Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
Author of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass
If modern
westerners are not literary scholars or have an abiding interest in Lewis Carroll
and his works they are probably puzzled by Lewis Carroll the man and somewhat
scandalized by his relationship with little girls, especially Alice Liddell.
What is missing in our superficial contact with the story of this remarkable
man and Alice the almost equally remarkable woman is the background.
We must
first remember the setting for what became a seventy year saga. It was early
Victorian times, 1862. All the principals in this bit of literary history were strictly
of the upper class in what was most certainly the most class conscious society
of modern times. Dodgson himself came from a very conservative highly religious
family in the North of England. He was the third of eleven children. His forebears
were churchmen and military and were very rigid in their views. Dodgson never married
and never achieved ordination to priesthood in the Church of England that was expected
of all students at Christ Church College. Most students of this history believe
that the reason he managed to avoid fulfilling the requirement for ordination
was his stammer. It was not a terribly serious handicap and never manifested
itself in his interactions with children. He may have felt reluctance to accept
ordination because he believed he could never properly preach, but more likely
it might have been simply that he honestly believed he was not a good
Christian. His upbringing taught Hell Fire and Damnation and he simply did not
accept the idea. He was however ordained a deacon and went by the title Reverend.
As a
child and young man he did very well in school and passed with high honors.
This got him a place at Oxford with no difficulty. He always had an interest in
mathematics and logic and those became his eventual subjects and profession at
Oxford where he spent the entire 50 years of his working life. But most
particularly as a youngster he was fascinated by and very clever in his fixation
on puzzles, word games, clever devices made from simple materials, and nonsense
rhymes. Very early he became attracted to the new and revolutionary art and
science of photography. Remember that the very first images ever recorded were
made in the 1830s. There were a number of techniques and processes, all
difficult and expensive, but the one he chose to pursue as a hobby was the wet
colloidal method, only in existence for ten years when he began his photography
practice.
If a
person knows what it took to produce a decent image in those days they will
certainly then know what talent and prodigious effort was actually required.
First the photographer had to have a deep acquaintance with the complex
chemical processes involved which used unfamiliar and expensive ingredients,
but they had also to literally carry their entire photographic laboratory
facility about with them to the chosen sites being pictured. What most do not know
today is that in spite of the wet colloidal process being very early and long superseded
by presumably better schemes it is employed today by hobbyists who passionately
believe that it yields better images - deeper and richer tones and shades of
grey. The process of getting a picture is described by what follows. Remember
that Dodgson took thousands upon thousands of pictures, some of which have
survived. Many are preserved in the archives of Princeton University and are
available on line for viewing (copies available for purchase).
Melanie
Benjamin in her novel (Alice That I Have Been) presents us with a fictional but
no doubt a nearly accurate account of his making the picture of Alice in her
gypsy outfit. In this wonderful image Alice is about seven and a half years of
age, has never been allowed to play outdoors with any freedom, and certainly
has never been allowed to dress in anything other than the highly confining and
very voluminous dresses little girls were required to wear in those days.
Dodgson
invites Alice to come out for the day, probably with a chaperone. They proceed
to a park area of the College that Dodgson has chosen for the background and
lighting. He has brought along the dress that he wants Alice to wear. In
addition he has his equipment: a heavy camera and tripod, a kit containing all
the chemicals including the colloidal solution and the meticulously cleaned
glass plates, and a tent (probably very small) to exclude any blue light that
might expose and ruin the plate while he is preparing it for exposure and later
while he is developing it. They settle on a pose and a background and he then
prepares the photographic surface by flowing the colloidal solution containing
the metal salts over the glass. The plate in its holder is put into the back of
the camera and the exposure is about to begin. Alice is cautioned to hold
perfectly still in the chosen pose while he removes the black slide protecting
the plate in the camera and then removes the lens cap. The exposure under these
conditions takes about 45 seconds. If she makes the slightest move it must all
be done again. He may then dry the plate at this time and develop the image
back in his rooms or develop the image on site. Later he makes paper prints of
the image in his quarters. See the wonderful result.
Benjamin
takes the liberty of describing Alice’s problem with changing out of her stiff
Victorian Little Girl’s Uniform into the gypsy outfit. Alice and her sisters
have been tended and dressed by their ladies maid all their lives and haven’t a
clue on how to work buttons or really do anything for themselves. All their
waking hours are filled with lessons and typical Victorian activities. They do
a lot of letter writing, study of geography, how to sing, dance, and learning to
play an instrument. It is difficult for the modern person to quite understand
the mind set of these people and the customs and habits of that age. Even watching
Downton Abbey is really not enough to get clued in. When the modern American is
shown a photo such as the one below and told that taking pictures of unclothed
little girls was not unusual they tend to be outraged and cry “pedophile!”
These little girls were in those days considered the perfect embodiment of
innocent beauty and many of these pictures were commercialized as Christmas
cards. A more familiar example of these tastes can be found in some of the work
of Maxfield Parrish who painted in this genre during the 1920’s. I grew up with
a very nice reproduction of his famous “Daybreak” hanging on the wall of the
sun room where I had my bed for several years. As a child I used to gaze at
that picture and wonder if the naked standing figure was male or female. I
never reached a conclusion. The original of that painting recently sold at auction
for 5.2 million dollars. The other odd fact (to us moderns) is that this
fascination was limited to little girls below the age of puberty and
specifically excluded little boys. Dodgson actually disliked little boys. They
annoyed him very much. He once took a picture of a girl who later turned out to
be 17 at the time. He thought she was younger and was very distressed, apologized
profusely and destroyed the negatives. He routinely destroyed the negatives of
his photographic subjects at the least objection or change of mind from either
the subject or her parents.
Daybreak by Maxfield Parrish-1922
There
is probably no question that Lewis Carroll and Alice Liddell had a very unusual
relationship at that time. Alice, a very young exceedingly bright but
unsophisticated young girl, surely felt a very strong attraction to this
unusual and entertaining man – all the young children around the college then
must have felt much the same. I am reminded by this situation of what must be
an archetypal tale that surely has been repeated many times in the span of
human existence – the Tale of the Pied Piper. It is clearly evident from the
content of Lewis Carroll’s work that he had a vast knowledge and connection to
the world of fairy tales and childish rhymes which we know today had deep and
enduring meaning and often spoke of terrible things from times past (e.g. “Ring
around the rosy,…” and the black death).
How
did it all turn out? Alice had a normal growing up (for that era), probably
fell madly in love at the age of 17 with Prince Leopold, youngest son of Queen
Victoria and a student at the college, married someone else, had her share of
joys and sorrows, poverty and riches, and eventually was recognized and feted
in America as the famous “Alice.” She died in her eighties preceded in death by
two of her three sons who lost their lives in WWI and her husband.
What
happened to Lewis Carroll? He spent the years from 1865 when the first
publication of his Alice story appeared to his death in 1898 as a resident don
in Christ Church College of Oxford University. He produced a dozen unnoteworthy
books of mathematics, did his lectures, and spent a great deal of time and
energy in concert with his illustrator John Tenniel on the publication of
various editions of his stories. He continued with photography and it is
estimated took over 3000 pictures of little girls; some say as a futile attempt
to recapture little Alice.
Charles
Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) was a profoundly important gift to Western
Culture and his story is, not surprisingly, a little sad and has the character
of an enduring tragedy.
Lewis
Carroll’s tales have been translated into 171 languages, appeared in 8400
editions, and illustrated by over 1000 different artists (none better than John
Tenniel). They have seen the silver screen, the tv set, and stage in numerous adaptations.
Coda:
I recently found among my forgotten possessions a stunningly beautiful copy of
a 1940 edition of the two Alice stories given to me by my mother in 1948. It is
superbly bound and printed on a high quality cream paper; the first story
printed in black and blood red and the second in black and royal blue. The
frontispieces are two of the most noted of Tenniel’s drawings.
