Legacy and British Scandal Special: The Scandalous Life of Charles Dickens | 5

Summary

Legacy and British Scandal Special: The Scandalous Life of Charles Dickens | Episode 5

Released on December 27, 2024, by Wondery

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Introduction

In this special episode of Legacy, hosted by Matt Ford and Alice Levine, the podcast delves deep into the life of Charles Dickens, exploring both his monumental literary contributions and the personal scandals that tarnished his reputation. Joined by historians and presenters Afua Hirsch and Peter Frankopan, the episode seeks to unravel the complexities of Dickens’ character and legacy.

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Charles Dickens: The Literary Titan

Peter Frankopan emphasizes Dickens’ prolific nature and his ability to capture the essence of Victorian London. “He is a really, really, really hard worker,” Frankopan remarks at 11:04, highlighting Dickens’ dedication to his craft. Dickens’ extensive body of work, including classics like Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, and Bleak House, not only entertained but also shed light on the plights of the poor and marginalized.

Afua Hirsch adds that Dickens was instrumental in shifting societal focus from the elites to the oppressed, thereby fostering a greater sense of social responsibility among his readers. “His works were more subversive than Karl Marx's Das Kapital,” Hirsch notes at 51:03, underscoring the significant impact Dickens had on social reform.

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Reinventing Christmas

A recurring theme in Dickens’ legacy is his influence on Christmas traditions. The hosts discuss whether Dickens truly “invented Christmas”, with Peter Frankopan asserting that while figures like Prince Albert introduced the Christmas tree, it was Dickens’ A Christmas Carol that redefined the holiday into a time of compassion, generosity, and family unity.

“At 39:13, Frankopan states, “I think that what he did with A Christmas Carol is encapsulate it, is that in Dickens’ story, the very famous story of redemption, forgiveness, compassion, kindness… that's what people are really trying to get to with Christmas.” This transformation helped elevate Christmas from its industrial decline during the Victorian era to the beloved holiday celebrated today.

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The Dark Side: Personal Scandals

Despite his public persona as a champion of the poor, Dickens' personal life was marred by scandal and controversy. The episode delves into his marriage to Catherine Hogarth and his infamous affair with Nelly Ternan, an 18-year-old actress.

Alice Levine describes Dickens as “probably banned Christmas,” reflecting the contradictions between his public work and private actions. At 26:27, they reveal that Dickens was"a kind of love rat," engaging in relationships that exploited his power and status. The hosts discuss how Dickens’ relationship with Nelly Turner was characterized by a significant age gap and an imbalance of power, which led to rumors of coercion and abuse.

Peter Frankopan adds at 30:51, “Some people think that Dickens got gonorrhea... it's quite hard to stand in the way of the fact that this is obviously a sexual relationship of some kind.” This scandalous behavior stands in stark contrast to the moral virtues espoused in his literary works.

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Abusive Marriage and Family Impact

Dickens’ marriage to Catherine was initially affectionate but deteriorated over time, especially as he blamed her for his countless children. At 31:59, Alice Levine questions if the marriage was actually abusive, to which Peter Frankopan responds emphatically, “100%.” Dickens created a physical and emotional barrier between himself and Catherine, even going as far as building a partition in their bedroom to segregate their interactions.

This abuse extended to his children, who were coerced into ostracizing their mother. One of Dickens’ daughters later expressed deep regret over siding with him, highlighting the enduring emotional scars left by Dickens’ actions.

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Contradictions: Champion of the Poor vs. Personal Failings

The podcast draws attention to the ironic contradictions in Dickens' life. While he advocated for social reform and portrayed the exploitation of the poor in his novels, his personal life reflected severe moral failings. At 34:42, Peter Frankopan muses, “And of course, the irony is that so much of Dickens' books... are about people being exploited,” underscoring the dissonance between his literary themes and personal conduct.

This hypocrisy raises questions about the integration of personal ethics and professional legacy, prompting listeners to reconsider the complexities of appreciating Dickens’ literary genius while acknowledging his flawed personal life.

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Financial Struggles Amidst Fame

Despite his global superstar status, Dickens faced significant financial pressures. Peter Frankopan highlights that Dickens was often overdrawn and lived beyond his means, accumulating debt even as his popularity soared. At 14:53, Matt Ford remarks, “He's one of the few non-monarchs that gets to define an era,” yet fails to hide his financial instability, which was a source of personal stress despite his public acclaim.

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Legacy and Modern Relevance

The episode concludes by reflecting on Dickens’ enduring legacy, both as a literary giant and a complex historical figure. Peter Frankopan contends that Dickens' understanding of brand management and celebrity is still relevant today, comparing him to modern content creators like those on Substack or podcasts.

Afua Hirsch and Peter Frankopan agree that Dickens’ ability to blend social reform with mainstream appeal allows his works to remain relevant and relatable across generations. His portrayal of human suffering and compassion continues to resonate, ensuring that Dickens remains a pivotal figure in both literary and social history.

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Notable Quotes

• Peter Frankopan at 11:04: "He is a really, really, really hard worker."

• Afua Hirsch at 51:03: "His works were more subversive than Karl Marx's Das Kapital."

• Peter Frankopan at 39:13: “I think that what he did with A Christmas Carol is encapsulate it, is that in Dickens’ story, the very famous story of redemption, forgiveness, compassion, kindness… that's what people are really trying to get to with Christmas.”

• Peter Frankopan at 30:51: “Some people think that Dickens got gonorrhea... it's quite hard to stand in the way of the fact that this is obviously a sexual relationship of some kind.”

• Peter Frankopan at 31:59: “100%.”

• Peter Frankopan at 34:42: “And of course, the irony is that so much of Dickens' books... are about people being exploited.”

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Conclusion

This episode of Legacy presents a balanced portrayal of Charles Dickens, acknowledging his immense contributions to literature and social reform while also confronting the dark aspects of his personal life. Through insightful discussions and historical analysis, the podcast encourages listeners to appreciate Dickens’ works without overlooking the complexities of his character, offering a nuanced understanding of his lasting impact on both literature and society.

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For more episodes, listen to Legacy on the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.

Transcript

[Narrator]

Wondery subscribers can binge seasons of legacy early and ad free. Join Wondery in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.

[Charles Dickens]

Folkestone to London train Kent, June 9, 186553 year old Charles Dickens pulls his top hat over his eyes, slips into the first class carriage with a glass of sherry. He's determined to enjoy the last few hours of his train journey. He leans one arm on the wood panelled wall to steady his feet before he ducks into the discreet high backed velvet seat in his compartment.

[Matt Ford]

This is not a Vante West Coast.

[Charles Dickens]

This is the dream, isn't it?

[Alice Levine]

You feel like you've had a good train journey now if the trolley still.

[Matt Ford]

Has Twixes left and if you arrive within three hours of the scheduled arrival time.

[Charles Dickens]

His eyes settle on the young woman already seated in the compartment, sees her watching as he takes out his manuscript and lays it on the table. He's due to submit his latest instalment of Our Mutual Friend in a day's time. He should be making final edits. Is that the great author's latest novel? He takes in her slender frame, her pale complexion, her long dark hair.

[Narrator]

Perhaps I can make you a character.

[Charles Dickens]

He sees her smile. He's about to offer her a few pages to read, but before he can, he's rocked forward in his seat as a loud thunk shakes the carriage. He looks across at her in concern.

[Narrator]

Oh God, I do hope that wasn't a but.

[Charles Dickens]

Before she can finish, he's violently thrown forward forward into the glass window as a second deafening crash fills the carriage. He grips the armrest in panic as the entire carriage starts to lurch to its side.

[Narrator]

Christ.

[Charles Dickens]

He stares out of the window as the train starts to tilt. He realizes in horror that they're on a bridge. His eyes widen as he watches the entire back end of the train twist off its tracks and crash into the muddy waters of the river a few meters below. For a moment he's convinced their carriage too will tip into the abyss before it shudders to an ear, screeching halt. He blinks as dust and debris settle in the air and a loud scream pierces the silence. He pulls himself to his feet, races to the front, pushes through the doors and steps out onto the cast iron bridge, taking in the devastation. Half the train is dangling into the river. Bodies litter the water. Two bloodied limbs stick out from under hulking pieces of splintered metal. He can taste a terrible earthy odor, iron mixed with salt and oil. He starts to run along the bridge to help when he feels a hand grab his shoulder.

[Alice Levine]

Mr. Dickens?

[Charles Dickens]

He flinches at the sound of his name, turns to face the conductor, his ripped cap, his bloodied face.

[Matt Ford]

I'm afraid you only booked an advance single and this has to be a super advanced off peak single, so you are going to have to pay the difference in the fare, I'm afraid.

[Alice Levine]

I didn't realise you were traveling with us. I'm so sorry. I need to collect all the passenger details. Actually, I don't suppose you could help?

[Charles Dickens]

He stares at the ledger in the conductor's hands, a few names already scrawled across the page. He looks up as the sound of sirens fill the air. Emergency services. It will only be a matter of minutes before they and the press arrive. He feels a chill course through his body as his thoughts turn not to the crash but to the woman in his carriage. Because she's not just some woman. She is Ellen Turnan, the actress he met seven years ago when she was just 18. She is the secret reason his marriage ended.

[Matt Ford]

Charles Dickens. What is he doing?

[Charles Dickens]

He thinks of his children, his reputation, his legacy.

[Matt Ford]

You'll never end up on a tenor if you carry on like this, mate.

[Alice Levine]

Or it might make no difference whatsoever.

[Matt Ford]

That is also a fair point.

[Charles Dickens]

He realizes he needs to get her out of here. He needs to scrub her name from the ledger, scrub her name from all the records. Because the world can never know that Charles Dickens, the greatest moralist of his age, has been having a seven year affair with a woman younger than his daughters.

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[Alice Levine]

Right, Matt, I have a scandalous Christmas personality for you. It's one of the most famous people probably ever associated with this time of year.

[Matt Ford]

Oliver Cromwell.

[Charles Dickens]

Good guess.

[Alice Levine]

Actually banned Christmas. Bit of a wrong un.

[Matt Ford]

Bit of a wrong un. Invaded Ireland. No, I'm guessing it's not him. Bob Geldof.

[Alice Levine]

Oh, the band Aid controversy. No, I'm actually thinking about a man who many people say invented Christmas. I'm thinking of Charles Dickens.

[Matt Ford]

Amazing. Because I love his work. I want to find out more about him, but given that this is British scandal, I'm worried now I'm going to end up hating him.

[Alice Levine]

I think you kind of should worry because today we are delving into the life of probably Britain's most famous novelist. But as you have suspected, Dickens wasn't just. Just a jolly, happy spray on snow on the windows fun loving guy.

[Matt Ford]

Okay, he wasn't just that, but that is a big part of who he is. And when you think of Dickens, you think of Christmas. You think of food, you think of wine, you think of more food. So I will also be bearing that in mind to make myself feel better.

[Alice Levine]

I'm almost reluctant to tell you why he qualifies as a scandal protagonist, but of course we wouldn't be talking about him if there wasn't something controversial. Just to give you a hint of where I'm going with this, as is a theme we see time and time again on this show, he didn't treat women very well at all.

[Matt Ford]

Okay, well, I'm bracing myself for this. I'm gonna try and live the Maxim. Love the art, not the artist. And really just try and focus on his love of Christmas.

[Alice Levine]

I'm gonna make that difficult for you, Matt. But to help us sift through all of the different contradictions that Mr. Charles Dickens throws up, we are today joined by historians and presenters of Wondry and goal, Hanger Pod Legacy, Aphwa Hirsch and Peter Frankopan. Aphra and Peter, thank you so much for joining us. I should get the important stuff out of the way first. When it comes to Christmas, where are you on the scale of Matt Ford to Bar Humbug?

[Narrator]

If Scrooge is at zero and Matt's a ten, I'm like an eight or a nine.

[Peter Frankopan]

Afro. Hang on, how come you're an eight? I thought you're a solid nine and a half. Do you know where Dickens has ruined Christmas for me? Is that for me? I suspect, like most people listening, you've got to be cold, right? So if it's not cold, it's not Christmas. So the tree's got to go up when that bit where you're blowing into your hands when you're walking down the street, and that feels very Northern European and very unusual. So if you live somewhere that isn't freezing cold or near the Arctic Circum, it's great if you're living in Britain or Scandinavia. But that Christmas idea that chilled to your bones, that's not something that's shared by most of the world. So I do feel that Tickens has framed a type of Christmas that means you've got to eat because you've got to put on excess weight because you know when it's freezing cold outside, you need a bit of extra extra around you.

[Alice Levine]

You're so right. We don't see enough cinematic performative hand warming anymore.

[Peter Frankopan]

Maybe it's my Instagram feed. I keep being pitched, and it's also my age. I keep being pitched. You know, hand warmers and gilets that have electric heating inside them that tells you not about my algorithm.

[Narrator]

You forward those to me, please, people.

[Alice Levine]

The algorithm just gives you what you've been asking for. So you've really told on yourself there, Peter.

[Matt Ford]

You guys have done a legacy series on Charles Dickens which is out now, and we love a story with twists. So without giving too much away when doing the research for this, was Charles Dickens what you expected?

[Narrator]

Yes and no. I knew because he's an incredibly gifted writer that he had to have a dark side. And I expected that, but I was unprepared for the scale of how dark his dark side was. So that's been a real journey for me. And the thing I always ask myself is, how connected are they? Without that inner torment, would he have been incapable of leaving the literary legacy he left us? Or is it possible to be a little bit less toxic and still be great?

[Alice Levine]

Charles Dickens is seen as one of Britain's greatest writers. What is it about Dickens work that is so appealing, do you think?

[Peter Frankopan]

Okay, well, I've got two ideas. One is that he's absolutely prolific. He has written so many books that are incredibly famous. So when Matt said, you know, when we were looking at Charles Dickens and we were looking with a twist, you know, there's Oliver right there. But then on top of that, you got David Copperfield, you've got Bleak House, Little Dorrit, Turning Two Cities, you know, it's an incredible set of works. And AFW and I, if you listen to us on Legacy, who would you guess we would compare his purple patch to when he was writing?

[Alice Levine]

Matt looks very excited to answer this.

[Peter Frankopan]

80S pop music.

[Matt Ford]

Well, I was tempted to say Oasis, but I'm going to say the Beatles.

[Peter Frankopan]

Both of those are probably better than what we came up with. We came up with early Wham. Everyone's a winner. So prolific, you know, he is a really, really, really hard worker. That's the first one. And the second one is he captures voices that don't normally get written about. Dickens was instrumental in changing the way that people thought about Britain in the Victorian period. And by focusing on people who were poor, who were malnourished, who were unhappy, it was a different form of focus. And I think that was a really important way of moving the focus away from elites.

[Matt Ford]

And do you think when he's writing these books, that part of his purpose is to shine a light? Is he an author who's also a social reformer, or is this just the stuff that he thought made great books?

[Narrator]

He absolutely was a social reformer to his core. I mean, we could have a separate conversation about how radical his politics really were, but in terms of his genuine commitment to social reform, it's a huge part of his character. And he started off having a life that brought him in real proximity to the poor and destitute and exploited in London and in Britain. But he started his professional career as a court reporter who was actually seeing what was happening in the courts, where people in extreme situations were fighting cases. He was reporting on Parliament, where this was an era of great reform, where they were debating poor laws and how to manage the huge expansion of London's urban centres and the incredible proliferation in poverty that came with that. So before he was a novelist and storyteller in fiction, he was documenting in real time the changes that were happening around and combined with his personal experience of what poverty really meant, that gave him a genuine drive to find a way of communicating to people and making them care about the suffering that was really happening at the time.

[Alice Levine]

What did people think of Dickens whilst he was Alive.

[Peter Frankopan]

Oh, wow. I mean, we asked whether he's the first proper global superstar, you know, and he's someone who gets a proper celebrity following from Buckingham palace and Queen Victoria, kind of wanted to meet him through to being mobbed in the United States. I mean, the way in which he is received when he does a couple of trips to the US and the number of copies he sells, I mean, it's a bit like waiting for Harry Potter books to be released. Queuing outside Dickens is the kind of proper global maim at that time, probably as famous, if not more famous than Napoleon, et cetera, et cetera, Duke of Wellington. So I think he does touch on lots of different nerves. One of the things that Dickens understands so well is about him understanding his own value, both as a writer but also as a celebrity figure.

[Narrator]

But I would just add to that. It's always fascinating how that converts into someone's life experience. Because even if you take A Christmas Carol, which by any metric maybe his most successful work, the most influential, the most well remembered when it came out, it was a success at the time, which is not the case for all of his works. But he was still struggling financially when A Christmas Carol came out, he was still in debt. He only made about 700 pounds. And in the first year after that book came out, he was overdrawn. He had to take a loan. And that is partly because he tended to live above his means and had a huge and rapidly growing family. But it wasn't that. His life was gilded. And there's a real disconnect between how celebrated he was becoming as a novelist and the reality of his unpaid bills, his financial pressures. And I think it's really important to remember that the appreciation for his work didn't always mean he had the kind of opportunity and release from financial worries that people might imagine.

[Matt Ford]

He's one of the few non monarchs that gets to define an era. We often talk about Georgian times or Elizabethan times and we do talk about Dickensian times. So what do the phrases Dickensian Britain and Dickensian times evoke for you?

[Peter Frankopan]

I think it's probably more local, actually. I think it's Dickensian London specifically. I mean, I think that that is the focus that we think of. You're absolutely right in terms giving your name to a period. You know, you've got to done something pretty special to have have done that. I mean, I'm hoping for Frank Pan in London or Hershey in London.

[Alice Levine]

I've heard you're trying to get that off the ground. Yeah, that has reached it's not going so well.

[Peter Frankopan]

Very little impact. But Blue sky is still in its early days so you never know. But I think, I think it's that he's capturing London at a time that London is urbanizing incredibly rapidly. The qualities of living for most people are absolutely terrible. You know, smoke stacks belching out, whole life expectancy being incredibly short. And because he's writing about everyday life I think he is also sort of seen as a people's champion because he's writing about normal people rather than about people going on shooting weekends. He does capture a real zeitgeist at the time and in fact today as well. If you're a younger person learning about Britain in the 19th century, it's probably a toss up about whether you call it Victorian Britain or Dickensian. I think certainly London as a historic what it's worth. So few women get their legacies protected that I'm probably in favor of putting Victoria up in front. But I do think that Dickens captures something about social change, about poverty, about the frustrations about life expectancy and about the precariousness of life, particularly for young people actually. And I mean that's something we talk about too about Dickens owners childhood and upbringing. About how that must have helped frame some of those questions for him.

[Alice Levine]

I'm wondering what kind of person he must have been to have been so brilliant at capturing the human condition. Translating what you've described as the, the everyday, the conditions of the time into a compelling narrative. Was he particularly empathetic? Was he an outsider looking in? What kind of person was he? What space did he inhabit?

[Peter Frankopan]

It's a really good question. Being an outsider gives so many perspectives and lots of drive. And in fact I probably wouldn't have thought about it before we started our first series. So many of the great figures in history are the ones who've really left an imprint. Sometimes for horrific reasons, sometimes for their ingenuity, sometimes for their leadership and so on. So many of them seem to have either been on the outside, had to force their way in or to have had sort of damage done to them in their childhood either by being dispatched to brutal boarding schools or whatever it was. So I think there is something in the outsider's appeal and vision. And Dickens has an incredibly difficult childhood. You know, his father spends time in debtors prison and even as Dickens gets older his father keeps on borrowing money in his name. And eventually Dickens even takes out newspaper adverts to say my father's debt's nothing to do with me. So I think that the Trauma of being young and poor and shamed plays a real role for Dickens in the kinds of ways he writes as well as the kind of character he has. Don't you think that's right, Afwa?

[Narrator]

I completely agree. And it's coming from this very deep place of trauma and suffering and resentment and lived experience and compassion for other people that are living that reality.

[Matt Ford]

And what do you think he'd have been like in Company? Would we have all got on with him?

[Narrator]

Well, he was an incredible entertainer. I mean, he was a frustrated actor. He was one of these people who was incredibly good at one thing, but really wished he could have been really good at another and got involved in putting on plays and in acting and, you know, would often at a dinner party, kind of give a performance or recital. He loved reading his works to an audience. This is still an age where, in the absence of the radio or tv, people still did read books to each other as a form of entertainment. So he was a real performer. I think it's probably not unfair to say he liked the sound of his own voice. And he was a big drinker as well. I mean, there's lots of references, if you read anything about his life to his famous gin punch. Actually sounds quite delicious. I think there's a cold version for summer or hot version for winter. So he sounds like he was probably a kind of larger than life character and definitely the life and soul. And he liked a party. He would stay up late. And he's just one of these overachievers who would be drinking heavily, socializing madly, and then up early banging out pages and pages of these bestselling novels. So he seemed to have a big, big appetite for life and for entertaining, for sure.

[Peter Frankopan]

So Afro is much lovelier and kinder than I am. I mean, I think what we both know is that he's the. He's the sort of person at Christmas time who insists on always doing charades. It's always him who's going to do the next one. And it's like, can we please go to bed now? Then he opens a bottle of wine. And then almost more annoying than that is that when you're sleeping it off and, you know, regretting the fact that you didn't get a chance to try and act out Titanic because he was doing it. He turns up at breakfast having written 2,000 words. So I think that there are challenges about being an overachiever and so on. But he definitely loves a party and I think wants to try and generate that idea that people should have Fun. And that's obviously not a bad thing. But the fact that he's always trying to do it probably is a kind of pathological response to not wanting to be alone, not wanting to be unhappy, not wanting to be poor, not wanting to be hungry. And I mean, I'm completely sympathetic to that.

[Matt Ford]

We mentioned his success earlier, but how did he handle fame?

[Narrator]

He wanted it. He wanted not so much fame, but he wanted recognition. And he was disappointed when some of his books didn't do well. For example, Martin Chuzzlewit he thought was a great masterpiece and it fell a little flat. But he didn't necessarily want fame in the conventional sense. He went on this famous tour to America and actually refused to meet the US President cause he just thought he was really boring. So he wasn't somebody who was wowed by invitations to the or glamorous settings. He also refused to meet Queen Victoria, who was a huge fan of his work and kept inviting him. He eventually did meet her, but as somebody who was a Republican and very ambivalent and critical towards the monarchy, he was quite happy to turn down those kind of invitations. So I wouldn't say he was kind of seeking status and prestige and fame at any cost. Having said that, he did have this real class complex, maybe not surprisingly for someone who grew up in a very ambiguous class position. You know, his father was. Had quite a respectable job, but then ended up in a debtor's prison. He could have been well educated, but ended up working in a factory. He always wanted to be accepted as a gentleman that didn't quite have an incredibly rigid class system of Victorian Britain, didn't quite have the pedigree. And he can never quite get over his inner desire to be accepted by the upper classes. So like everything else in his psyche, it was quite a complex relationship with fame, status and celebrity, I would say.

[Peter Frankopan]

And I think you can tell that because apart from the fact he likes to surround himself with actors and, you know, other famous people, he rubs people up the wrong way. So John Stuart Mill, who I think wasn't most famous for his sense of humor anyway, sort of takes against Dickens, you know, and just thinks he's too much of a smart ass and, you know, too pleased with himself and too successful. And I think that that kind of being, trying to be cut down to size by people, which is an exhaustion, as I'm sure that both you, Matt and Alice know when you do a successful podcast, you know, not, not everybody in the world is thrilled with success, you know, then people, you know, you can Judge someone by that, by their enemies. And I think Dickens, because he becomes such a global name, because he becomes so famous, because he makes so much money, although, as Afro says, I mean, we, we slightly struggled to work out how he spent as much as he did, but I mean, he obviously spent it on something.

[Narrator]

Champagne oysters, Peter?

[Peter Frankopan]

Yeah, the champagne oysters. How many of those can you get? A lot is obviously the answer. And also 10 kids doesn't help. But I think that there are people who are kind of turning their nose up at him and thinking he's sort of too successful and too much for his own good. And, and some of those reviews, I think they're more, more deserved than otherwise, but some of it, I think is just the price of being the public eye that, that you, you get people lining up to take a shot at, take a chunk out of you. And, you know, Dickens I don't think is particularly upset. He does get angry about bad reviews, not surprisingly, because they get read by everybody. But he keeps on going. So, I mean, his thick skin I think is quite helpful in providing that sort of the motor to keep on running.

[Alice Levine]

I think you're right. I think the enemies that Matt and I have made is really because of the champagne and oyster habit rather than the content. So that's what I'm going to tell myself.

[Peter Frankopan]

If you hadn't made them already, Alice, you just haven't. We're sitting here, I should say, in a golden palace, eating oysters and champagne while recording this podcast.

[Narrator]

I can hear you.

[Alice Levine]

Shocking as we speak.

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[Alice Levine]

Afwa and peter sorry to be a broken record, but we simply must talk about scandal. And that brings us to Dickon's personal life. As with so many people that we cover in British Scandal, he was a bit of a love rat, to use the parlance of the day. What do you know about his marriage to Catherine Hogarth?

[Narrator]

I think this is one of the darkest stains on his legacy. He met his wife, they were in their early 20s and there's nothing to suggest that it wasn't a kind of Good faith romance. In the beginning, although he had been snubbed by the woman he really wanted to marry because he wasn't from the right social pedigree. She was his kind of second choice, Catherine, who he ended up marrying. And I think it was fine at first, but the problem started to happen when she started to get pregnant and have his children. And he was pretty ambivalent about parenthood, mainly because he had such a difficult relationship with his own parents, who he really resented and blamed for having sent him to work in this traumatic factory and not having valued his education. And he was kind of okay when his first child, Charles, was born, but then the children just kept coming. And what I find, as a woman particularly and as a mother, really hard to process about him is that he kind of blamed his wife for the fact that he got her pregnant. He ended up talking much later in his life about how the heartbreak of his first relationship, having not worked out, led him to repress his feelings and not feel safe, I guess we would say in today's language, not feeling safe, expressing affection for fear of rejection. And that really impacted both his relationship with his wife, but also his children. But as she had more and more children, he started to enjoy her company less and less. And it's that incredibly cliche thing of. As she started to age and put on weight and be worn down by all these childbirths and raising this family, he started to find her less interesting and start to be more interested in a younger woman. So the most unoriginal story ever in that respect.

[Alice Levine]

And to put it in context, 10 children in total.

[Narrator]

A lot of children.

[Alice Levine]

It's a lot of lunch boxes to pack.

[Matt Ford]

I mean, the diet, the family, the desire for success. He sounds like. Sounds like a Victorian Boris Johnson.

[Peter Frankopan]

That's very good, Matt. We should get you. Come on. Also, you know, the London, the chaos season. Johnson, Boris Johnson absolutely is Dickensian character, 100%.

[Matt Ford]

So as well as him blaming his wife for the 10 children and that putting a huge strain on the relationship. And there were rumours about infidelity, a lot of which focus on Nelly Ternan. So tell us a bit about Nellie.

[Narrator]

She was an actress he met when he was 45 and she was 18. And she was part of this family of actors with her sister and mother in Doncaster that he met on the stage. And he kind of became the patron of the whole family. He kind of helped all of the women and pay for their travel and buy them things. I mean, there is evidence that he was quite fixated on Nelly from the outset and we know that he wanted to seduce her but failed at first. And the evidence points to the fact that he basically fixated on her, pursued her for a long time, until eventually she kind of was pressured into or felt that she had to repay his favor really with some kind of relationship. And there is evidence that she may have got pregnant by him and had a child and that he went to then great lengths to hide the relationship, because much as Victorian Britain was as scandalous a place as any, there was such pressure to hide those kind of extramarital relationships that it would have really casted him out of polite society if it was known that he was having this fully consummated relationship. And he may have wanted to protect her as well. And I think like any relationship where there's a big power imbalance, it's not necessarily that he didn't have genuine feelings for her, it's just that there was such a big age gap, she was vulnerable. He used his money and influence in a way to control her, whether he intended that or not. And it seems like it was the obsession of a man who was unhappy in his own marriage and his own life and really yearning for that kind of youthful love affair that he'd never quite had because the one he'd hoped to have before he got married didn't work out. And he never had that level of passion for his own wife. But I think the evidence does point towards the fact that he and Nelly Turnen did end up having a relationship and that it wasn't really what she wanted, but may have had to give in to.

[Peter Frankopan]

Some people think that Dickens got gonorrhea. I mean, I think that the challenge is that our information is so patchy and so there's lots of projection. And Dickens is, I think, not the only figure in history from whom sometimes biographers claim a sort of special right to be able to guess what's going on. So, I mean, some of Dickens biographers claim that his relationship with Nelly was absolutely platonic and pure and she's a sort of in a virgin bride or virgin girlfriend who he likes just walking around holding her hands with. Others take a slightly more downbeat view on what's actually going on between a 45 year old man and an 18 year old girl who he keeps pays for to live in quite some style. So it's very hard to work through what the reality is. I think it's quite hard to stand in the way of the fact that this is obviously a sexual relationship of some kind. But exactly what that trade off is. And you know what Dickens is doing, it's odd. I mean, he has strange relationships with women. And the way he portrays women in his books is something we talk about because they're all very one dimensional.

[Alice Levine]

Is it fair to say that the marriage to Catherine wasn't just distant and eventually broken, but actually abusive?

[Narrator]

100%. I mean, initially it doesn't seem to have been, but as he began to resent her more, he became really cruel to her. And when he decided he didn't want to be married to her anymore, he physically created a partition in their bedroom without consulting or warning her. He had someone put up a physical barrier. Imagine in your bedroom with your husband.

[Alice Levine]

That's ambiguous. Come on now, Aphwa, you're being inflammatory.

[Narrator]

It could be interpreted so many ways.

[Matt Ford]

Yeah, don't give my wife ideas.

[Narrator]

Builds a wall in the middle of the room and says, you're on that side, and this is my. And you know, you won't come into contact with me anymore. And when he does formally leave her and she moves out of the home, he has doctors visit her to try and diagnose her with mental illness. Now this is the Victorian era where male doctors pronouncing on a woman's insanity could very easily and frequently did lead to a woman being incarcerated for life without hope of release in a mental asylum. So it's almost condemning someone to death or a lifetime prison sentence. And to wield that kind of power over somebody who you've been married to and had 10 children with, I just think is incredibly cruel and such an abuse of power. And it's one of those things, you know, that nightmarish scenario that if somebody tells you you're mad and you protest that you're not mad, it only confirms their theory. So he spread it about that she was insane. He told people that she wasn't fit to be a mother, that the children hated her, none of which there's any evidence for. And his children mainly sided with him. I don't think they felt like they had a choice. He was the one with the money and the resources. He was in charge of their education and their budgets. And one of his daughters later, after he was dead, said that she really regretted having sided with him over their mother and that she felt forever guilty about the cruelty that she was complicit in towards their mother. It was an unforgivable thing that he did to Catherine and she never really recovered.

[Peter Frankopan]

And of course, the irony is that so much of Dickens books or so many of his ideas are about People being exploited. And, you know, Dickens is, you know, as a novelist, is really the champion of those who are downtrodden, who are taken advantage of and abused. And so in that sense, you know, the way in which he handles his own personal relationship with his wife, it's not just hard to read and understand. You know, it seems unforgivable that a man who is trying to explain how these kinds of abuses happen is so blind to his own character failings. But, you know, he's not the first man to, I'm sadly, to have behaved in that way of getting intoxicated on his own fame, success, power to hurt people around him almost without realizing.

[Matt Ford]

And then once he and Catherine have split up, how does he treat her after that?

[Narrator]

He has no contact with her and just cuts her off completely and also tries to pressure and bully his children into also having no contact with her. Imagine having 10 children and not having any access to them and then having it put about that you were a terrible mother who. Whose children hate you. And, you know, for somebody, I mean, a Victorian woman for whom your identity is basically wife and mother, you're not really able to develop any other interests or careers. That's just catastrophic. So that was the end of the relationship. And it happened gradually. It wasn't overnight, but, you know, from having put up the wall in the room to then having this for Catherine, very humiliating relationship with Nelly Turner, which, you know, she knew about eventually was incredibly callous. So that was it. And she wasn't at his funeral when he died, which kind of says it all.

[Alice Levine]

Wow. How did his actions with Nellie and with Catherine impact Charles Dickens public image? It can't have been a good look for a man who was celebrated as a man of moral virtue.

[Peter Frankopan]

Well, he worked quite hard to keep it out of the press. You know, he. He was a powerful man. Having said that, I don't think Dickens paid a huge amount of attention to public opinion. I mean, you know, he wasn't interested in the fact that the Queen Victoria admired his work and wanted to read it. So I don't think he. He cared too much, but he was quite. I think he was sensitive to the fact that he didn't want people gossiping, so he managed his own image carefully, you know, and managed access and was, you know, was very happy being adored by everybody and giving public readings about his latest work and taking the praise. But I think he was as discreet as he could be. I mean, he kept popping backs and forwards to France. I mean, dozens and dozens and dozens of time. So he sort of, I think, found ways of finding ways to get up to what he wanted to without being in the public eye.

[Narrator]

I think there's one story that though, does speak to the extent to which he did want to hide the relationship and that's in 1865 they were caught in a train crash. Dickens, Nellie Turnen and her mother. They were at Staplehurst in Kent on this train. And at the time it was a famous crash. The train crashed and plunged into a river and the three of them were unharmed, but other people died in the crash and then the press was on the scene. It was a big event. And Dickens first thought when they survived this train crash was to have Nellie and her mother couriered away before anyone could see them all together, in case it emerged that the three of them were together. And people then began to speculate about why they were in a train carriage together. And it was only after they were taken away that he then began to help the injured and give them brandy and all the kind of benevolent things that Dickens would also do. But he did, even in that, you know, life threatening situation, think immediately about protecting his reputation. So, you know, again, just the contradictions of the man who didn't really care what people thought on the one hand, but wanted to be respected and part of respectable society on the other, and who was kind and thinking of injured passengers in a train crash, but also preoccupied with his self interest of managing the scene from his reputational standpoint.

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[Alice Levine]

We should return to where we began. Matt's favourite subject, Christmas. It is said that Dickens invented Christmas. Is that true? And if so, what was Christmas like pre Dickens?

[Peter Frankopan]

Well, call me a pedantic historian, but I'm pretty sure Jesus Christ Invented Christmas and those controversial. But I think what's interesting is that the Christmas we now think of today, of snow and Father Christmas and groaning Christmas tables and lots of wine and families, is something that's reasonably speaking modern as in the 19th century. I mean, I think there's lots of people like Washington Irving who had written about, who Dickens knew of and in fact knew, had written about the kind of scenes of getting everybody together and getting charades and all that, the food going. But Dickens, I think with Christmas Carol, I think the bit that he injects is not just the fact about carol singing and other things that were coming and going. Prince Albert, the consort of, of Queen Victoria, he, he brought over the idea of Christmas trees and all that sort of stuff. But where Dickens I think was, you know, does encapsulate it, is that in. In A Christmas Carol, the very famous story and many of listeners will have seen the epic Muppet Christmas Carol and one of the all time great movies is that the story of redemption, of forgiveness, of compassion, of kindness, of looking out for people who are unfortunate and of a total bastard. If I'm allowed to say that on your podcast, please. Realizing that there's a purpose in life that doesn't just involve money and there's a purpose in charity and in kindness is something that Dickens captures better than I think anybody else has done. And because he does it so well in Christmas Carol, that's the now seminal movie that we watch at this time of the year and sort of knockoff versions of it like It's a Wonderful Life, which is a knockoff obviously of A Christmas Carol with James Stewart. But I think that that is what people are really trying to get to with Christmas and we lose it with Mariah Carey and Michael Buble and all the things that Matt likes.

[Alice Levine]

Tread carefully now, Peter. Tread carefully.

[Peter Frankopan]

No, unless you're careful to remember why as we do it. And those bits that Dickens is trying to remind us about, about how to treat other people and how to share and whatever I think are incredibly fundamental Christian messages that do link back to our. An idea that is much purer and softer than some of the hard sells that we get in shopping malls up and down the country in the approach to 25 December.

[Narrator]

It's funny that you emphasize the Christian message, Peter, because for a long time, I mean centuries, Christmas was a very heavily pagan festival in Europe. I mean, obviously centered on the birth of Christ, but it was all about as well incorporating these pagan rituals for midwinter. And what I find so fascinating is how kind of diminished Christmas was during the Industrial Revolution. And that really speaks to just how exploited workers were that the idea of taking a public holiday to celebrate Christmas just fell completely out of favor. People were expected to work. They got no time off, not even Christmas. And that is where I think Dickens did play a role. Because combining that message of compassion towards the poor, combating the exploitation of workers and. And injecting the Christian message of forgiveness and compassion with that is really what helped shape the Christmas that we have today. And I think Dickens did play a huge role in that. And actually it's partly as a result of Christmas Carol that a few years later, Christmas became a national holiday in Britain for the first time.

[Matt Ford]

And do you think Dickens is consciously trying to reframe or reinvent Christmas or is it just a good backdrop for that story?

[Peter Frankopan]

I think it could be both. I think he was always on the lookout for a good story. You know, he has a fantastic turn of phrase. You know, he's not just selling ideas and getting books to fly out the door. And, you know, the opening line of A Christmas Carol is, you know, Marley was dead colon to begin with. And I think that he, by doing that is challenging readers to use their imagination, which is, after all, what all God, not good novelists do. So I think, you know, whether. Whether he'd have realized that he was going to really put something special into pizzazz into Christmas in future years, I don't know. But what he did recognize is that there was a hook there. So he. He keeps coming back to Christmas time, maybe because he's trying to exploit book buyers and people want to buy gifts, but he recognizes that Christmas does have a kind of particular moment that it can gather families together. Christmas card isn't his most successful Christmas story, but he's definitely, I think, got an idea that there's. There's some magic in the air.

[Alice Levine]

One of the things that we haven't mentioned and to use a word which a lot of people balk at, is I feel. I feel like he was a foodie. I feel like he was the OG food influencer. Not just any old Christmas dinner, a Dickens Christmas dinner. Would we have the Ms. Christmas adverts without him? Is that the greatest legacy of all? Obviously, because of his incredible way with words. That's a kind of part of the Christmas picture that we associate with him.

[Narrator]

Gosh, he's probably rolling in his grave at being exactly the M. S John.

[Peter Frankopan]

Lewis Christmas quite slowly because he put the food away. He was quite a big unit.

[Narrator]

He was Definitely an eater. He definitely liked his food and drink. And I think his whole attitude towards feasting in general, Christmas in particular, is also connected to his childhood, that he had these family Christmases, but they were a bit miserable. You know, they never had enough money. He talks about how cold it was and, you know, he's created a Christmas for us where it snows and there's frost on the windows, but in the version he's imagined, there's a really, like, roaring fire and everything is glorious. But I think that speaks to the way he wants to reimagine the Christmases he experienced. So they had the ingredients, they had a family and a beautiful setting, but they were cold, they didn't have the food they wanted. So he turned into an adult who really enjoyed the finer things that he felt he couldn't have when he was young. And I think he genuinely did enjoy them. I mean, he really did speak in romantic terms about his gin punch and his oysters. And I know we keep going on about them, but that's because he loved them that much.

[Peter Frankopan]

Yeah. One of the things I think we don't think about too much about Victorian. The Victorian era, wherever you are in the world, is that it's a time of enhancing and growing globalizations of all kinds and, of course, exploitations of people, ecologies and so on. But that's really important when it comes to things like food. So food availability, typically in the beginning of the 19th century, is what you can grow locally. And in Britain at the time, you know, the diet was not great, but food and feasting have always been a really important part of celebration. And as middle classes grow in Victorian England, Dickensian London, as people have got a bit more disposable income, as connections across the oceans to different parts of the world start to bring new kinds of foods, availability, then I think that idea of how do you show off your wealth? How do you celebrate with other people? Food plays such an important part in that, and we sort of take that for granted today.

[Narrator]

I just want to add to that. I think this is really important, that Dickens is one of the reasons that we think of Victorian Britain as a place that had all of this income inequality, the rich having this incredible lifestyle, very exotic access to all these cosmopolitan foods and experiences and fabrics, and the poor really suffering in the industries. But he also kind of erased from his work the reason for that, which is that Britain had an empire. Britain was subjugating colonies in Africa, Asia, the Middle East. And so what we get is this picture of Britain that's super powerful, that's industrializing because of the wealth that's extracting from the world. But we don't actually see, see that process of the exploitation and extraction and you know, that's an erasure that we're still living with because we separate in our imagination this kind of Victorian Dickensian England from the reality that it was connected and it was part of this global picture and it was exploiting not just poor people in Dickensian London that we see, but all over the world. And there are little references to that in Dickens's work. In bleak house, there's Mrs. Jellyby who makes all her sons give all their pocket money to poor Africans. And there are various really irritating characters who do all this like well intentioned but ludicrous philanthropy and the Congo. It's a kind of caricature of the ways people thought about Africa in a very stereotypical way. But he doesn't really interrogate that stereotype. He just shows it in tiny glimpses. But that is a huge part of the world that Dickens lived in and he never really showed us that.

[Matt Ford]

So what is his enduring legacy as a man, as a writer and a huge fan of Christmas?

[Peter Frankopan]

I think he's a, he's a global superstar. He's the George Michael, you know, take your pick.

[Matt Ford]

He loved Christmas too.

[Peter Frankopan]

He loved Christmas, exactly. Christmas number one year after year. And Dickens was aware of his own worth, you know, so he constantly went back to renegotiate with publishers. So he kind of helped the idea of trying to get all authors and writers to think about how they would monetize better what they do. I think in that sense he's the kind of grandfather of substack that you can find both me and AFU on these days, or even podcasting. You know, it's. How do you find, how do you find a platform that can deliver your message and how do you, how do you do that in a way that picks up themes that people are actually going to be interested in as well as trying to stay true to what you want to be saying. So I think he really taps into modernity. And you know, Dickens is alive at a time when there are high levels of literacy. Train lines mean that publications can be distributed quicker and faster and cheaper than ever before. And so I think he's really aware of what his own value is. And I think that in that sense he's not just a sort of global superstar and famous. He's also someone who understands how the sort of mechanics behind celebrity works. And I think that's Something we recognize in today's world, whether it's writing or music or film or whatever, people who've got the sort of high profile often are very good at brand management and at trying to work out how to position themselves. And, you know, I really take my hat off to how joined up Dickens is thinking was that, at least in his public life.

[Narrator]

But, you know, I think it's easy now to forget how radical his writing seemed at the time. There's a famous quote. The works of Dickens were more subversive than Karl Marx's Das Kapital. I mean, you can agree or disagree with that, but the fact that it was perceived that way shows how big a deal it was to center the experiences of the poor and excluded. But at the same time, as I said, Dickens wasn't necessarily a radical himself. And in a way, I think part of his legacy is he just invented a new genre of literary ideology. He was really genuinely interested in social reform and told us these stories because he wanted us to care about the people and the poverty and the suffering that we. We don't see, even though we're part of it in some way. But he also has given us some of the most traditional and conservative ideas about Englishness that there are through A Christmas Carol, through this kind of gaze on Victorian London. And as we were saying, he loves traditions himself, and he didn't want a social revolution. He wanted reform and improvement. So he kind of sat almost in a category of his own in a world where there were the conservatives and traditionalists and there were these radicals, and he kind of appealed to both. And I think that's one of the reasons that he was able to break through in such a huge way both in Britain and America and around the world. In Russia and in Europe, there was something very relatable about that. People knew there was something wrong with the status quo, but they were also afraid of wholesale revolution. And so, ironically, there's something kind of radical in that. That ability to stay true to his views about social reform and social justice, but also do it in a way that was so mainstream and brought such huge audiences along with him.

[Matt Ford]

I just had a real moment because my A level history coursework was the birth of the Labour Party owes more to the work of Charles Dickens than the work of Karl Marx.

[Peter Frankopan]

No way.

[Alice Levine]

In your inboxes now, of course.

[Peter Frankopan]

Matt, you did okay in that paper.

[Matt Ford]

Yes, I did. I got an A.

[Narrator]

The real legacy of Dickens is Matt's key for A level history.

[Alice Levine]

His legacy is substack M and S adz and Wham. And that Afwa Peter, thank you so much. I feel like I've been in a kind of choose your own advent version of your podcast. It's been such a pleasure.

[Peter Frankopan]

Thank you guys. We're real fans of what you do, so keep up the good work.

[Charles Dickens]

Merry Christmas.

[Narrator]

Follow Legacy on the Wondery app, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge seasons early and ad free right now by joining Wondery plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short [e-mail] survey.

[Advertiser]

From.

[Alice Levine]

Wondery and Sam Asda Audio. This is a special festive edition of British Scandal.

[Matt Ford]

If you want to find out more then you can listen to the full Legacy series on Charles Dickens from Wondery and Goal Hanger Podcasts.

[Alice Levine]

We will be back next time with our series on the man that spent almost seven years in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. Was he a freedom fighter or was he a terrorist? Well find out because we are going to tell you the story of the founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange.

[Matt Ford]

British Scandal is hosted by me, Matt.

[Alice Levine]

Ford and me, Alice Levine. Written by James Maniac Additional writing by Alice Levine, Matt Ford, AFWA Hirsch and Peter Frankapan. Sound design by Rich Evans. For Samizdat, our producer is Chika Ayres. Our assistant producer is Redzi Bernard. Our senior producers are Joe Sykes and Dasha Lisitsina. For Wondry, our senior producer is Theodora Leludis and our senior managing producer is Rachel Sibley. Executive producers for Wondry are Estelle Doyle.

[Charles Dickens]

Chris Bourne, Morgan Jones and Marshall Louie.