms. I think you probably write in a different way if you're trying to think about who your audience is and trying to reach them.

[Afua Hirsch]

He's certainly not too pompous an author to think about his audience and want to involve them and make his work accessible. And, you know, this is still an era of varying literacy as well. And he's also worked out that there is money across the pond as well. He goes back to America in 1867 and makes £20,000 from 76 readings. That is a huge sum, roughly equivalent to about £2 million in today's money.

[Peter Frankopan]

I mean, it's so much money. But it's understanding that people want to meet the author, they want to let some of that glitter rub off on them. And he's very aware of that. I mean, when he goes to America the second time, he meets his second US president, this time Andrew Johnson. He'd met President John Tyler before and found him unbelievably dull. And then later on, he meets Queen Victoria and King Leopold of Belgium, who's her cousin, and not because he wants to meet them, but because they're keen to meet meet him. But that schedule of giving talks all the time, talking about yourself, is exhausting. And his health starts to worsen. This is how he describes it in a letter to John Forster.

[Narrator/Reader]

I cannot eat and have established this system. At seven in the morning in bed, a tumbler of new cream and 2 tablespoonful of rum. At 12, a sherry cobbler and a biscuit. At 3, dinner time, a pint of champagne. At 5 minutes to 8, an egg beaten up with a glass of sherry. Between the parts of the reading, the strongest beef tea that can be made drunk hot at a quarter past 10, soup and any little thing to drink that I can fancy.

[Peter Frankopan]

Have you ever had an egg beaten up with a glass of sherry?

[Afua Hirsch]

No. That sounds not the most advantageous breakfast.

[Peter Frankopan]

It suggests a man who maybe doesn't have a off button or, you know, is willing to indulge himself, because, I mean, that is not great for your circulation. It's not good for your heart, it's not good for your health. And, you know, by the late 1860s, Dickens's health is starting to decline. So, in fact, his Last Christmas in 1869 is largely spent in bed at Gad's Hill listening to the sounds of his grandchildren playing downstairs.

[Afua Hirsch]

And we're downplaying it slightly. He is drinking too much. But he's really an addict at this point. He's addicted to laudanum. He needs it to help him sleep. He has worn himself ragged and his mental health and physical health seem in a very fragile state. The following year, he dines with his friend George Eliot, who thinks he looks dreadfully shattered.

[Peter Frankopan]

And he's only 58. But he's been doing all of these readings and he's surely not strong enough to keep going because they're tiring, they're exhausting, and he's obsessive.

[Afua Hirsch]

Even if you're in the best of health. This is a really physically and mentally demanding thing to do, performing like this, your own work, the most emotive parts of your work, in front of a live audience.

[Peter Frankopan]

But there is time for just one more.

[Afua Hirsch]

Standing at the side of the stage, Charles Dickens can feel the anticipation from the huge crowd. He's been told there are 2,000 people crammed into this space tonight. Almost a quarter over capacity for this, his last ever reading. He's been touring the country, giving emotional performances, including the Murder of Nancy by Bill Sykes from Oliver Twist. He gave his all each time, but he's worn himself out on several occasions. The performance left him prostrate, unable to move or speak. Only half a pint of champagne could remedy it. His doctor took his pulse at the end the day of of many performances. One time it was over 200 beats per minute. He makes his way onto the stage with the aid of two walking sticks. The gout in his leg is throbbing. He's all too aware that his face is now etched deep with the lines of both age and poor health. But the audience still goes wild for him.

[Peter Frankopan]

Him.

[Afua Hirsch]

He doesn't have the energy to stand at his specially made transparent reading desk. So he takes a seat and starts to read from a Christmas Carol, his voice hoarse and weak at first.

[Peter Frankopan]

A Merry Christmas, Uncle. God save you. Cried a cheerful voice. It was the voice of Scrooge's nephew.

[Narrator/Reader]

Who came upon him so quickly that this was the first intimation he had of his approach.

[Afua Hirsch]

The audience laughs, they cry, they cheer. He reads passages from Pickwick. The audience goes wild. For a moment, he forgets his pain. This is why he does this, the ultimate escape. But too quickly. It's over. With difficulty, he walks off stage and then back for a curtain call and another. The crowd cheers, waving their handkerchiefs. Dickens blows them kisses from the stage. He motions for silence, he wants to say goodbye. He looks up at the ornate domed ceiling and then at his admiring fans.

[Narrator/Reader]

From these garish lights, I vanish now forevermore. With a heartfelt, grateful, respectful and affectionate farewell.

[Afua Hirsch]

The applause and stamping are so loud it feels like the walls are shaking. With tears pouring down his face, Charles Dickens leaves the stage for the final time. There's something about being conscious of giving your final performance, you know. Cause usually in life you always think there'll be one more, one more goodbye, one more time.

[Peter Frankopan]

You think he knew, but I mean.

[Afua Hirsch]

This was a farewell tour. I'm not sure if he knew when he was going to die, but he knew he wasn't going to be able to keep doing these performances, so it seems like he knew.

[Peter Frankopan]

But you've got the Elton John farewell tour, you know, number 22 and Celine Dion Never gonna. And, you know, there she goes again.

[Afua Hirsch]

If this was now, we would definitely have had the Netflix special that he would have co executive produced. No, I think this really was a farewell tour. It was called that at the time he approached it that way. He was struggling to even get onto the stage. I mean, he couldn't go on. And it does speak to his complete resilience that he kept going.

[Peter Frankopan]

Reading that afwa, you know, makes me think of really good performances at literary festivals. And also, you know, whether Dickens is the kind of originator of literary festivals. I mean, the idea that you were going hear an author talk and communication is a different thing to being a writer. And in fact, I know lots of writers who are not great presenters. I know lots of really great presenters, maybe not such great writers.

[Afua Hirsch]

And Dickens was both.

[Peter Frankopan]

Dickens was both, right.

[Afua Hirsch]

He really poured his heart and soul into his work, all of it, and it took a real toll. I mean, as you said, he's not an old man, but he seems way older than his years. And he is, in the last few years, even days of his life, at this point in the story, 1870, he is really, really high profile now. He dines with Disraeli, he breakfasts with Gladstone. And as if socialising with two prime ministers wasn't enough, he also dines with the Prince of Wales, who is desperate to meet him. He's now seemingly resigned himself to the fact that he socializes with royals. And he's still writing Peter, he's writing.

[Peter Frankopan]

The Mystery of Edwin Drood, a murder story that will never be solved. And on Wednesday, 8th of June, in 1870, he's sitting in his writing chalet and at 6 o', clock, Georgie Hogarth watches him come into the dining room and she thinks he looks really unwell. I have really been very ill for the last hour, he replies, and she offers to send for the doctor and he says, no, I'll have dinner and then go up to London. He starts to mumble and make increasing little sense.

[Afua Hirsch]

And if her account is true, which many biographers believe it is, his last words are incredibly literary. She says, come and lie down, and he says, yes, on the ground, and he collapses on the floor. And those are his last words. He has suffered a brain haemorrhage from which he'll never recover.

[Peter Frankopan]

He doesn't regain consciousness and his final night is spent on a sofa in the dining room at Gad's Hill. His daughters Katie and Mamie arrive around midnight and they spend the night listening to his heavy breathing and placing hot bricks next to his freezing feet. He doesn't die until 6 the following evening. He's supposed to have given a sigh, a single tear rolled down his right cheek, and Charles Dickens stopped breathing. He died at the top of the hill, age 58.

[Afua Hirsch]

What I find so moving, almost magical about that is that is an ending right out of one of Dickens novels. I mean, he is famous for the way he writes endings, the way his characters die. And that is just an incredibly dignified Dickensian death. And it feels, I guess, pretty fitting that the man who spent his life creating those stories for others inhabited one himself at the end.

[Peter Frankopan]

And it's a death of a celebrity. I mean, it's front page news. So the New York Times headline reads, death of the great novelist, Not a great novelist. The great novelist mourned by the people of two continents. I mean, it shows the connection that Dickens has had with so many people.

[Afua Hirsch]

He didn't want any memorial left after he died. Instead, as he wrote in his will.

[Narrator/Reader]

I rest my claims to the remembrance of my country upon my published works, and to the remembrance of my friends upon their experience of me.

[Afua Hirsch]

And this is, for me, a bit of a metaphor for fame that he had wanted to and left instructions that he be buried in Kent, the place that he loved, without any pomp and ceremony. But it's really not about him now that he's passed. It's about the country and what the people want. The Times runs an editorial calling for him to be buried in Westminster Abbey. His son Charlie and his lifetime friend Forster agree. And a special train takes the coffin from Kent to London. The family tried to keep it as close to his wishes as possible. A plane, her. No singing, no Eulogy, only quiet organ music and the tolling of the bell as the burial services read. But this is not the small, anonymous burial that he had initially said he wanted.

[Peter Frankopan]

No, but it's done quietly. So There are only 30 people there at the funeral. Half of the family and the others are just random passersby who follow the coffin into the abbey, curious to see what's going on. But then the grave in Westminster Abbey is left open for two days, and thousands file past for a glimpse of the coffin. And even that is something that's kind of become more usual. You know, where the queen died and people queuing up to pay their respects. You know, Dickens is also one of the first people that gets that kind of state funeral. You know, it's normally reserved for great military figures, people who've protected and served the king or the country, the empire. But Dickens has this cultural phenomenon and this cultural impact that's absolutely huge.

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[Afua Hirsch]

I've read a description of Dickens as Shakespeare to novels. Do you think that's fair?

[Peter Frankopan]

Okay, so number one in terms of fame and celebrity, Yes. I mean, Shakespeare stands alone as the greatest English playwright. And I'd have thought Dickens. It's quite hard to see who sits in that same category with him. Not just because of the books that he sold, which was huge. Not just because of the sheer number of works that he produced, like Shakespeare's one bestseller after another. It's also the ways in which he changes the ways that things happen. So, yeah, I'd be sympathetic to try to do a comparison.

[Afua Hirsch]

I'm just thinking about his contemporaries. I mean, he's living alongside Thackeray, Henry James, George Eliot, Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, many great novelists who also contributed to the canon and the evolution of the novel. But I wonder if any of them have really entered the language and the culture the way Dickens has. You know, did any of Them create something as omnipresent in our imaginations as a Scrooge or as an Oliver asking, please, sir, can I have some more? They're such iconic characters. He changed our own perceptions of Christmas. When I make decisions about where I want to be on the 25th of December, I'm channeling something that Dickens imagined for me. I mean, that is a really big deal.

[Peter Frankopan]

And there's the social justice, there's the seeing of the world from the bottom up, of not looking past the filthy streets and the terrible privations. You know, obviously Dickens own background gave him a particular perspective on that, but that's not what. What Henry James is really trying to do or Jane Austen. Those sort of genteel literary styles that they have are arguably finer writers than Dickens. But in terms of what Dickens does, I think it's a good case to make of someone who's truly transformational. And I suppose in that kind of category, you know, you can work through some of the other people we've talked about, you know, Bob Marley, Nina Simone. People are mold breakers. And there's a reason why we talk about them on legacy, because Talking about people 200 years after they died, or more or less, the fact that they have still got a resonance and a relevance is telling us something specific about them.

[Afua Hirsch]

How many authors or creatives in general become an adjective in the way that Dickensian is synonymous with an entire era in Victorian Britain?

[Peter Frankopan]

Yeah, it doesn't happen. And in fact, normally it's leaders. You know, it's Elizabethan or Victorian, but Dickensian to capture it all. And everybody understands what that word means, even if you haven't read a word of Bleak House or David Copperfield or any of the other books.

[Afua Hirsch]

And in that sense, it is a comparison with Shakespearean. He's one of the very few other writers who has become a phenomenon in the same way. I don't know if I would put them on a par. I think that the quality of Dickens work, I mean, the message and the productivity was so consistent. The quality of the storytelling and the plots and the characters is really variable in Dickens. He had some real masterpieces and he had some. It's fair to call them duds, fair enough. They weren't all great.

[Peter Frankopan]

Writing a play for a sort of discreet performance for a couple of hours is a different thing to pumping stuff out to be read in sort of installations. So the form is very different, of course, but I think that popularity and the accessibility that, you know, Dickens is not just writing for people like himself, and he's writing for much wider sequence and audience. I mean, it is interesting about why Shakespeare sit so high in the firmament. But I wonder whether you think it works with musicians, whether with music. It happened like that too, that you have someone like Mozart, I suppose. But do you think we're rating Dickens? Maybe too highly. What about the downside? How do we take Dickens down a notch and put him back level with all the mishaps, the ways he describes women or race, the ways in which it's over commercialized.

[Afua Hirsch]

I don't have any problem with authors becoming commercialised. You know, I think that if your message is about social reform and, and noticing and caring about inequality in society, the more people you reach, the better. I think he may have helped slow our progress in having nuanced views about women. His female characters are really thin and feed into tropes about sex and gender. I think that his failure to apply the humanity that was at the center of his work work to Britain's colonial possessions, the treatment of the poor and dispossessed there is a huge failure that's not just detracting from his work, but also helped generations of British people have the same cognitive dissonance and erasure where they just think it was something that happened somewhere else to other people and nothing to do with the metropolis. I mean, he was a writer of the metropolis, not the periphery. But he erased the periphery and even though it was there. So I hold that against him. You know, I'm not saying you have to listening, but for me, given what he was supposed to be about, which was really paying attention to class and poverty and unfairness, he failed to pay attention to that. That matters to me because those were stories that would have meant something to me had he told them. But you know, it's easy to sit here and say he should have done this and he should have done that. What he did do was create a body of work that is as popular today as it was when he wrote it 200 years ago. And that is a remarkable thing to do.

[Peter Frankopan]

I think that's right. I mean his books, they're dense, they're dated as well as obviously having their resonances as we mentioned. I mean the writer he reminds me most of is Tolstoy, the great Russian novelist who was very influenced by Dickens, you know, by how he wrote, what he wrote about the themes and so on. And I think that sort of seminal way of thinking, big writing big has as its downside long books that perhaps you're reluctant to pick up when you're younger. Do you think, having learnt much more about Dickens and talked about him, when you picked up and reread Bleak House for this, did you do it with joy? Did you read it in a different way to maybe how you read it when you were younger?

[Afua Hirsch]

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was better than I remembered, but it was also longer and more tedious at times than I remembered. He really demands a lot of your attention and he just goes off on so many tangents. As somebody who's now really curious about that era, I'm learning from all of it, but the kind of cliches and tropes and stereotypes and coincidences bother me a little more than they did when I was younger and maybe less well read. So, you know, I kind of appreciate him more. His productivity, his work ethic, the rate at which he was creating these works, some of them brilliant, impresses me more. The variation in quality is not something that I would dream of if I was writing novels the way he did.

[Peter Frankopan]

I think that what Dickens can do is if you frame him, as we've tried to do, you get to ask slightly different and unusual questions. So some of the things we talked about, Dickens being involved in literary festivals, the ways in which he sees himself as an entrepreneur, the way in which he's trying to work out how to get a reasonable relationship with his publishers so he makes what's fair. The ways in which he's trying to talk about and putting his money where his mouth is with trafficked women and so on. And the way also that Dickens life is about putting those ghosts of his own childhood to bed. You know, the traumas of where we started in episode one of a very complicated father who, you know, as you said, Dickens had to take out an advert in the newspaper saying, my father's debts have nothing to do with me. Right. Of a father who's exploiting Dickens's success.

[Afua Hirsch]

And actually did so for most of his life.

[Peter Frankopan]

I did say for most of his life. And Dickens father lives for a long time as well, long and expensive time that he's trying to make the most of things. And I have a deep respect for any writer because, as you know, writer books is difficult, it's selfish, it's narcissistic. When we had the honeymoon scene and Dickens saying, I'm going to keep writing, I know what that feels like, where you need to keep moving and, you know, I take my hat off that that what Dickens was doing was moving away from his past to try to be something special. And that adulation he got in his lifetime must have felt very, very rewarding and satisfying for him, even though, you know, his complications in his private life flowed as a result.

[Afua Hirsch]

The problem we have is that it's easy to critique someone's character flaws and failings and trauma, but the reality is, if he wasn't so damaged, we may never have got any of this literature from which we benefit. So I don't subscribe to the idea that you need to suffer and be tortured to be a creative genius, but you can see in his case how the two are deeply embedded with each other.

[Peter Frankopan]

So something that we always do at the end of our last episode in every series is to come up with three words. And I know you're so good at this, afwa. So how about your three?

[Afua Hirsch]

It might be more Dickensian than we'd like, as in a little bit of a cliche, but you go first because.

[Peter Frankopan]

You'Re ready, entrepreneur and hard worker, which I have a hyphen in, so it counts as one word.

[Afua Hirsch]

Okay. I'm revising mine based on a recent conversation.

[Peter Frankopan]

Okay.

[Afua Hirsch]

Shakespeare to novels.

[Peter Frankopan]

Ooh, gosh, you're much better that than me. Okay. And what about your favourite Charles Dickens book?

[Afua Hirsch]

My favourite Charles Dickens book is A Tale of Two Cities.

[Peter Frankopan]

I get a shout out a book we didn't really talk about very much, Little Dorrit, because I read that at quite a good moment again in my teenage years. And like so much of Dickens, it's very moving, but you've got to be in the right place to read it yourself. Second, Martin Chuzzlewit.

[Afua Hirsch]

No, really fascinating. We will take that. We'll continue that conversation after the recording.

[Peter Frankopan]

It's got to be the highest Scrabble score. Always pick the highest Scrabble score. Those double Z's and the W. As.

[Afua Hirsch]

A writer, I'm not sure that's my dream, but I'll take it.

[Peter Frankopan]

And do you have a favourite Dickens quote or favourite Dickensian actor that we finish off with?

[Afua Hirsch]

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It just never gets tired.

[Peter Frankopan]

I'm gonna have one then. And I'm gonna choose from A Christmas Carol which says, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humour.

[Afua Hirsch]

I'm sure that lives on Christmas cards.

[Peter Frankopan]

That lives on Christmas cards. But I would also put it to you that here we are in this stage of the world's history, that probably we need laughter and good humor more than ever before.

[Afua Hirsch]

I'm going to go for one more from our mutual friend. Have a heart that never hardens and a temper that never tires and a touch that never hurts.

[Peter Frankopan]

Well, the man could definitely write thank you for listening to Legacy.

[Afua Hirsch]

Don't forget to hit subscribe on your favorite podcast player. You can also watch all our episodes on YouTube, so make sure you you're subscribed there too.

[Peter Frankopan]

And of course we're on all the socials and the links are in the show notes for this episode or just search Legacy Podcast. I'm Peter Frankopan. I'm Afua Hersh, and we'll see you for the next episode of Legacy. Hey, you want to pay just 10 bucks for your phone service at Boost Mobile?

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[Peter Frankopan]

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[Peter Frankopan]

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