By the time of his unexpectedly early death in 1870 the size and quality of Charles Dickens’s beard had been well and truly overtaken by those of many of his contemporaries. An unwitting pogonotrophical feud would resurface in the twenty-first century, when the £10 note bearing Dickens’s image was scrapped by the Bank of England in favour of one showing the naturalist Charles Darwin. It transpired that evolution had played a part in Darwin’s beard beating Dickens’s: the scientist was more hirsute than the author, so his beard was deemed more difficult to forge.
Moustaches, Whiskers & Beards by Lucinda Hawksley, National Portrait Gallery
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