Lewis Carroll, Photographer (review)

Anyone with any amount of education must know that Lewis Carroll was the nom de plume of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832-1898), the Victorianera British author, mathematician and Oxford don who wrote what very well may be the most famous children's story of all time, Alice in Wonderland. What is less commonly known is that Dodgson was also an avid and early practitioner of the science (and eventual art) of photography. He made the first of about 2,700 photographs in 1856, the last in 1880. Half of these are photographic portraits of children, while 30 percent are of adults and families. Far less frequently, he also made self-portraits, photographs of his extended family, still lifes, landscapes, works of art, literary narratives and skeletons (including that of an anteater) and other props for anatomical studies. He even made a portrait (reproduced in this book) of the Dodgson family doll, Tim.

Of the third or so of his photographs that are known to have survived, the majority are in American collections, and 407 of those are at the Princeton University Library. This scholarly album of photos (designed in an award-winning format by Lindgren/Fuller Design) features a book-length essay by Roger Taylor (a British photographic historian) about Dodgson's interest in photography in the context of his time and place; a chronology of his life; an annotated catalogue by Edward Wakeling (a British scholar) of all the Dodgson images at Princeton, each of which is reproduced in the order that Dodgson intended; and a complete listing of the dates, subjects and (if known) the current whereabouts of all his photographs, which is of course a great assistance to Dodgson scholars. Writes Peter Bunnell (in the book's introduction): "Alice in Wonderland has been read, and cherished, by generation upon generation. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson's photographs can now be seen to warrant a similar admiration and equal affection."