Have you ever had a crush / fallen in love with an historical figure?

[NegroniLover]

This has happened to me in the most unexpected manner. I'm in my early 50s (old enough to know better) & I've developed a massive obsession / crush on a long dead writer. It's so weird & had never happened to me before.
Please tell me someone else has experienced this?

We need to know who it is! (Please don't say Dickens though)

I have known someone who did. Can you blame your hormones or any difficult life circumstances going on x

Nope not Dickins
It's James Joyce

I had a massive crush on Keats until I discovered he was only five foot.

I've been in love with Richard Plantagenet since I was a child. My sister has a serious crush on Prince Rupert.
We're a strange family 😀

My first thought was the Plantagenets! I blame Jean Plaidy, she gave me my first introduction to romantic crushes.

I think I could develop a crush on Hannibal without too much effort.

I thought it was just Nicola Marlow on Nelson (in books by Antonia Forest).

Yes, mine is Ernest Shackleton. This is completely normal.

OK. What is it about him?

(I've read A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man but I didn't really get a sense of him as a person)

Well I'm glad I'm not alone in this madness.
I had to visit Dublin for work recently & I visited Davy Byrne's pub & had a glass of wine there & it was a strange sensation to think he'd sat in this same room & wrote there

I 'might' be planning a trip to Trieste next!

Dear me. I mean, he’s an astonishing novelist, but seems to have been a more than averagely-aggravating human being. (And the sex letters to Nora, with the obsession with farting and dirty drawers are a bit much.)

I can't help it!

This dude. I forget his name.

In my more cerebral moments, Wellington. In my more shallow moments, Byron. Yes I am aware they both had flaws: I'm not proposing to marry them.

I've been in love with Richard Plantagenet since I was a child.

Don't you know he belongs to Ph*a L*y?

Don't you know he belongs to Pha Ly?

Oops, the asterisks messed it up, but I expect you get the idea.

The 17th century poet Thomas Chatterton, based on a highly romantiszed painting
' The Death of Thomas Chatterton'. I was 17 at the time and very impressionable!

That is a painting of Captain Gilbert Heathcote, apparently (reverse image search)

Yes - Che Guevara.

But I'm not 17.
Even the 'shocking' love letters have not put me off. Its absulolutejy not my thing at all but I sort of admire their joint ability to break out of the strict societal norms of their day & live life on their own terms

I hugely admire his intellect / genius and also feel so deeply for him in relation to his health struggle. I actually can't articulate it other than I feel massively drawn to him (which sounds ridiculous I know)

Tecumseh

I developed a huge crush on Mozart! It was because I saw a play about him and the actor was so hot. Obviously I realise that Mozart was actually nothing like this actor but I became really obsessed with Mozart. I read all I could about him, bought a book of his letters. I became a real expert and fantasised about him. It was all quite bizarre.

Oh wait @SallyWD this brings back teenage memories (from the dark ages!) I also fell in love with mozart many years ago because of the film Amadeus !! But it was FAR more superficial than my love for JJ now

Maybe I'm prone to this kind of thing

Cesare Borgia.
I read a fiction book where he was the lead character. I know it's wrong, but...😍

Achilles. I was unreasonably pissed off when someone wrote a novel about him.
I definitely saw him first.