The contemporary image of Alice in Wonderland author Lewis Carroll means he is viewed as a social misfit with an unhealthy interest in little girls, taking nude photographs of them by the hundred.
But now a leading authority on Carroll has attacked the validity of his disturbing modern reputation. Over 40 years, Edward Wakeling has collated thousands of documents dating back to Carroll's lifetime, including previously unpublished letters and reminiscences of those who knew him. He says they reveal Carroll to be a sociable man who enjoyed adult company as much as children's.
"It is about time we cleared up, once and for all, the pervading false myth about his unhealthy relationship with children. He was a lover of children ... not an abuser of children."
Carroll's relationship with Alice Liddell, the inspiration for his most famous character, has long been at the centre of debate. Author Katie Roiphe wrote a novel portraying Carroll, the pen-name of clergyman Charles Dodgson, as holding sexual feelings towards his muse and though she said there was no evidence of child abuse, she said he did experience "impure thoughts".
The unpublished material uncovered by Wakeling includes reminiscences of Mabel Amy Burton, who was 8 when she met Carroll in 1877. "As a small child I much disliked strangers, but the personality of this gentleman attracted me and I chatted away with him quite freely," she said. Wakeling said that children appear in "no more than 1 per cent" of Carroll's 3000 photographs, adding that body studies were common practice among Victorian photographers.
