Lewis Carroll - Revision history

Lookingglass96: added section on photomontages

2026-06-01T14:05:11Z

added section on photomontages

← Previous revision		Revision as of 14:05, 1 June 2026
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	{{short description\|British author and scholar (1832–1898)}}		{{short description\|British author and scholar (1832–1898)}}
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	[[File: Hatch, Beatrice (Lewis Carroll, 30.07.1873).jpg\|thumb\|upright=1.1\|Lewis Carroll photograph of [[Beatrice Hatch]], colourised on Carroll's instructions]]		[[File: Hatch, Beatrice (Lewis Carroll, 30.07.1873).jpg\|thumb\|upright=1.1\|Lewis Carroll photograph of [[Beatrice Hatch]], colourised on Carroll's instructions]]
	Cohen goes on to note that Dodgson "apparently convinced many of his friends that his attachment to the nude female child form was free of any [[erotic]]ism", but adds that "later generations look beneath the surface" (p. 229). He argues that Dodgson may have wanted to marry the 11-year-old Alice Liddell and that this was the cause of the unexplained "break" with the family in June 1863,<ref name="snaogq"/>{{citation needed span\|date=September 2021\|an event for which other explanations are offered. Biographers Derek Hudson and [[Roger Lancelyn Green]] stop short of identifying Dodgson as a [[paedophile]] (Green also edited Dodgson's diaries and papers), but they concur that he had a passion for small female children and next to no interest in the adult world.}} Catherine Robson refers to Carroll as "the Victorian era's most famous (or infamous) girl lover".<ref>{{cite book\|first=Catherine\|last=Robson\|title=Men in Wonderland: The Lost Girlhood of the Victorian Gentlemen\|publisher=[[Princeton University Press]]\|location=Princeton, New Jersey\|date=2001\|isbn=978-0691004228\|page=137}}</ref> Media studies scholar [[Will Brooker]] points out that perception of Dodgson this way in the 20th century was heavily influenced by [[Sigmund Freud\|Sigmund Freud's]] theories. Brooker considers Dodgson's alleged perversion as a product of its time that outstayed its welcome culturally: <blockquote>The psychoanalytic [Freudian] interpretations of the Alice books in the 1930s were a product of a specific moment and movement... The discourses that I traced in journalism and in some biographies, that Carroll was emotionally arrested, a repressed paedophile, an obsessive, stammering social reject... -- have more to do with our own attitudes to childhood and celebrity than they do to the culture Carroll lived through.<ref>{{Cite news \|date=2024-01-26 \|title=Down the rabbit-hole and out again: How Alice helped shape our literary world. \|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/entertainment/books/2004/04/04/down-the-rabbit-hole-and-out-again-how-alice-helped-shape-our-literary-world/6a198792-8f79-42b1-982c-b71eee611097/ \|access-date=2024-09-16 \|newspaper=Washington Post \|language=en-US \|issn=0190-8286}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book \|last=Brooker \|first=Will \|title=Alice's adventures: Lewis Carroll in popular culture \|date=2004 \|publisher=Continuum \|isbn=978-0-8264-1433-5 \|location=New York}}</ref></blockquote>[[File:"Nymph of the Forest" Photograph (1901).png\|thumb\|~~Photograph~~ showing a nude child ~~from~~ ''[[The Australasian]]'', 1901. Pictures depicting childhood nudity were considered conventional during the Victorian era.<ref>{{cite web \|last=Woolf \|first=Jenny \|title=Lewis Carroll's Shifting Reputation \|url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/lewis-carrolls-shifting-reputation-9432378/ \|magazine=[[Smithsonian (magazine)\|Smithsonian]] \|year=2010 \|access-date=7 November 2023}}</ref>]] Several other writers and scholars have challenged the evidential basis for Cohen's and others' views about Dodgson's potential exploitative behaviour. [[Hugues Lebailly]] has endeavoured to set Dodgson's child photography within the "Victorian Child Cult", which perceived child nudity as essentially an expression of innocence.<ref>{{cite web \|title=Association for new Lewis Carroll studies \|url=http://contrariwise.wild-reality.net/association.html \|url-status=dead \|publisher=Contrariwise.wild-reality.net \|access-date=19 October 2019 \|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120207054041/http://www.contrariwise.wild-reality.net/association.html \|archive-date=7 February 2012}}</ref> He claims that Dodgson's diaries contained numerous entries that reveal an appreciation for adult women, as well as their appearance in art and theatre, even "vulgar" entertainment. Dodgson's nieces removed such references from early manuscripts of Dodgson's diaries, but kept references to children, because such appreciation was not controversial at the time.~~{{citation needed span\|date=October 2024\|~~Lebailly claims that studies of child nudes were mainstream and fashionable in Dodgson's time and that most photographers made them as a matter of course, including [[Oscar Gustave Rejlander]] and [[Julia Margaret Cameron]]. Lebailly continues that child nudes even appeared on Victorian [[Christmas card]]s, implying a very different social and aesthetic assessment of such material.}} Lebailly concludes that it has been an error of Dodgson's biographers to view his child-photography with 20th- or 21st-century eyes, and to have presented it as some form of personal idiosyncrasy, when it was a response to a prevalent aesthetic and philosophical movement of the time.<ref>{{cite journal \|last=Sigler \|first=Carolyn \|title=Lewis Carroll Studies, 1983-2003 \|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/44372102 \|journal=Dickens Studies Annual \|publisher=Penn State University Press \|volume=34 \|pages=382–383 \|date=2004 \|jstor=44372102}}</ref>		Cohen goes on to note that Dodgson "apparently convinced many of his friends that his attachment to the nude female child form was free of any [[erotic]]ism", but adds that "later generations look beneath the surface" (p. 229). He argues that Dodgson may have wanted to marry the 11-year-old Alice Liddell and that this was the cause of the unexplained "break" with the family in June 1863,<ref name="snaogq"/>{{citation needed span\|date=September 2021\|an event for which other explanations are offered. Biographers Derek Hudson and [[Roger Lancelyn Green]] stop short of identifying Dodgson as a [[paedophile]] (Green also edited Dodgson's diaries and papers), but they concur that he had a passion for small female children and next to no interest in the adult world.}} Catherine Robson refers to Carroll as "the Victorian era's most famous (or infamous) girl lover".<ref>{{cite book\|first=Catherine\|last=Robson\|title=Men in Wonderland: The Lost Girlhood of the Victorian Gentlemen\|publisher=[[Princeton University Press]]\|location=Princeton, New Jersey\|date=2001\|isbn=978-0691004228\|page=137}}</ref> Media studies scholar [[Will Brooker]] points out that perception of Dodgson this way in the 20th century was heavily influenced by [[Sigmund Freud\|Sigmund Freud's]] theories. Brooker considers Dodgson's alleged perversion as a product of its time that outstayed its welcome culturally: <blockquote>The psychoanalytic [Freudian] interpretations of the Alice books in the 1930s were a product of a specific moment and movement... The discourses that I traced in journalism and in some biographies, that Carroll was emotionally arrested, a repressed paedophile, an obsessive, stammering social reject... -- have more to do with our own attitudes to childhood and celebrity than they do to the culture Carroll lived through.<ref>{{Cite news \|date=2024-01-26 \|title=Down the rabbit-hole and out again: How Alice helped shape our literary world. \|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/entertainment/books/2004/04/04/down-the-rabbit-hole-and-out-again-how-alice-helped-shape-our-literary-world/6a198792-8f79-42b1-982c-b71eee611097/ \|access-date=2024-09-16 \|newspaper=Washington Post \|language=en-US \|issn=0190-8286}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book \|last=Brooker \|first=Will \|title=Alice's adventures: Lewis Carroll in popular culture \|date=2004 \|publisher=Continuum \|isbn=978-0-8264-1433-5 \|location=New York}}</ref></blockquote>[[File:"Nymph of the Forest" Photograph (1901).png\|thumb\|A typical photograph, not by Lewis Carroll, showing a nude child. Source: ''[[The Australasian]]'', 1901. Pictures depicting childhood nudity were considered conventional during the Victorian era.<ref>{{cite web \|last=Woolf \|first=Jenny \|title=Lewis Carroll's Shifting Reputation \|url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/lewis-carrolls-shifting-reputation-9432378/ \|magazine=[[Smithsonian (magazine)\|Smithsonian]] \|year=2010 \|access-date=7 November 2023}}</ref><ref name=":7" /><ref>{{Cite web \|last=Wakeling \|first=Edward \|date=2003 \|title=LEWIS CARROLL AND HIS PHOTOGRAPHY Mystic, awful was the process
			A talk given at various venues after the publication of Lewis Carroll, Photographer (Princeton, 2003) \|url=https://mural.uv.es/carmapa2/arte8.html}}</ref>]] Several other writers and scholars have challenged the evidential basis for Cohen's and others' views about Dodgson's potential exploitative behaviour. [[Hugues Lebailly]] has endeavoured to set Dodgson's child photography within the "Victorian Child Cult", which perceived child nudity as essentially an expression of innocence.<ref>{{cite web \|title=Association for new Lewis Carroll studies \|url=http://contrariwise.wild-reality.net/association.html \|url-status=dead \|publisher=Contrariwise.wild-reality.net \|access-date=19 October 2019 \|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120207054041/http://www.contrariwise.wild-reality.net/association.html \|archive-date=7 February 2012}}</ref> He claims that Dodgson's diaries contained numerous entries that reveal an appreciation for adult women, as well as their appearance in art and theatre, even "vulgar" entertainment. Dodgson's nieces removed such references from early manuscripts of Dodgson's diaries, but kept references to children, because such appreciation was not controversial at the time.Lebailly claims that studies of child nudes were mainstream and fashionable in Dodgson's time and that most photographers made them as a matter of course, including [[Oscar Gustave Rejlander]] and [[Julia Margaret Cameron]].<ref>{{Cite web \|last=Edward \|first=Wakeling \|date=2003 \|title=The Real Lewis Carroll. A Talk given to the Lewis Carroll Society \|url=https://archive.org/details/the_real_lewis_carroll/mode/2up}}</ref> Lebailly continues that child nudes even appeared on Victorian [[Christmas card\|Christmas cards]], implying a very different social and aesthetic assessment of such material. Lebailly concludes that it has been an error of Dodgson's biographers to view his child-photography with 20th- or 21st-century eyes, and to have presented it as some form of personal idiosyncrasy, when it was a response to a prevalent aesthetic and philosophical movement of the time.<ref>{{cite journal \|last=Sigler \|first=Carolyn \|title=Lewis Carroll Studies, 1983-2003 \|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/44372102 \|journal=Dickens Studies Annual \|publisher=Penn State University Press \|volume=34 \|pages=382–383 \|date=2004 \|jstor=44372102}}</ref>

	[[Karoline Leach]]'s reappraisal of Dodgson focused in particular on his controversial interest in nude children. She argues that the allegations of paedophilia rose initially from a misunderstanding of Victorian morals, as well as the mistaken idea – fostered by Dodgson's various biographers – that he had no interest in adult women. She termed the traditional image of Dodgson "the Carroll Myth". She drew attention to the large amounts of evidence in his diaries and letters that he was also keenly interested in adult women, married and single, and enjoyed several relationships with them that would have been considered scandalous by the social standards of his time. She also pointed to the fact that many of those whom he described as "child-friends" were girls in their late teens and even twenties.<ref>[[#Leach\|Leach]], pp. 16–17</ref> She argues that suggestions of paedophilia emerged only many years after his death, when his well-meaning family had suppressed all evidence of his relationships with women in an effort to preserve his reputation, thus giving a false impression of a man interested only in little girls. Similarly, Leach points to a 1932 biography by Langford Reed as the source of the dubious claim that many of Carroll's female friendships ended when the girls reached the age of 14.<ref>[[#Leach\|Leach]], p. 33</ref>		[[Karoline Leach]]'s reappraisal of Dodgson focused in particular on his controversial interest in nude children. She argues that the allegations of paedophilia rose initially from a misunderstanding of Victorian morals, as well as the mistaken idea – fostered by Dodgson's various biographers – that he had no interest in adult women. She termed the traditional image of Dodgson "the Carroll Myth". She drew attention to the large amounts of evidence in his diaries and letters that he was also keenly interested in adult women, married and single, and enjoyed several relationships with them that would have been considered scandalous by the social standards of his time. She also pointed to the fact that many of those whom he described as "child-friends" were girls in their late teens and even twenties.<ref>[[#Leach\|Leach]], pp. 16–17</ref> She argues that suggestions of paedophilia emerged only many years after his death, when his well-meaning family had suppressed all evidence of his relationships with women in an effort to preserve his reputation, thus giving a false impression of a man interested only in little girls. Similarly, Leach points to a 1932 biography by Langford Reed as the source of the dubious claim that many of Carroll's female friendships ended when the girls reached the age of 14.<ref>[[#Leach\|Leach]], p. 33</ref>
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	=== Missing diaries ===		=== Missing diaries ===
	At least four complete volumes and around seven pages of text are missing from Dodgson's 13 diaries.<ref>[[#Leach\|Leach]], pp. 48, 51</ref> The loss of the volumes remains unexplained; the pages have been removed by an unknown hand. Most scholars assume that the diary material was removed by family members in the interests of preserving the family name, but this has not been proven.<ref>[[#Leach\|Leach]], pp. 48–51</ref> Except for one page, material is missing from his diaries for the period between 1853 and 1863 (when Dodgson was 21–31 years old).<ref>[[#Leach\|Leach]], p. 52</ref><ref>{{cite web\|title=The Real Lewis Carroll – A Talk given to the Lewis Carroll Society\|first=Edward\|last=Wakeling\|date=April 2003\|url=http://www.wakeling.demon.co.uk/page3-real-lewiscarroll.htm\|access-date=12 January 2023\|archive-date=8 July 2006\|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060708035011/http://www.wakeling.demon.co.uk/page3-real-lewiscarroll.htm\|url-status=dead}}</ref> During this period, Dodgson began experiencing great mental and spiritual anguish and confessing to an overwhelming sense of his own sin. This was also the period of time when he composed his extensive love poetry, leading to speculation that the poems were autobiographical.<ref>[[#Leach\|Leach]] p. 54</ref><ref>{{cite web\|title=The Dodgson Family and Their Legacy\|url=http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/carroll/dreamchild/dreamchild5.html\|access-date=5 January 2011\|archive-date=14 January 2011\|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110114151826/http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/carroll/dreamchild/dreamchild5.html\|url-status=live}}</ref>		At least four complete volumes and around seven pages of text are missing from Dodgson's 13 diaries.<ref>[[#Leach\|Leach]], pp. 48, 51</ref> The loss of the volumes remains unexplained; the pages have been removed by an unknown hand. Most scholars assume that the diary material was removed by family members in the interests of preserving the family name, but this has not been proven.<ref>[[#Leach\|Leach]], pp. 48–51</ref> Except for one page, material is missing from his diaries for the period between 1853 and 1863 (when Dodgson was 21–31 years old).<ref>[[#Leach\|Leach]], p. 52</ref><ref name=":7">{{cite web\|title=The Real Lewis Carroll – A Talk given to the Lewis Carroll Society\|first=Edward\|last=Wakeling\|date=April 2003\|url=http://www.wakeling.demon.co.uk/page3-real-lewiscarroll.htm\|access-date=12 January 2023\|archive-date=8 July 2006\|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060708035011/http://www.wakeling.demon.co.uk/page3-real-lewiscarroll.htm\|url-status=dead}}</ref> During this period, Dodgson began experiencing great mental and spiritual anguish and confessing to an overwhelming sense of his own sin. This was also the period of time when he composed his extensive love poetry, leading to speculation that the poems were autobiographical.<ref>[[#Leach\|Leach]] p. 54</ref><ref>{{cite web\|title=The Dodgson Family and Their Legacy\|url=http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/carroll/dreamchild/dreamchild5.html\|access-date=5 January 2011\|archive-date=14 January 2011\|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110114151826/http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/carroll/dreamchild/dreamchild5.html\|url-status=live}}</ref>

	Many theories have been put forward to explain the missing material. A popular explanation for one missing page (27 June 1863) is that it might have been torn out to conceal a proposal of marriage on that day by Dodgson to the 11-year-old Alice Liddell. However, there has never been any evidence to suggest this, and a paper suggests evidence to the contrary which was discovered by [[Karoline Leach]] in the Dodgson family archive in 1996.<ref name="Cut Pages">{{cite web\|title=The cut pages in diary document\|url=http://carroll-myth.wild-reality.net/cutpages.html\|url-status=live\|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230112165538/http://carroll-myth.wild-reality.net/cutpages.html\|archive-date=12 January 2023\|access-date=12 January 2023}}</ref>{{Better source needed\|reason=Website appears to be maintained by a single person with the sole agenda of promoting this idea.\|date=July 2023}}		Many theories have been put forward to explain the missing material. A popular explanation for one missing page (27 June 1863) is that it might have been torn out to conceal a proposal of marriage on that day by Dodgson to the 11-year-old Alice Liddell. However, there has never been any evidence to suggest this, and a paper suggests evidence to the contrary which was discovered by [[Karoline Leach]] in the Dodgson family archive in 1996.<ref name="Cut Pages">{{cite web\|title=The cut pages in diary document\|url=http://carroll-myth.wild-reality.net/cutpages.html\|url-status=live\|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230112165538/http://carroll-myth.wild-reality.net/cutpages.html\|archive-date=12 January 2023\|access-date=12 January 2023}}</ref>{{Better source needed\|reason=Website appears to be maintained by a single person with the sole agenda of promoting this idea.\|date=July 2023}}
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	Dodgson also had two attacks in which he lost consciousness. He was diagnosed by a Dr Morshead, Dr Brooks, and Dr Stedman, and they believed the attack and a consequent attack to be an "epileptiform" seizure (initially thought to be fainting, but Brooks changed his mind). Some have concluded from this that he had this condition for his entire life, but there is no evidence of this in his diaries beyond the diagnosis of the two attacks already mentioned.<ref name=w1/> Some authors, Sadi Ranson in particular, have suggested that Carroll had [[temporal lobe epilepsy]] in which consciousness is not always completely lost but altered, and in which the symptoms mimic many of the same experiences as Alice in Wonderland. Carroll had at least one incident in which he suffered full loss of consciousness and awoke with a bloody nose, which he recorded in his diary and noted that the episode left him not feeling himself for "quite sometime afterward". This attack was diagnosed as possibly "epileptiform", and Carroll himself later wrote of his "seizures" in the same diary. Most of the standard diagnostic tests of today were not available in the 19th century. Yvonne Hart, consultant neurologist at the [[John Radcliffe Hospital]], Oxford, considered Dodgson's symptoms. Her conclusion, quoted in Jenny Woolf's 2010 ''The Mystery of Lewis Carroll'', is that Dodgson very likely had migraine and may have had epilepsy, but she emphasises that she would have considerable doubt about making a diagnosis of epilepsy without further information.<ref>{{cite book \|last=Woolf \|first=Jenny \|title=The Mystery of Lewis Carroll \|publisher=[[St. Martin's Press]] \|date=4 February 2010 \|pages=298–299 \|isbn=978-0-312-67371-0}}</ref>		Dodgson also had two attacks in which he lost consciousness. He was diagnosed by a Dr Morshead, Dr Brooks, and Dr Stedman, and they believed the attack and a consequent attack to be an "epileptiform" seizure (initially thought to be fainting, but Brooks changed his mind). Some have concluded from this that he had this condition for his entire life, but there is no evidence of this in his diaries beyond the diagnosis of the two attacks already mentioned.<ref name=w1/> Some authors, Sadi Ranson in particular, have suggested that Carroll had [[temporal lobe epilepsy]] in which consciousness is not always completely lost but altered, and in which the symptoms mimic many of the same experiences as Alice in Wonderland. Carroll had at least one incident in which he suffered full loss of consciousness and awoke with a bloody nose, which he recorded in his diary and noted that the episode left him not feeling himself for "quite sometime afterward". This attack was diagnosed as possibly "epileptiform", and Carroll himself later wrote of his "seizures" in the same diary. Most of the standard diagnostic tests of today were not available in the 19th century. Yvonne Hart, consultant neurologist at the [[John Radcliffe Hospital]], Oxford, considered Dodgson's symptoms. Her conclusion, quoted in Jenny Woolf's 2010 ''The Mystery of Lewis Carroll'', is that Dodgson very likely had migraine and may have had epilepsy, but she emphasises that she would have considerable doubt about making a diagnosis of epilepsy without further information.<ref>{{cite book \|last=Woolf \|first=Jenny \|title=The Mystery of Lewis Carroll \|publisher=[[St. Martin's Press]] \|date=4 February 2010 \|pages=298–299 \|isbn=978-0-312-67371-0}}</ref>
			[[File:Liddell, Edith, Lorina & Alice, 'Open your mouth...' (Lewis Carroll, 07.1860).jpg\|thumb\|311x311px]]

			=== '''Photomontages''' ===
			[[File:Lewis Carroll Self Portrait 1856 circa.jpg\|thumb\|279x279px\|The two photographs by Dodgson that were montaged together in 2005.]]
			In 2005, an arts student, David O'Kane, created a photomontage of Charles Dodgson and Alice Liddell kissing on the lips. This montage was pieced and manipulated together from Dodgson's 1862 self portrait and Dodgson's 1865 portrait of Ina, Edith and Alice eating cherries together. [https://snrk.de/constructing-carroll/] The image has been often mis-identified, online and in arts spaces<ref name=":8">{{Cite web \|last=Kluge \|first=Götz \|title=Constructing Carroll – The Hunting of the Snark \|url=https://snrk.de/page_constructing-carroll/ \|access-date=2026-06-01 \|website=snrk.de}}</ref>, as a real photograph by Dodgson. This misrepresentation was discussed by media scholar Anna Kérchy at length, in her 2016 book ''Alice in Transmedia Wonderland''.<ref>{{Cite book \|last=Kérchy \|first=Anna \|title=Alice in transmedia wonderland: curiouser and curiouser new forms of a children's classic \|date=2016 \|publisher=McFarland & Company \|isbn=978-1-4766-6668-6 \|location=Jefferson, North Carolina \|pages=145 -148}}</ref>

			A further montage appeared by another artist of Dodgson and Alice Liddell "walking" in Oxford, which montaged together a 1904 photograph of St Aldates, a photograph of the Victorian Prince of Wales, and the real photograph of Alice Liddell in Best Dress taken by Dodgson in 1858.<ref name=":8" />

			A third montage appeared by yet another artist in the early 2010s, using Dodgson's photograph of the Reverend Robert Salmon and Frances Bowlby sitting on his lap. The montage artist replaced Bowlby and Salmon's heads with Dodgson and Alice Liddell's.<ref name=":8" />

	== Legacy ==		== Legacy ==

1234qwer1234qwer4: link author: Raymond Flood (via WP:JWB)

2026-05-08T21:48:04Z

link author: Raymond Flood (via WP:JWB)

← Previous revision		Revision as of 21:48, 8 May 2026
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	Scholastically, Dodgson excelled with apparent ease. "I have not had a more promising boy at his age since I came to Rugby", observed mathematics master R. B. Mayor.<ref>[[#Collingwood\|Collingwood]], p. 29</ref> Francis Walkingame's ''The Tutor's Assistant; Being a Compendium of Arithmetic'' – the mathematics textbook that the young Dodgson used – still survives and it contained an inscription in [[Latin]], which translates to: "This book belongs to Charles Lutwidge Dodgson: hands off!"<ref>{{Cite book\|title=Rediscovered Lewis Carroll Puzzles\|first=Lewis\|last=Carroll\|editor-first1=Edward\|editor-last1=Wakeling\|publisher=[[Dover Publications]]\|location=New York City\|date=1995\|isbn=0486288617\|pages=[https://archive.org/details/rediscoveredlewi00carr/page/13 13]\|url=https://archive.org/details/rediscoveredlewi00carr/page/13}}</ref> Some pages also included annotations such as the one found on p. 129, where he wrote "Not a fair question in decimals" next to a question.<ref>{{Cite book\|first=Charlie\|last=Lovett\|title=Lewis Carroll Among His Books: A Descriptive Catalogue of the Private Library of Charles L. Dodgson\|publisher=McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers\|location=Jefferson, North Carolina\|date=2005\|isbn=0786421053\|pages=329}}</ref> He left Rugby at the end of 1849 and [[Matriculation\|matriculated]] at the [[University of Oxford]] in May 1850 as a member of his father's old college, [[Christ Church, Oxford\|Christ Church]].<ref>[[#Clark\|Clark]], pp. 63–64.</ref> After waiting for rooms in college to become available, he went into residence in January 1851.<ref name=clark6465>[[#Clark\|Clark]], pp. 64–65</ref> He had been at Oxford only two days when he received a summons home. His mother had died of "inflammation of the brain" – perhaps [[meningitis]] or a stroke – at the age of 47.<ref name=clark6465/>		Scholastically, Dodgson excelled with apparent ease. "I have not had a more promising boy at his age since I came to Rugby", observed mathematics master R. B. Mayor.<ref>[[#Collingwood\|Collingwood]], p. 29</ref> Francis Walkingame's ''The Tutor's Assistant; Being a Compendium of Arithmetic'' – the mathematics textbook that the young Dodgson used – still survives and it contained an inscription in [[Latin]], which translates to: "This book belongs to Charles Lutwidge Dodgson: hands off!"<ref>{{Cite book\|title=Rediscovered Lewis Carroll Puzzles\|first=Lewis\|last=Carroll\|editor-first1=Edward\|editor-last1=Wakeling\|publisher=[[Dover Publications]]\|location=New York City\|date=1995\|isbn=0486288617\|pages=[https://archive.org/details/rediscoveredlewi00carr/page/13 13]\|url=https://archive.org/details/rediscoveredlewi00carr/page/13}}</ref> Some pages also included annotations such as the one found on p. 129, where he wrote "Not a fair question in decimals" next to a question.<ref>{{Cite book\|first=Charlie\|last=Lovett\|title=Lewis Carroll Among His Books: A Descriptive Catalogue of the Private Library of Charles L. Dodgson\|publisher=McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers\|location=Jefferson, North Carolina\|date=2005\|isbn=0786421053\|pages=329}}</ref> He left Rugby at the end of 1849 and [[Matriculation\|matriculated]] at the [[University of Oxford]] in May 1850 as a member of his father's old college, [[Christ Church, Oxford\|Christ Church]].<ref>[[#Clark\|Clark]], pp. 63–64.</ref> After waiting for rooms in college to become available, he went into residence in January 1851.<ref name=clark6465>[[#Clark\|Clark]], pp. 64–65</ref> He had been at Oxford only two days when he received a summons home. His mother had died of "inflammation of the brain" – perhaps [[meningitis]] or a stroke – at the age of 47.<ref name=clark6465/>

	His early academic career veered between high promise and irresistible distraction. He did not always work hard, but was exceptionally gifted, and achievement came easily to him. In 1852, he obtained [[first-class honours]] in mathematics [[moderations]] and was soon afterwards nominated to a [[Christ Church, Oxford#Governing body\|studentship]] by his father's old friend Canon [[Edward Pusey]].<ref name=collingwood52>[[#Collingwood\|Collingwood]], p. 52.</ref><ref name=clark74>[[#Clark\|Clark]], p. 74.</ref> In 1854, he obtained first-class honours in the Final Honours School of Mathematics, standing first on the list, and thus graduated as Bachelor of Arts.<ref name=collingwood57>[[#Collingwood\|Collingwood]], p. 57</ref><ref name=wilson>[[#Wilson\|Wilson]], p. 51</ref> He remained at Christ Church studying and teaching, but the next year he failed an important scholarship exam through his self-confessed inability to apply himself to study.<ref name=cohen51>[[#Cohen\|Cohen]], p. 51</ref><ref name=clark79>[[#Clark\|Clark]], p. 79</ref> Even so, his talent as a mathematician won him the Christ Church Mathematical Lectureship in 1855,<ref name=frw41>{{cite book \| title=Mathematics in Victorian Britain \| first1=Raymond \|last1=Flood \| first2=Adrian \|last2=Rice \| first3=Robin \|last3=Wilson \| author3-link=Robin Wilson (mathematician) \| publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] \| location=Oxfordshire, England\|date=2011 \| isbn=978-0-19-960139-4 \|oclc=721931689 \| page=41 }}</ref> which he continued to hold for the next 26 years.<ref name=cohen414-6>[[#Cohen\|Cohen]], pp. 414–416</ref> Despite early unhappiness, Dodgson remained at Christ Church, in various capacities, until his death, including that of sub-librarian of the Christ Church library, where his office was close to the deanery, where Alice Liddell lived.<ref name = "ekfvyz">[[#Leach\|Leach]], Ch. 2.</ref>		His early academic career veered between high promise and irresistible distraction. He did not always work hard, but was exceptionally gifted, and achievement came easily to him. In 1852, he obtained [[first-class honours]] in mathematics [[moderations]] and was soon afterwards nominated to a [[Christ Church, Oxford#Governing body\|studentship]] by his father's old friend Canon [[Edward Pusey]].<ref name=collingwood52>[[#Collingwood\|Collingwood]], p. 52.</ref><ref name=clark74>[[#Clark\|Clark]], p. 74.</ref> In 1854, he obtained first-class honours in the Final Honours School of Mathematics, standing first on the list, and thus graduated as Bachelor of Arts.<ref name=collingwood57>[[#Collingwood\|Collingwood]], p. 57</ref><ref name=wilson>[[#Wilson\|Wilson]], p. 51</ref> He remained at Christ Church studying and teaching, but the next year he failed an important scholarship exam through his self-confessed inability to apply himself to study.<ref name=cohen51>[[#Cohen\|Cohen]], p. 51</ref><ref name=clark79>[[#Clark\|Clark]], p. 79</ref> Even so, his talent as a mathematician won him the Christ Church Mathematical Lectureship in 1855,<ref name=frw41>{{cite book \| title=Mathematics in Victorian Britain \| first1=Raymond \|last1=Flood \|author-link=Raymond Flood (mathematician) \| first2=Adrian \|last2=Rice \| first3=Robin \|last3=Wilson \| author3-link=Robin Wilson (mathematician) \| publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] \| location=Oxfordshire, England\|date=2011 \| isbn=978-0-19-960139-4 \|oclc=721931689 \| page=41 }}</ref> which he continued to hold for the next 26 years.<ref name=cohen414-6>[[#Cohen\|Cohen]], pp. 414–416</ref> Despite early unhappiness, Dodgson remained at Christ Church, in various capacities, until his death, including that of sub-librarian of the Christ Church library, where his office was close to the deanery, where Alice Liddell lived.<ref name = "ekfvyz">[[#Leach\|Leach]], Ch. 2.</ref>

	== Character and appearance ==		== Character and appearance ==

Omnipaedista at 10:11, 14 April 2026

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	== See also ==		== See also ==
	{{Portal\|Biography\|Children's literature}}		{{Portal\|Biography\|Children's literature}}
			* [[Barbershop paradox]]
	* [[Carroll diagram]]		* [[Carroll diagram]]
	* [[Dodgson condensation]]		* [[Dodgson condensation]]

1234qwer1234qwer4: link (via WP:JWB)

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link (via WP:JWB)

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	[[File:Herkomer-portrait-of-Carroll-bw.png\|right\|upright\|thumb\|A posthumous portrait of Lewis Carroll by [[Hubert von Herkomer]], based on photographs. This painting now hangs in the Great Hall of [[Christ Church, Oxford]].]]		[[File:Herkomer-portrait-of-Carroll-bw.png\|right\|upright\|thumb\|A posthumous portrait of Lewis Carroll by [[Hubert von Herkomer]], based on photographs. This painting now hangs in the Great Hall of [[Christ Church, Oxford]].]]

	Within the academic discipline of mathematics, Dodgson worked primarily in the fields of [[geometry]], linear and [[matrix algebra]], [[mathematical logic]], and [[recreational mathematics]], producing nearly a dozen books under his real name. Dodgson also developed new ideas in linear algebra (e.g., the first printed proof of the [[Rouché–Capelli theorem]]),<ref>{{cite journal\|author=Seneta, Eugene\|year=1984\|title=Lewis Carroll as a Probabilist and Mathematician\|url=http://www.maths.usyd.edu.au/u/eseneta/l.carroll.1984.pdf\|journal=The Mathematical Scientist\|volume=9\|pages=79–84\|access-date=1 February 2015\|archive-date=30 January 2016\|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160130175208/http://www.maths.usyd.edu.au/u/eseneta/l.carroll.1984.pdf\|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>Abeles, Francine F. (1998) Charles L. Dodgson, Mathematician". An Exhibition From the Jon A. Lindseth Collection of C.L. Dodgson and Lewis Carroll". New York: The Grolier Club, pp. 45–54.</ref> probability, and the study of elections (e.g., [[Dodgson's method]]) and [[committee]]s. Some of this work was not published until well after his death. His occupation as Mathematical Lecturer at Christ Church gave him some financial security.<ref>[[#Wilson\|Wilson]], p. 61</ref>		Within the academic discipline of mathematics, Dodgson worked primarily in the fields of [[geometry]], linear and [[matrix algebra]], [[mathematical logic]], and [[recreational mathematics]], producing nearly a dozen books under his real name. Dodgson also developed new ideas in linear algebra (e.g., the first printed proof of the [[Rouché–Capelli theorem]]),<ref>{{cite journal\|author=Seneta, Eugene\|author-link=Eugene Seneta\|year=1984\|title=Lewis Carroll as a Probabilist and Mathematician\|url=http://www.maths.usyd.edu.au/u/eseneta/l.carroll.1984.pdf\|journal=The Mathematical Scientist\|volume=9\|pages=79–84\|access-date=1 February 2015\|archive-date=30 January 2016\|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160130175208/http://www.maths.usyd.edu.au/u/eseneta/l.carroll.1984.pdf\|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>Abeles, Francine F. (1998) Charles L. Dodgson, Mathematician". An Exhibition From the Jon A. Lindseth Collection of C.L. Dodgson and Lewis Carroll". New York: The Grolier Club, pp. 45–54.</ref> probability, and the study of elections (e.g., [[Dodgson's method]]) and [[committee]]s. Some of this work was not published until well after his death. His occupation as Mathematical Lecturer at Christ Church gave him some financial security.<ref>[[#Wilson\|Wilson]], p. 61</ref>

	=== Mathematical logic ===		=== Mathematical logic ===

Johnuniq: Undid revision 1347354256 by ~2026-14686-51 (talk) we usually like a little evidence

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Undid revision 1347354256 by ~2026-14686-51 (talk) we usually like a little evidence

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	[[Category:Writers who illustrated their own writing]]		[[Category:Writers who illustrated their own writing]]
	[[Category:Writers of Gothic fiction]]		[[Category:Writers of Gothic fiction]]
	[[Category:Autistic writers]]

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			[[Category:Autistic writers]]

Mpaniello: /* Controversies and mysteries */

2026-03-29T16:02:16Z

Controversies and mysteries

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	The material in the documentary has come under intense scrutiny by Carroll scholars, including those such as Jenny Woolf and Edward Wakeling, who appeared in it. Woolf claimed that she was not told of the use of the alleged photo until editing of the documentary was underway.<ref name=":2">{{Cite web \|title=From Somewhere in Time » THE SECRET WORLD OF LEWIS CARROLL \|url=https://www.jabberwock.co.uk/blog/index.php?itemid=1364 \|access-date=10 February 2024 \|website=www.jabberwock.co.uk}}</ref> Edward Wakeling's paper/review "Eight or nine wise words on documentary making" appeared in March 2015 as part of the Lewis Carroll society newsletter ''Bandersnatch''. Wakeling also echoed Woolf's assertions that he was not given time to talk about the alleged photo. Wakeling claimed, "The documentary knew I could authenticate [the photo] or not, but they chose to keep it from me as they anticipated my response." Wakeling further criticises in his paper the Cantini photo's authenticity, the BBC's failure to tell participants of the found photo, and several factual errors.<ref name=":3">{{Cite journal \|last=Wakeling \|first=Edward \|editor-last=Fulcher \|editor-first=Lindsay \|title=Eight or nine wise words about documentary-making.... \|journal=Bandersnatch: The Newsletter of the Lewis Carroll Society \|publisher=Lewis Carroll Society UK \|publication-place=London \|issue=166 \|pages=16–20}}</ref> Wakeling draws attention to the irregular "trimmed" nature of the photo itself, and no trace of Dodgson's writing. The inscription on the back of the photo, attributed "lewis Carroll" in pencil, "is an unknown hand... so it could have been written by anybody". The photo negative is also missing the personal catalogue number that Dodgson meticulously catalogued his photos under. "[Dodgson's] usual practice was to add a number on the back of any prints which he had developed". Wakeling also points out that Dodgson never made "full frontal studies...particularly a girl as mature as this.. There's no way the Liddells would have allowed a picture of this kind to have been taken."''<ref name=":3" />''		The material in the documentary has come under intense scrutiny by Carroll scholars, including those such as Jenny Woolf and Edward Wakeling, who appeared in it. Woolf claimed that she was not told of the use of the alleged photo until editing of the documentary was underway.<ref name=":2">{{Cite web \|title=From Somewhere in Time » THE SECRET WORLD OF LEWIS CARROLL \|url=https://www.jabberwock.co.uk/blog/index.php?itemid=1364 \|access-date=10 February 2024 \|website=www.jabberwock.co.uk}}</ref> Edward Wakeling's paper/review "Eight or nine wise words on documentary making" appeared in March 2015 as part of the Lewis Carroll society newsletter ''Bandersnatch''. Wakeling also echoed Woolf's assertions that he was not given time to talk about the alleged photo. Wakeling claimed, "The documentary knew I could authenticate [the photo] or not, but they chose to keep it from me as they anticipated my response." Wakeling further criticises in his paper the Cantini photo's authenticity, the BBC's failure to tell participants of the found photo, and several factual errors.<ref name=":3">{{Cite journal \|last=Wakeling \|first=Edward \|editor-last=Fulcher \|editor-first=Lindsay \|title=Eight or nine wise words about documentary-making.... \|journal=Bandersnatch: The Newsletter of the Lewis Carroll Society \|publisher=Lewis Carroll Society UK \|publication-place=London \|issue=166 \|pages=16–20}}</ref> Wakeling draws attention to the irregular "trimmed" nature of the photo itself, and no trace of Dodgson's writing. The inscription on the back of the photo, attributed "lewis Carroll" in pencil, "is an unknown hand... so it could have been written by anybody". The photo negative is also missing the personal catalogue number that Dodgson meticulously catalogued his photos under. "[Dodgson's] usual practice was to add a number on the back of any prints which he had developed". Wakeling also points out that Dodgson never made "full frontal studies...particularly a girl as mature as this.. There's no way the Liddells would have allowed a picture of this kind to have been taken."''<ref name=":3" />''

	It is unknown whether this photo is by Dodgson, nor who wrote the pencil inscription on the back of it and for what reason. The photo was not included in Wakeling's catalogue raisonné of Dodgson's complete surviving photographs ''<ref>{{Cite book \|last=Wakeling \|first=Edward \|title=The photographs of Lewis Carroll: a catalogue raisonné \|date=August 2015 \|publisher=University of Texas Press \|isbn=978-0-292-76743-0}}</ref>'' and has remained unused by other subsequent documentaries on Dodgson.''<ref>{{Citation \|title=Who REALLY was Lewis Carroll? (Secrets of the Manuscript, Lewis Carroll documentary, 2021) \| date=5 December 2021 \|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RhpuuThxL4 \|access-date=10 February 2024 \|language=en}}</ref> ''[[BBC Trust\|The BBC Trust]] later ruled that the documentary could not be shown on UK TV in its current form again, as the BBC failed to tell participants of the photo's appearance during filming or give them time to fully react to it.<ref name=":6">{{Cite web \|date=14 December 2015 \|title=BBC failed to tell experts that Lewis Carroll documentary would include 'paedophile' claims \|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/bbc/12050278/BBC-failed-to-tell-experts-that-Lewis-Carroll-documentary-would-include-paedophile-claims.html \|access-date=10 February 2024 \|website=The Telegraph \|language=en}}</ref><ref name=":5">{{Cite news \|last=Sanderson \|first=David \|date=10 February 2024 \|title=BBC portrayal of Lewis Carroll as abuser 'a lie' \|newspaper=[[The Times]] \|url=https://www.thetimes.com/culture/tv-radio/article/bbc-portrayal-of-lewis-carroll-as-abuser-a-lie-pm9f0r35gv0 \|access-date=10 February 2024 \|language=en \|issn=0140-0460}}</ref>		It is unknown whether this photo is by Dodgson, nor who wrote the pencil inscription on the back of it and for what reason. The photo was not included in Wakeling's [[catalogue raisonné]] of Dodgson's complete surviving photographs ''<ref>{{Cite book \|last=Wakeling \|first=Edward \|title=The photographs of Lewis Carroll: a catalogue raisonné \|date=August 2015 \|publisher=University of Texas Press \|isbn=978-0-292-76743-0}}</ref>'' and has remained unused by other subsequent documentaries on Dodgson.''<ref>{{Citation \|title=Who REALLY was Lewis Carroll? (Secrets of the Manuscript, Lewis Carroll documentary, 2021) \| date=5 December 2021 \|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RhpuuThxL4 \|access-date=10 February 2024 \|language=en}}</ref> ''[[BBC Trust\|The BBC Trust]] later ruled that the documentary could not be shown on UK TV in its current form again, as the BBC failed to tell participants of the photo's appearance during filming or give them time to fully react to it.<ref name=":6">{{Cite web \|date=14 December 2015 \|title=BBC failed to tell experts that Lewis Carroll documentary would include 'paedophile' claims \|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/bbc/12050278/BBC-failed-to-tell-experts-that-Lewis-Carroll-documentary-would-include-paedophile-claims.html \|access-date=10 February 2024 \|website=The Telegraph \|language=en}}</ref><ref name=":5">{{Cite news \|last=Sanderson \|first=David \|date=10 February 2024 \|title=BBC portrayal of Lewis Carroll as abuser 'a lie' \|newspaper=[[The Times]] \|url=https://www.thetimes.com/culture/tv-radio/article/bbc-portrayal-of-lewis-carroll-as-abuser-a-lie-pm9f0r35gv0 \|access-date=10 February 2024 \|language=en \|issn=0140-0460}}</ref>

	=== Speculation of sexual conduct by scholars (1940s onwards) ===		=== Speculation of sexual conduct by scholars (1940s onwards) ===

DoebLoggs: Reverted edit by ~2026-14047-82 (talk) to last version by DoebLoggs

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	{{Infobox writer		{{Infobox writer
	\| name =~~bob~~		\| name =Lewis Carroll
	\| image = LewisCarrollSelfPhoto.jpg		\| image = LewisCarrollSelfPhoto.jpg
	\| alt = tinted monochrome 3/4-length photo portrait of a seated Lewis Carroll holding a book		\| alt = tinted monochrome 3/4-length photo portrait of a seated Lewis Carroll holding a book

~2026-14047-82 at 13:41, 4 March 2026

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	\| image = LewisCarrollSelfPhoto.jpg		\| image = LewisCarrollSelfPhoto.jpg
	\| alt = tinted monochrome 3/4-length photo portrait of a seated Lewis Carroll holding a book		\| alt = tinted monochrome 3/4-length photo portrait of a seated Lewis Carroll holding a book

DoebLoggs: Reverted edit by ~2026-14047-82 (talk) to last version by Lookingglass96

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	{{short description\|British author and scholar (1832–1898)}}		{{short description\|British author and scholar (1832–1898)}}
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	[[File: Hatch, Beatrice (Lewis Carroll, 30.07.1873).jpg\|thumb\|upright=1.1\|Lewis Carroll photograph of [[Beatrice Hatch]], colourised on Carroll's instructions]]		[[File: Hatch, Beatrice (Lewis Carroll, 30.07.1873).jpg\|thumb\|upright=1.1\|Lewis Carroll photograph of [[Beatrice Hatch]], colourised on Carroll's instructions]]
	Cohen goes on to note that Dodgson "apparently convinced many of his friends that his attachment to the nude female child form was free of any [[erotic]]ism", but adds that "later generations look beneath the surface" (p. 229). He argues that Dodgson may have wanted to marry the 11-year-old Alice Liddell and that this was the cause of the unexplained "break" with the family in June 1863,<ref name="snaogq"/>{{citation needed span\|date=September 2021\|an event for which other explanations are offered. Biographers Derek Hudson and [[Roger Lancelyn Green]] stop short of identifying Dodgson as a [[paedophile]] (Green also edited Dodgson's diaries and papers), but they concur that he had a passion for small female children and next to no interest in the adult world.}} Catherine Robson refers to Carroll as "the Victorian era's most famous (or infamous) girl lover".<ref>{{cite book\|first=Catherine\|last=Robson\|title=Men in Wonderland: The Lost Girlhood of the Victorian Gentlemen\|publisher=[[Princeton University Press]]\|location=Princeton, New Jersey\|date=2001\|isbn=978-0691004228\|page=137}}</ref> Media studies scholar [[Will Brooker]] points out that perception of Dodgson this way in the 20th century was heavily influenced by [[Sigmund Freud\|Sigmund Freud's]] theories. Brooker considers Dodgson's alleged perversion as a product of its time that outstayed its welcome culturally: <blockquote>The psychoanalytic [Freudian] interpretations of the Alice books in the 1930s were a product of a specific moment and movement... The discourses that I traced in journalism and in some biographies, that Carroll was emotionally arrested, a repressed paedophile, an obsessive, stammering social reject... -- have more to do with our own attitudes to childhood and celebrity than they do to the culture Carroll lived through.<ref>{{Cite news \|date=2024-01-26 \|title=Down the rabbit-hole and out again: How Alice helped shape our literary world. \|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/entertainment/books/2004/04/04/down-the-rabbit-hole-and-out-again-how-alice-helped-shape-our-literary-world/6a198792-8f79-42b1-982c-b71eee611097/ \|access-date=2024-09-16 \|newspaper=Washington Post \|language=en-US \|issn=0190-8286}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book \|last=Brooker \|first=Will \|title=Alice's adventures: Lewis Carroll in popular culture \|date=2004 \|publisher=Continuum \|isbn=978-0-8264-1433-5 \|location=New York}}</ref></blockquote>[[File:"Nymph of the Forest" Photograph (1901).png\|thumb\|~~Photograph~~ showing a nude child ~~from~~ ''[[The Australasian]]'', 1901. Pictures depicting childhood nudity were considered conventional during the Victorian era.<ref>{{cite web \|last=Woolf \|first=Jenny \|title=Lewis Carroll's Shifting Reputation \|url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/lewis-carrolls-shifting-reputation-9432378/ \|magazine=[[Smithsonian (magazine)\|Smithsonian]] \|year=2010 \|access-date=7 November 2023}}</ref>]] Several other writers and scholars have challenged the evidential basis for Cohen's and others' views about Dodgson's potential exploitative behaviour. [[Hugues Lebailly]] has endeavoured to set Dodgson's child photography within the "Victorian Child Cult", which perceived child nudity as essentially an expression of innocence.<ref>{{cite web \|title=Association for new Lewis Carroll studies \|url=http://contrariwise.wild-reality.net/association.html \|url-status=dead \|publisher=Contrariwise.wild-reality.net \|access-date=19 October 2019 \|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120207054041/http://www.contrariwise.wild-reality.net/association.html \|archive-date=7 February 2012}}</ref> He claims that Dodgson's diaries contained numerous entries that reveal an appreciation for adult women, as well as their appearance in art and theatre, even "vulgar" entertainment. Dodgson's nieces removed such references from early manuscripts of Dodgson's diaries, but kept references to children, because such appreciation was not controversial at the time.~~{{citation needed span\|date=October 2024\|~~Lebailly claims that studies of child nudes were mainstream and fashionable in Dodgson's time and that most photographers made them as a matter of course, including [[Oscar Gustave Rejlander]] and [[Julia Margaret Cameron]]. Lebailly continues that child nudes even appeared on Victorian [[Christmas card]]s, implying a very different social and aesthetic assessment of such material.}} Lebailly concludes that it has been an error of Dodgson's biographers to view his child-photography with 20th- or 21st-century eyes, and to have presented it as some form of personal idiosyncrasy, when it was a response to a prevalent aesthetic and philosophical movement of the time.<ref>{{cite journal \|last=Sigler \|first=Carolyn \|title=Lewis Carroll Studies, 1983-2003 \|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/44372102 \|journal=Dickens Studies Annual \|publisher=Penn State University Press \|volume=34 \|pages=382–383 \|date=2004 \|jstor=44372102}}</ref>		Cohen goes on to note that Dodgson "apparently convinced many of his friends that his attachment to the nude female child form was free of any [[erotic]]ism", but adds that "later generations look beneath the surface" (p. 229). He argues that Dodgson may have wanted to marry the 11-year-old Alice Liddell and that this was the cause of the unexplained "break" with the family in June 1863,<ref name="snaogq"/>{{citation needed span\|date=September 2021\|an event for which other explanations are offered. Biographers Derek Hudson and [[Roger Lancelyn Green]] stop short of identifying Dodgson as a [[paedophile]] (Green also edited Dodgson's diaries and papers), but they concur that he had a passion for small female children and next to no interest in the adult world.}} Catherine Robson refers to Carroll as "the Victorian era's most famous (or infamous) girl lover".<ref>{{cite book\|first=Catherine\|last=Robson\|title=Men in Wonderland: The Lost Girlhood of the Victorian Gentlemen\|publisher=[[Princeton University Press]]\|location=Princeton, New Jersey\|date=2001\|isbn=978-0691004228\|page=137}}</ref> Media studies scholar [[Will Brooker]] points out that perception of Dodgson this way in the 20th century was heavily influenced by [[Sigmund Freud\|Sigmund Freud's]] theories. Brooker considers Dodgson's alleged perversion as a product of its time that outstayed its welcome culturally: <blockquote>The psychoanalytic [Freudian] interpretations of the Alice books in the 1930s were a product of a specific moment and movement... The discourses that I traced in journalism and in some biographies, that Carroll was emotionally arrested, a repressed paedophile, an obsessive, stammering social reject... -- have more to do with our own attitudes to childhood and celebrity than they do to the culture Carroll lived through.<ref>{{Cite news \|date=2024-01-26 \|title=Down the rabbit-hole and out again: How Alice helped shape our literary world. \|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/entertainment/books/2004/04/04/down-the-rabbit-hole-and-out-again-how-alice-helped-shape-our-literary-world/6a198792-8f79-42b1-982c-b71eee611097/ \|access-date=2024-09-16 \|newspaper=Washington Post \|language=en-US \|issn=0190-8286}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book \|last=Brooker \|first=Will \|title=Alice's adventures: Lewis Carroll in popular culture \|date=2004 \|publisher=Continuum \|isbn=978-0-8264-1433-5 \|location=New York}}</ref></blockquote>[[File:"Nymph of the Forest" Photograph (1901).png\|thumb\|A typical photograph, not by Lewis Carroll, showing a nude child. Source: ''[[The Australasian]]'', 1901. Pictures depicting childhood nudity were considered conventional during the Victorian era.<ref>{{cite web \|last=Woolf \|first=Jenny \|title=Lewis Carroll's Shifting Reputation \|url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/lewis-carrolls-shifting-reputation-9432378/ \|magazine=[[Smithsonian (magazine)\|Smithsonian]] \|year=2010 \|access-date=7 November 2023}}</ref><ref name=":7" /><ref>{{Cite web \|last=Wakeling \|first=Edward \|date=2003 \|title=LEWIS CARROLL AND HIS PHOTOGRAPHY Mystic, awful was the process
			A talk given at various venues after the publication of Lewis Carroll, Photographer (Princeton, 2003) \|url=https://mural.uv.es/carmapa2/arte8.html}}</ref>]] Several other writers and scholars have challenged the evidential basis for Cohen's and others' views about Dodgson's potential exploitative behaviour. [[Hugues Lebailly]] has endeavoured to set Dodgson's child photography within the "Victorian Child Cult", which perceived child nudity as essentially an expression of innocence.<ref>{{cite web \|title=Association for new Lewis Carroll studies \|url=http://contrariwise.wild-reality.net/association.html \|url-status=dead \|publisher=Contrariwise.wild-reality.net \|access-date=19 October 2019 \|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120207054041/http://www.contrariwise.wild-reality.net/association.html \|archive-date=7 February 2012}}</ref> He claims that Dodgson's diaries contained numerous entries that reveal an appreciation for adult women, as well as their appearance in art and theatre, even "vulgar" entertainment. Dodgson's nieces removed such references from early manuscripts of Dodgson's diaries, but kept references to children, because such appreciation was not controversial at the time.Lebailly claims that studies of child nudes were mainstream and fashionable in Dodgson's time and that most photographers made them as a matter of course, including [[Oscar Gustave Rejlander]] and [[Julia Margaret Cameron]].<ref>{{Cite web \|last=Edward \|first=Wakeling \|date=2003 \|title=The Real Lewis Carroll. A Talk given to the Lewis Carroll Society \|url=https://archive.org/details/the_real_lewis_carroll/mode/2up}}</ref> Lebailly continues that child nudes even appeared on Victorian [[Christmas card\|Christmas cards]], implying a very different social and aesthetic assessment of such material. Lebailly concludes that it has been an error of Dodgson's biographers to view his child-photography with 20th- or 21st-century eyes, and to have presented it as some form of personal idiosyncrasy, when it was a response to a prevalent aesthetic and philosophical movement of the time.<ref>{{cite journal \|last=Sigler \|first=Carolyn \|title=Lewis Carroll Studies, 1983-2003 \|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/44372102 \|journal=Dickens Studies Annual \|publisher=Penn State University Press \|volume=34 \|pages=382–383 \|date=2004 \|jstor=44372102}}</ref>

	[[Karoline Leach]]'s reappraisal of Dodgson focused in particular on his controversial interest in nude children. She argues that the allegations of paedophilia rose initially from a misunderstanding of Victorian morals, as well as the mistaken idea – fostered by Dodgson's various biographers – that he had no interest in adult women. She termed the traditional image of Dodgson "the Carroll Myth". She drew attention to the large amounts of evidence in his diaries and letters that he was also keenly interested in adult women, married and single, and enjoyed several relationships with them that would have been considered scandalous by the social standards of his time. She also pointed to the fact that many of those whom he described as "child-friends" were girls in their late teens and even twenties.<ref>[[#Leach\|Leach]], pp. 16–17</ref> She argues that suggestions of paedophilia emerged only many years after his death, when his well-meaning family had suppressed all evidence of his relationships with women in an effort to preserve his reputation, thus giving a false impression of a man interested only in little girls. Similarly, Leach points to a 1932 biography by Langford Reed as the source of the dubious claim that many of Carroll's female friendships ended when the girls reached the age of 14.<ref>[[#Leach\|Leach]], p. 33</ref>		[[Karoline Leach]]'s reappraisal of Dodgson focused in particular on his controversial interest in nude children. She argues that the allegations of paedophilia rose initially from a misunderstanding of Victorian morals, as well as the mistaken idea – fostered by Dodgson's various biographers – that he had no interest in adult women. She termed the traditional image of Dodgson "the Carroll Myth". She drew attention to the large amounts of evidence in his diaries and letters that he was also keenly interested in adult women, married and single, and enjoyed several relationships with them that would have been considered scandalous by the social standards of his time. She also pointed to the fact that many of those whom he described as "child-friends" were girls in their late teens and even twenties.<ref>[[#Leach\|Leach]], pp. 16–17</ref> She argues that suggestions of paedophilia emerged only many years after his death, when his well-meaning family had suppressed all evidence of his relationships with women in an effort to preserve his reputation, thus giving a false impression of a man interested only in little girls. Similarly, Leach points to a 1932 biography by Langford Reed as the source of the dubious claim that many of Carroll's female friendships ended when the girls reached the age of 14.<ref>[[#Leach\|Leach]], p. 33</ref>
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	=== Missing diaries ===		=== Missing diaries ===
	At least four complete volumes and around seven pages of text are missing from Dodgson's 13 diaries.<ref>[[#Leach\|Leach]], pp. 48, 51</ref> The loss of the volumes remains unexplained; the pages have been removed by an unknown hand. Most scholars assume that the diary material was removed by family members in the interests of preserving the family name, but this has not been proven.<ref>[[#Leach\|Leach]], pp. 48–51</ref> Except for one page, material is missing from his diaries for the period between 1853 and 1863 (when Dodgson was 21–31 years old).<ref>[[#Leach\|Leach]], p. 52</ref><ref>{{cite web\|title=The Real Lewis Carroll – A Talk given to the Lewis Carroll Society\|first=Edward\|last=Wakeling\|date=April 2003\|url=http://www.wakeling.demon.co.uk/page3-real-lewiscarroll.htm\|access-date=12 January 2023\|archive-date=8 July 2006\|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060708035011/http://www.wakeling.demon.co.uk/page3-real-lewiscarroll.htm\|url-status=dead}}</ref> During this period, Dodgson began experiencing great mental and spiritual anguish and confessing to an overwhelming sense of his own sin. This was also the period of time when he composed his extensive love poetry, leading to speculation that the poems were autobiographical.<ref>[[#Leach\|Leach]] p. 54</ref><ref>{{cite web\|title=The Dodgson Family and Their Legacy\|url=http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/carroll/dreamchild/dreamchild5.html\|access-date=5 January 2011\|archive-date=14 January 2011\|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110114151826/http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/carroll/dreamchild/dreamchild5.html\|url-status=live}}</ref>		At least four complete volumes and around seven pages of text are missing from Dodgson's 13 diaries.<ref>[[#Leach\|Leach]], pp. 48, 51</ref> The loss of the volumes remains unexplained; the pages have been removed by an unknown hand. Most scholars assume that the diary material was removed by family members in the interests of preserving the family name, but this has not been proven.<ref>[[#Leach\|Leach]], pp. 48–51</ref> Except for one page, material is missing from his diaries for the period between 1853 and 1863 (when Dodgson was 21–31 years old).<ref>[[#Leach\|Leach]], p. 52</ref><ref name=":7">{{cite web\|title=The Real Lewis Carroll – A Talk given to the Lewis Carroll Society\|first=Edward\|last=Wakeling\|date=April 2003\|url=http://www.wakeling.demon.co.uk/page3-real-lewiscarroll.htm\|access-date=12 January 2023\|archive-date=8 July 2006\|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060708035011/http://www.wakeling.demon.co.uk/page3-real-lewiscarroll.htm\|url-status=dead}}</ref> During this period, Dodgson began experiencing great mental and spiritual anguish and confessing to an overwhelming sense of his own sin. This was also the period of time when he composed his extensive love poetry, leading to speculation that the poems were autobiographical.<ref>[[#Leach\|Leach]] p. 54</ref><ref>{{cite web\|title=The Dodgson Family and Their Legacy\|url=http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/carroll/dreamchild/dreamchild5.html\|access-date=5 January 2011\|archive-date=14 January 2011\|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110114151826/http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/carroll/dreamchild/dreamchild5.html\|url-status=live}}</ref>

	Many theories have been put forward to explain the missing material. A popular explanation for one missing page (27 June 1863) is that it might have been torn out to conceal a proposal of marriage on that day by Dodgson to the 11-year-old Alice Liddell. However, there has never been any evidence to suggest this, and a paper suggests evidence to the contrary which was discovered by [[Karoline Leach]] in the Dodgson family archive in 1996.<ref name="Cut Pages">{{cite web\|title=The cut pages in diary document\|url=http://carroll-myth.wild-reality.net/cutpages.html\|url-status=live\|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230112165538/http://carroll-myth.wild-reality.net/cutpages.html\|archive-date=12 January 2023\|access-date=12 January 2023}}</ref>{{Better source needed\|reason=Website appears to be maintained by a single person with the sole agenda of promoting this idea.\|date=July 2023}}		Many theories have been put forward to explain the missing material. A popular explanation for one missing page (27 June 1863) is that it might have been torn out to conceal a proposal of marriage on that day by Dodgson to the 11-year-old Alice Liddell. However, there has never been any evidence to suggest this, and a paper suggests evidence to the contrary which was discovered by [[Karoline Leach]] in the Dodgson family archive in 1996.<ref name="Cut Pages">{{cite web\|title=The cut pages in diary document\|url=http://carroll-myth.wild-reality.net/cutpages.html\|url-status=live\|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230112165538/http://carroll-myth.wild-reality.net/cutpages.html\|archive-date=12 January 2023\|access-date=12 January 2023}}</ref>{{Better source needed\|reason=Website appears to be maintained by a single person with the sole agenda of promoting this idea.\|date=July 2023}}
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	Dodgson also had two attacks in which he lost consciousness. He was diagnosed by a Dr Morshead, Dr Brooks, and Dr Stedman, and they believed the attack and a consequent attack to be an "epileptiform" seizure (initially thought to be fainting, but Brooks changed his mind). Some have concluded from this that he had this condition for his entire life, but there is no evidence of this in his diaries beyond the diagnosis of the two attacks already mentioned.<ref name=w1/> Some authors, Sadi Ranson in particular, have suggested that Carroll had [[temporal lobe epilepsy]] in which consciousness is not always completely lost but altered, and in which the symptoms mimic many of the same experiences as Alice in Wonderland. Carroll had at least one incident in which he suffered full loss of consciousness and awoke with a bloody nose, which he recorded in his diary and noted that the episode left him not feeling himself for "quite sometime afterward". This attack was diagnosed as possibly "epileptiform", and Carroll himself later wrote of his "seizures" in the same diary. Most of the standard diagnostic tests of today were not available in the 19th century. Yvonne Hart, consultant neurologist at the [[John Radcliffe Hospital]], Oxford, considered Dodgson's symptoms. Her conclusion, quoted in Jenny Woolf's 2010 ''The Mystery of Lewis Carroll'', is that Dodgson very likely had migraine and may have had epilepsy, but she emphasises that she would have considerable doubt about making a diagnosis of epilepsy without further information.<ref>{{cite book \|last=Woolf \|first=Jenny \|title=The Mystery of Lewis Carroll \|publisher=[[St. Martin's Press]] \|date=4 February 2010 \|pages=298–299 \|isbn=978-0-312-67371-0}}</ref>		Dodgson also had two attacks in which he lost consciousness. He was diagnosed by a Dr Morshead, Dr Brooks, and Dr Stedman, and they believed the attack and a consequent attack to be an "epileptiform" seizure (initially thought to be fainting, but Brooks changed his mind). Some have concluded from this that he had this condition for his entire life, but there is no evidence of this in his diaries beyond the diagnosis of the two attacks already mentioned.<ref name=w1/> Some authors, Sadi Ranson in particular, have suggested that Carroll had [[temporal lobe epilepsy]] in which consciousness is not always completely lost but altered, and in which the symptoms mimic many of the same experiences as Alice in Wonderland. Carroll had at least one incident in which he suffered full loss of consciousness and awoke with a bloody nose, which he recorded in his diary and noted that the episode left him not feeling himself for "quite sometime afterward". This attack was diagnosed as possibly "epileptiform", and Carroll himself later wrote of his "seizures" in the same diary. Most of the standard diagnostic tests of today were not available in the 19th century. Yvonne Hart, consultant neurologist at the [[John Radcliffe Hospital]], Oxford, considered Dodgson's symptoms. Her conclusion, quoted in Jenny Woolf's 2010 ''The Mystery of Lewis Carroll'', is that Dodgson very likely had migraine and may have had epilepsy, but she emphasises that she would have considerable doubt about making a diagnosis of epilepsy without further information.<ref>{{cite book \|last=Woolf \|first=Jenny \|title=The Mystery of Lewis Carroll \|publisher=[[St. Martin's Press]] \|date=4 February 2010 \|pages=298–299 \|isbn=978-0-312-67371-0}}</ref>
			[[File:Liddell, Edith, Lorina & Alice, 'Open your mouth...' (Lewis Carroll, 07.1860).jpg\|thumb\|311x311px]]

			=== '''Photomontages''' ===
			[[File:Lewis Carroll Self Portrait 1856 circa.jpg\|thumb\|279x279px\|The two photographs by Dodgson that were montaged together in 2005.]]
			In 2005, an arts student, David O'Kane, created a photomontage of Charles Dodgson and Alice Liddell kissing on the lips. This montage was pieced and manipulated together from Dodgson's 1862 self portrait and Dodgson's 1865 portrait of Ina, Edith and Alice eating cherries together. [https://snrk.de/constructing-carroll/] The image has been often mis-identified, online and in arts spaces<ref name=":8">{{Cite web \|last=Kluge \|first=Götz \|title=Constructing Carroll – The Hunting of the Snark \|url=https://snrk.de/page_constructing-carroll/ \|access-date=2026-06-01 \|website=snrk.de}}</ref>, as a real photograph by Dodgson. This misrepresentation was discussed by media scholar Anna Kérchy at length, in her 2016 book ''Alice in Transmedia Wonderland''.<ref>{{Cite book \|last=Kérchy \|first=Anna \|title=Alice in transmedia wonderland: curiouser and curiouser new forms of a children's classic \|date=2016 \|publisher=McFarland & Company \|isbn=978-1-4766-6668-6 \|location=Jefferson, North Carolina \|pages=145 -148}}</ref>

			A further montage appeared by another artist of Dodgson and Alice Liddell "walking" in Oxford, which montaged together a 1904 photograph of St Aldates, a photograph of the Victorian Prince of Wales, and the real photograph of Alice Liddell in Best Dress taken by Dodgson in 1858.<ref name=":8" />

			A third montage appeared by yet another artist in the early 2010s, using Dodgson's photograph of the Reverend Robert Salmon and Frances Bowlby sitting on his lap. The montage artist replaced Bowlby and Salmon's heads with Dodgson and Alice Liddell's.<ref name=":8" />

	== Legacy ==		== Legacy ==