Talk:Lewis Carroll

Talking about Lewis Carroll's problematic history... without the CP.

CW/ CP, Child SA

I was sent here from the help desk to talk about this specific topic.

One day I was curious to dig into claims that Lewis Carroll was a pedo/groomer and took about (30?) of children, either nude or not. when I got to the section on the wikipedia page ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Carroll ) , there was undeniable evidence of one of them, as seen as a photo. Can we talk about the subject WITHOUT giving out the photo? It was taken a long time ago, but please. The last thing I wanna do is stumble upon CP because someone put it there. Thank you! — Preceding unsigned comment added by BloodyShard123 (talk • contribs) 21:47, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

In Victorian Britain, photos of pre-pubescent children naked or in rags were not considered (by "Polite society") to have any sexual implications, and were a popular genre in early photography. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, active collectors of photographs, had a number of such pictures in their collection, some of them (if I recall correctly) actually taken by "Lewis Carroll" (Charles Dodgson), who was a pioneering and well-known amateur photographer. He took around 3,000 photos of various subjects, so it's not surprising that a small proportion of them would have been in this then-popular style. Have you already read the section Photography (1856–1880) in this very article?

Various writers, looking for sensational new angles on which to base literary-historical papers and books, have tried to push the conjecture that Carroll/Dodgson might have had paedophilic tendencies by using innuendo and forced interpretations, but as far as I'm aware (and as a fantasy writer he falls within my sphere of active interests), not a single shred of direct evidence has emerged to support it.

His image has also suffered from partisan efforts to portray him as Lewis Carroll the shy Oxford Don, when in fact he was a very convivial man with strong connections to the less fashionable North East of England. Read, if you can, Bryan Talbot's unconventional but cleverly designed and well-researched Alice in Sunderland, which presents a good deal of material about the real Charles Dodgson. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.193.128.151 (talk) 22:33, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

Unless "CP" is short for Child Picture, there's no danger of anybody "stumbling" on anything in this article. Lewis Carroll took pictures of children (among other subjects). This has recently become controversial. We illustrate that with an example of one of his photographs of a child (fully clothed, albeit in rags). If you deem that photograph to be pornographic, that probably says more about you than it does about the photo.Chuntuk (talk) 12:31, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

BloodyShard123, you should not have removed one of the pictures from the article. There is no consensus here to do so. I have reverted the removal. Wikignome Wintergreen^talk 14:42, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

The BBC made a documentary called The Secret World of Lewis Carroll. It was inaccurate, saying a photograph of a naked prepubsecent girl was a picture of Lorina Liddell by Carroll, but actually it has been proved not to be by him, and is believed to be a medical photograph taken by a doctor, as the girl has a curved spine. I think the documentary should be mentioned, if only because lots of articles are still out there referring to the photograph and it's not clear that the documentary was discredited unless you read the imdb reviews. 92.40.9.166 (talk) 12:40, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

Here's why more detail on the inaccuracy -Two of the expert contributors on this programme complained to the BBC Trust about this programme and the BBC was censured by its own governing body for lying. The picture, supposedly recently discovered, had been readily accessible on the internet and known to scholars for around 20 years, and was known not to be authentic. The experts on Carroll who appeared on the programme were not told of it and thereby prevented from saying this. The provenance of the photo has no connection with England, let alone Carroll. It was bought from a French dealer one of whose specialities was 19th century French medical photographs, and the photo shows the girl's spine is crooked - a fact that was obscured by the BBC's selective use of the photo. The present owner of the photo, a museum, did not appear in the film, and has never claimed the photo is of Lorina by Carroll (it is only "attributed" based on an anonymous inscription on the back.) In fact the inscription uses the name "Lewis Carroll" which nobody in Carroll's lifetime would have used since he invariably used the name "Dodgson" and kept his identity as "Carroll" secret. When Lorina was a young teen he had not yet achieved fame as "Carroll" anyhow since he had not written "Alice in Wonderland" by then. The photo is also not in the format used by his specially made camera. It is only attributed to Carroll due to the date: Carroll was using photography at this time, but so were many hundreds of other photographers. It gives the non professional "gut feeling" of a consultant who is not a Lewis Carroll expert. However, I also read that 'The photographic conservation specialist Nicholas Burnett and forensic imagery analyst David Anley concluded it was authentic and probably of Liddell.' I'm still doubtful. Wakeling later wrote a scathing article in the Lewis Carroll Society Journal about his experiences on this documentary, and has managed to ensure it is never repeated, but I've been unable to find the article. The books of Wakeling and Robert Douglas-Fairhurst amy shed more light. 92.40.9.166 (talk) 13:13, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

From an opus of some 3,000 photographs, Edward Wakeling has calculated that nude photographs of children represent ‘no more than 1 per cent of Carroll’s output’.He argues that picturing nude children and focussing his camera on girls was common practice among Victorian photographers and that, when Carroll visited family friends, boys were more likely to be away at school.Is there a source for the John Betjeman quote about liking girls not boys? Betjeman was born eight years after Carroll died, so he couldn't have heard it directly from him. Wakeling says there are as well many photographs of boys and adults.

As a writer of children’s books, Carroll needed to explore children, Mr Wakeling pointed out: ‘His relationship with children is not an all-encompassing part of his life, which many of the biographers tried to suggest.

‘He was a teacher. He actually enjoyed the intellectual banter that he could have with children. Children in Victorian times found that very refreshing because it was very uncommon for someone to treat them as equals. Children were seen and not heard.' Also Hugues Lebailly, Jenny Woolf and Karolina Leach would be interesting to reference. 92.40.9.166 (talk) 13:42, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

An oddity about the photo in question is that it has frequently been described as being of Lorina Liddell. The fact is the girl in the photo does not look like Lorina, but does look like Edith L.. I say this assuming that the several photos of the Liddell children taken by Dodgson, and readily viewable on the net. have those three sisters correctly identified. There is a strong family likeness between all three, so much so that Alice and Lorina would pass for identical twins were it not for the age difference. On the other hand Edith has markedly lower set eyebrows, as does the girl in the photo in question, but very similar facial features otherwise. To my eye the similarity between the face of the girl in this photo and others of Edith are so great as to make it almost certain that it is of her. 86.1.33.153 (talk) 11:52, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

It's also possible, that the photo of the girl doesn't depict any of the Liddell sisters. The face looks slightly bruised. And there seems to be an issue with the eyelid of the left (from dorsal view) eye. One thing is sure: The curators of the Musée Cantini won't confirm that the image had been taken by Dodgson. --DL5MDA (talk) 08:55, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

Response to the comment posted on 21:47, 20 October 2021 (top of this thread): As for claims that that Dodgson was a pedo/groomer, there is almost no academic research available. I recommend Katherine Wakely-Mulroney's The Man Who Loved Children: Lewis Carroll Studies’ Evidence Problem, Journal of the History of Sexuality, University of Texas Press, Vol. 30, № 3, pp. 335-362, 2021-09, https://www.academia.edu/67147027/The_Man_Who_Loved_Children_Lewis_Carroll_Studies_Evidence_Problem. --DL5MDA (talk) 09:46, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

pictures of children: dispute

It is claimed here that the pics of children were taken "often" in attendance of the parents. I don't think there is any evidence for this. Suspekt (talk) 13:35, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

Update: I removed the sentence. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Suspekt (talk • contribs) 21:50, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

Parents or chaperones. --DL5MDA (talk) 09:57, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

The Secret World of Lewis Carroll (2015) BBC documentary

It seems that this topic was added to the article on January 14th, 2024: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lewis_Carroll&diff=1195689949&oldid=1195686740. It's good that it also describes the controversy about this "documentary".

The BBC2 documentary had been produced by Swan Films in London. In the public you only find unauthorized copies of the documentary. Martha Kearney was the presenter. Its first half is excellent. The second half seems to have been produced in a rush. Kearny failed to ask for the opinions of the curators of that the nude photo which allegedly depicts Lorina Liddell.

In 2022 I contacted the Musée Cantini in Mareseilles. They own that photo. One of the curators told me that the photo was part of a collection which the Museum bought from a dealer in the USA. But it also could be that the photo was shown in Paris by the Gallerie Texbraun in 1986. The Museum purchased the photo in 1994.

Images: On the left side of https://snrk.de/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Lorina_Liddell_age20y__and_French_girl.jpg you see the face of Lorina Liddell. On the right side you see the face of the girl shown in the photo owned by the Musée Cantini. The curator of that image won't confirm that the image depicts Lorina Liddell. The curator won't confirm either that the photo has been taken by Carroll/Dodgson. --DL5MDA (talk) 09:36, 20 February 2024 (UTC)