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You're probably more likely to know Charles Lutwidge Dodgson as British author Lewis Carroll. He wrote Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass. But what you may not know is how close a relationship he forged with a young girl named Alice Liddell, the real Alice in Wonderland, and the inspiration behind his novels. This relationship has been heavily studied and scrutinized, with many believing it had Lolita-esque aspirations.
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You probably know Charles Lutwitch Dodson as Lewis Carroll
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author of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel, Through the Looking Glass
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But what you may not know is that Dodgson had a peculiar and arguably inappropriate relationship
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with Alice Little, the inspiration behind his novels. So today we're going to take a look at how Alice in Wonderland
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was inspired by an 11-year-old girl with whom Lewis Carroll had an unusual relationship
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Charles Lutwidge Dodson studied mathematics at Oxford University and was a skilled photographer
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But it's his writing that made him famous, albeit under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll, which was a play on his first and middle names
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His first book, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, typically shortened to Alice in Wonderland, is about a young girl who falls into a rabbit hole and meets a series of fantastical creatures
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Despite being published over 150 years ago, the story has maintained an almost ubiquitous popularity
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spawning a number of adaptations, spinoffs, and other derivative works to this day, including this one
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And the title character was based on a real girl named Alice Little
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Dodgson, then 24, met Alice and her sisters on April 25, 1856
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while they were playing in a garden. He later wrote in his diary that the meeting held a special significance for him
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At the time, he was busy photographing a cathedral, and the girls were drawn to him
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curious about the newfangled technology he was using. Remember, this was the 1850s. Cameras
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existed, but were still pretty thin on the ground. It would be like Henry Ford getting his foot run
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over by a Prius. He'd understand the general concept, but would still want to go in for a
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closer look. Dodgson struck up a friendship with a little family, who asked him to take pictures of
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the girls. He had dress-up clothes and toys in his studio to entertain them, and for a time
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he was nearly as famous for his photography as he was for his writing. Several years later, on July 4th, 1862
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Dodgson took a boat ride from Oxford to Godstow with the girls, 10-year-old Alice, 8-year-old Edith, and 13-year-old Lorena
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To entertain the children, he told them a delightful story full of strange and unusual characters that he invented on the fly
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and he made Alice the protagonist. Basically, he ad-libbed a literary classic
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Talented people. I can't stand them. Young Alice enjoyed the story so much
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she requested that Dodgson write it down. And it was through that request that one of the most memorable
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and enduring young adult novels was born. In historian Martin Gardner 1960 book The Annotated Alice he noted that Dodgson befriended many young girls over the course of his life He would meet these girls in all kinds of places
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at the beach, on trains, or through acquaintances, and he would become their friend
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But despite a long procession of little girls passing through his life, none ever
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took the place of Alice Little. Dodgson later wrote to Alice after she got married to say
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I have had some scores of child friends since your time, but they have been quite a different thing
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In other words, I've known plenty of kids since you, but I didn't write a book about any of them
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Having a large number of underage friends is a weird thing to brag about in your letter to your former muse
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But Dodgson was an odd duck, and not always in a charming way
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Oobly. Dodgson's questionable to potentially alarming fascination with young girls has led biographers to examine the relationships he had with the children
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who appeared in his writing, photography, and paintings. Most of his subjects were girls between the ages of 10 and 15
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And while much of his photography portfolio is missing, more than half of his remaining work
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concentrates on undressed or semi-undressed portraits of girls. Before he died, Dodgson
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wrote, a girl of about 12 is my ideal beauty of form. Those are the kind of things the FBI makes
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notes about. So why didn't anyone think this was weird at the time? Well, during the Victorian era
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it wasn't uncommon for children, sans clothes, to be depicted on postcards, birthday cards
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or works of art. Despite what they look like through a modern lens, these depictions were not considered to be super creepy
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Rather, they were interpreted as being about chastity and purity. The question of whether Dodgson's interest in the children
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was more sinister than that still has no definite answer, though there is some evidence to suggest
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he didn't exactly have their best interests in mind. One of Dodgson's most famous photographs of Alice
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was taken when she was just six years old. In the photo, Alice appears as a beggar girl
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possibly inspired by the Lord Tennyson poem the beggar made. Due to her ruffled clothes, serious gaze, and raised open hand, possibly
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meant to make it appear as though she was begging or beckoning, the image takes on an uncomfortable
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quality. Furthermore, Dodgson was pretty bold about the affection he felt for his young friends
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He once wrote to a 10-year-old girl who had sent him a lock of her hair saying, extra thanks and kisses for the lock of hair. I have kissed it several times for want of having
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you to kiss, you know. Even hair is better than nothing. Okay, it's hard to say that without
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a feeling a little wrong? And before you ask, yes, it actually was common for Dodgson
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to sprinkle his correspondence with what would today be considered incriminating statements
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In another letter to a woman about visiting her young daughter he seemingly calls the mother a third wheel writing and it would be de rigueur that there should be a third to dinner Tete is so much the nicest
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OK, I feel like I have to take a shower now. Artist Gertrude Thompson, who was a friend of Dodgson's
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and illustrated some of his books, including an abridged version of Alice in Wonderland
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received a letter from him in which he wrote, I confess I do not admire boys in pictures
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They always seem to need clothes, whereas one hardly sees why the lovely forms of girls should ever be covered up
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Uh, we can think of a few reasons, Chuck. In his own time, Dodgson's love of children was not only well known, but was openly celebrated
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In general, people viewed him as a kind, generous man who got along very well with kids
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His obituary in the London Daily Graphic even stated that, like many bachelors, he was very popular with children and very fond of them
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Dodgson's nephew, Stuart Collingwood, noted that his uncle had several kid friends
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and he wrote a biography that included two chapters about these girls, mentioning how Dodgson would regularly hug and kiss the children
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So it's well documented that Dodgson spent a great deal of time with his young friends
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and it seems clear that he was attracted to them in some manner. But for what it's worth, there is no evidence that suggests he ever harmed any of them
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Biographer Morton Cohen examined Dodgson's diaries and determined that the writer was left feeling disturbed
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and had problems sleeping following the days he would spend with Alice. Cohen believed Dodgson dealt with these emotions in part by writing whimsical stories
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including his signature work. Dodgson himself once mentioned he was afflicted by
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the inclinations of his sinful heart. However, in his own words, he was able to manage his impure
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thoughts by focusing on mathematics, writing that performing calculations helped combat unholy thoughts which torture with their hateful presence, the fancy that would feign be pure
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To be clear, there's no indication what these unholy thoughts from his sinful heart may have
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been. But yeah, seems like he might have been dealing with something. Sounds like an excerpt
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from one of John Doe's diaries in Seven. Up until 1863, Dodgson spent time with the Littles nearly
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every single day. But during that year, something happened between Dodgson and the family that
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damaged their relationship for quite some time. Scholars don't know for certain what caused the
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rift, but we do know that whatever it was, Dodgson stopped socializing with them for several months
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After Dodgson's death, a page from his diary, dated around the time of his beef with the family
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was conspicuously removed which may have provided some insight as to what exactly happened And while we don want to speculate it hard to see that abrupt falling out and subsequent missing diary page is anything other than a massive red flag Biographer Florence Becker wrote in 1945 Victoria Through the Looking Glass that Dodgson may have been
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interested in marrying Alice, who was 11 years old at the time, or one of her sisters. A proposal
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may have caused the rift between him and the little family. Because even during the Victorian
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era, when pictures celebrating the chastity of kids were totally cool, asking one of those kids
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to marry you was not cool, at least not until they got slightly older. Dodgson eventually
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reconciled with the Littles, but never again spent time with them. In 1864, Dodgson gave Alice a
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handwritten copy of his book, which at the time was titled Alice's Adventures Underground. But
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the following year, when Alice was 12, Dodgson wrote that she had changed as a person. The guy
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in his 30s writing about how his 12-year-old bestie is a totally different person than she
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was at 11 is not a good look, no matter what century you're in. As she grew up, Alice eventually
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got sick of Dodgson and his obsessive attention, which is, to put it lightly, totally understandable
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Imagine a grown man who invents word games always trying to hang out with you through your adolescence
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It's like hiring a birthday magician who never goes home. He photographed his muse for the final
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time when she was 18. The image, taken in 1870, is striking. In it, Alice is dressed in fine clothes
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with her hands clasped on her lap, wearing an expression that looks uncomfortable and strained
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It's the look of a person who has just about had their fill of Charles Dodgson. As a teenager
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Alice Little met Queen Victoria's youngest son, Prince Leopold. According to some accounts
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the pair fell in love but couldn't wed because she was not of royal blood. But the nature of
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their relationship has been disputed, with some claiming that the prince was actually interested
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in Alice's younger sister, Edith. Whatever the case may be, Alice ultimately married a cricket
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player named Reginald Hargraves, and the prince tied the knot with a German princess. In 1883
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Leopold had a daughter whom he named Alice. In turn, Alice named her second son Leopold
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and the prince became his godfather. After her husband died, Alice sold the handwritten
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manuscript Dodgson had given her to cover the cost of maintaining their home. In a letter to
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her surviving son, Carol. Yes, her youngest son's name was a homophone for Dodgson's pseudonym
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although she insisted that was a coincidence. She wrote that she was tired of being
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Alice in Wonderland, voicing a frustration that would become all too familiar to child stars decades later