Charles Dodgson wrote many things under the pen name Lewis Carroll, but the fantastical adventures of the young girl Alice are by far his best known. These books originated as a story Dodgson told to the Liddell sisters, the young daughters of the dean of Christ Church. Find an edition that includes the original illustrations of Sir John Tenniel, which are as iconic as the story itself.
There are many different compilations of Lewis Carroll's poetry. A dip into any of them is like falling down the rabbit hole into the world of Carroll's imagination. He specialized in so-called "nonsense" poetry, taking his child readers into a structure-free world that was in total opposition to the strict morality of the Victorian era.
These treatises on logic were originally published under Carroll's real name, Charles Dodgson. Dodgson was a mathematical genius who delighted in the puzzles and games of logic. He always included puzzles and logic in his fantasy writing, and wordplay and fantastic episodes in his scholarly writing.
This thoroughly-researched book is as close to a definitive biography of Lewis Carroll/Charles Dodgson as you can come. Cohen takes a clear-eyed perspective on a creative genius with a complicated legacy. Unlike more recent scholarship, Cohen concludes that Carroll had an unusual fascination with young girls.
Leach is among the forefront of Carroll/Dodgson scholars determined to rescue his legacy from the "creepy pedophile" rut it has fallen into. During the Victorian era, she writes, there was a cult of adoration surrounding children. Her book argues that Carroll's fascination with young girls has been misinterpreted.
Charles Dodgson was one of the best amateur photographers of the Victorian era. This book looks at his accomplishments in the realm of photography, which during Dodgson's time was a cumbersome, complex and difficult hobby. The photographs include both his well-known portraits of girls, as well as his other tableaux.