Books about Lewis Carroll

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Throughout the years, several biographies about Charles Dodgson (a.k.a. Lewis Carroll) have appeared. According to Jenny Woolf, each new biography was more and more about fiction instead of facts, and contained lots of speculation about his supposed pedophilia and drug use. Woolf tells us she tried to keep an open mind and stick to the facts, in order to describe the man he truly was.

Woolf not only turned to sources like Dodgson’s diaries, but she also discovered Dodgson’s bank account – a source that remained untouched by his family members, and she uses his sources of income and his expenses to shed more light into the matters Dodgson found important (or did not care about at all).

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"Because this is a very new image of a very famous man (Lewis Carroll), I hope it doesn't offend those who thought they 'knew' their childhood friend already.

Maybe the idea that the author of "Alice" wasn't after all some lonely or dangerous paedophile, but a normal, if less than perfect, man who may have had the misfortune to love the wrong woman, is at least a little closer to the truth and might allow those who presently enjoy his stories to feel they enjoy them even more."
(K. Leach)

In this book, Karoline Leach introduces the topic of the 'Carroll Myth'. She analyzes the history of Carroll's biographies and finds out how the mythic image of Lewis Carroll developed, and, like Jenny Woolf, tries to put it right.
Amongst others, she suggests that Carroll's love of his life may not have been Alice Liddell, but someone else: her mother.

This book is about the intimate and complex life of Dodgson. Cohen analyzes Dodgson's personality, ideas and work by means of previously unavailable family and personal documents, diaries and letters.

The book contains more than 100 of Carroll's black and white photographs and drawings and deals with a.o. Dodgson's attitude towards children, the Alice books, Dodgson's friendships with little girls, his professional triumphs, his social personality, and many more aspects of his life.

An illustrated biography of Lewis Carroll, by Stuart Collingwood.

This book is written for twenty-first century children (Grade 6-9), and looks into the ideas, influences, and people that shaped Lewis Carroll and his writing.

The book is well illustrated, with a.o. black-and-white photographs of and by Carroll and others, and reproductions of original Alice illustrations.

Anne Higonnet's discussion of Carroll, as a photographer and as a prominent member of Victorian society, offers new insight into his relationships with his sitters in the light of the social conventions of the time. It also emphasizes Carroll s unique, dreamlike vision of childhood.

Robin Wilson, British Carroll scholar and noted mathematics professor, paints a charming picture of Charles Dodgson in this slender biography. Skipping over the most chronicled aspects of Dodgson's life with only a sharp side note deriding rumors of his pedophilia as bad history and bad psychology, Wilson focuses on Dodgson's mathematical and educational accomplishments: pamphlets and books on Euclid, an efficient way of calculating determinants, astute analysis of election methods, and systems of mnemonics and ciphers. Wilson also includes puzzles, a number of Dodgson's photographs, and humorous and satirical letters.

This book was meant to accompany the exhibit of the photography of Lewis Carroll that visited the San Francisco Museum of Art in 2002, Houston in 2003, and the Art Institute of Chicago in 2004.

The volume features the photographic work of Lewis Carroll, and each photo has an attached discussion.

Nickel focuses on the subject matter of Carroll's photographs and how it relates to the Victorian preoccupation with symbolism in art. He also discusses some previous interpretations of Carroll's work, including speculations about Carroll's personal relationships with the girls in his pictures.

Carroll loved going to the theatre. This book takes a closer look at his fondness of the Victorian theatre.

Lovett's book provides bibliographical details on Dodgson's letters, articles, games, and stories.

"Lewis Carroll, Photographer" address Carroll's photography of children.

The book also contains an essay by Roger Taylor, and Edward Wakeling contributes insightful captions to each photograph in the Princeton Collection.

This edition was published to accompany a traveling exhibition on the centenary of Lewis Carroll's death, and goes far beyond Helmut Gernsheim's early work, Lewis Carrol, Photographer (1949), and several other books.

It documents his child-tableaux and also includes portraits of the parents and other adults in Carroll's social circle.

Lewis Carroll in Wonderland - the life and times of Alice and her creator, is a little book describes the environment and time in which Dodgson lived.

The book is illustrated with many pictures, a.o. photos taken by Dodgson of Alice Liddell and his other child friends, but also pictures which illustrate the Victorian era and pictures which Dodgson himself liked.

It also contains samples of Carroll's poetry and prose, as well as a number of letters.

This collection of letters that Lewis Carroll wrote to (prospective) illustrators of his books, provides insights into Carroll’s complex character, traces the history of his books, and charts the relationships Carroll had with his correspondents.

Each group of letters is preceded by an introduction that includes a brief biography of the artist, and a summary of his or her collaboration with Carroll.

Many of the letters include Carroll’s own sketches, which were meant as aids to his illustrators. Also included are comparisons of these sketches with the artists’ final drawings.

This book contains a complete catalogue of Charles Dodgson's personal library, with attention to every book the author is known to have owned or read.

Alphabetized entries fully describe each book, its edition, its contents, its importance, and any particular relevance it might have had to Dodgson.

By studying Dodgson's library, we are able to form a good idea of the Victorian world of the second half of the 19th century.

The catalogue is designed for scholars seeking insight into the mind of Charles Dodgson through his books.

The Place of Lewis Carroll in Children's Literature examines the literary impact of Lewis Carroll's children's books on the history of English children's literature. Susina elucidates the cultural content of Carroll's work and situates the Alice books in relation to Carroll's juvenilia, his letters, photographs of children and his attempt to combine children's and adult literatures.