The Secret World of Lewis Carroll

[RonPrice]

ALICE IN WONDERLAND

Part 1:

The Secret World of Lewis Carroll was televised on ABCTV on 28/4/'15(8:30 to 9:30 p.m.). For fans of both literature and scandal The Secret World of Lewis Carroll (BBCTwo) was a wonderfully engaging portrait which showed both the scandalous and the imaginative side of Carroll. Martha Kearney, the presenter, left viewers with the question: "was Lewis Carroll a repressed paedophile?"

The Alice in Wonderland creator Lewis Carroll invented the Alice story on a river trip with his 10-year-old friend Alice Liddell, a self-possessed little girl, we were told, with whom Carroll was entranced. This BBC documentary examined Carroll's relationship with children.

He took photographs of Alice Liddell's two sisters in 1859. This enthusiasm for photography was a common, a mainstream and fashionable Victorian pastime. Carroll, though, seemed to be unusual at least insofar as his ceaseless pursuit of, and a passion for, juvenile feminine company and photographs. Some critics argue, though, that this personal idiosyncrasy of Carroll's was just a response to a prevalent aesthetic, artistic, and philosophical movement of the time.

Part 1.1:

The English author, journalist, political commentator and television personality Will Self, interviewed in this doco, described Carroll as being 'a repressed paedophile'. Classics and English expert Robert Douglas-Fairhurst argued, on the other hand, that however much it is "tempting to think of Carroll as a Victorian Jimmy Savile,1 in fact, there are dozens and dozens of records from girls whom he befriended. They all made it clear that there was a kind of ritual to their friendship. It involved kissing them chastely and that was it.” Savile(1926-2011), it may never be forgotten, and you may remember, was one of Britain's most prolific predatory sexual offenders.

Part 2:

Many people believe Carroll was an innocent who simply enjoyed the company of children, and there is no evidence of misbehaviour. Program presenter, Kearney, tried to end on a positive note: “Perhaps we’ll never find out the truth about Lewis Carroll no matter how much we delve.” But, after her programme, many viewers were likely to have decided that they now knew precisely what the damning truth was. It must have been tough for Kearney to do all that delving into her hero's life as she did..

The programme located a previously unseen photograph almost certainly taken by Carroll. It showed a girl stripped off, revealing her developed, adolescent body. And it seems she was Lorina, Alice’s older sister by three years. Carroll, who died in January 1898, befriended Alice Liddell and her two sisters when they were children. It was Miss Liddell who was the inspiration for the famous book. Researchers, working on this documentary of the 150th anniversary of the publication of the much-loved children's book, discovered these disturbing images.1 -Ron Price with thanks to 1Terry Ramsey, The Telegraph, 31/1/'15.

Part 3:

Dodgson1 was also keenly
interested in adult women,
it should be emphasized to
all those who come to read
this my prose-poem, and he
had a sense of sin being the
devout Protestant that he was.

The year 1863 was a very big
year for this famous author, a
writer of some 100,000 letters,
who took his Alice manuscript
to Macmillan's. This work was
published in the last year of the
civil war, and the same year as
the first Western book written in
its entirety on the subject of the
Babi religion3 was published by
a university: '65 was a big year!

1The name of the author of Alice in Wonderland was Charles Dodgson better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll.
2 The American Civil War, 1861-1865; Congress passed the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery in America, and Abraham Lincoln was shot & killed while attending the play "Our American Cousin" at Ford's Theatre.
3 Mirza Kazem-Beg of St Petersberg University published Bab Babidy.

Ron Price
1 May 2015

[Murmur]

I'm steamed every time I read the name "Alice in Wonderland". Lewis Carroll wrote "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland", not "Alice in Wonderland". "Alice in Wonderland" is the name of a Disney movie.

[Litwitlou]

I'm steamed every time I read the name "Alice in Wonderland". Lewis Carroll wrote "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland", not "Alice in Wonderland". "Alice in Wonderland" is the name of a Disney movie.

And let's not forget Through the Looking Glass.

Disney, oy. I read 101 Dalmatians umpteen times a child. Great story. One day my daughter came home from the Disney movie and began telling me all about how Pongo was married to Perdita. I'm thinking, "Whoa! Does Missus Pongo know about this? Did I miss the divorce? Is Pongo a bigamist?" So I figured I'd get her the book. The book was not to be found at B&N. It seems Disney had swept out all the Dodie Smith books and replaced them with their version of the story. I had to send to England for the original Dodie Smith story.

Things aren't as bad now, but when the the movie first came out, Disney had it all their own way (the wrong way.) Man, was I steamed.

[Murmur]

I'm steamed every time I read the name "Alice in Wonderland". Lewis Carroll wrote "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland", not "Alice in Wonderland". "Alice in Wonderland" is the name of a Disney movie.

And let's not forget Through the Looking Glass.

Disney, oy. I read 101 Dalmatians umpteen times a child. Great story. One day my daughter came home from the Disney movie and began telling me all about how Pongo was married to Perdita. I'm thinking, "Whoa! Does Missus Pongo know about this? Did I miss the divorce? Is Pongo a bigamist?" So I figured I'd get her the book. The book was not to be found at B&N. It seems Disney had swept out all the Dodie Smith books and replaced them with their version of the story. I had to send to England for the original Dodie Smith story.

Things aren't as bad now, but when the the movie first came out, Disney had it all their own way (the wrong way.) Man, was I steamed.

Now that there chaps my hide.

[DB Roy]

I had read a version of "Alice" back in the late 70s, I think, annotated by Martin Gardner. I was a truly fascinating book. It gave a great deal of information regarding Carroll's affinity for young girls. He didn't like boys. If he befriended them, he only did so because they afforded him access to girls he wanted to meet. He walked around parks with a bag full of games and puzzles to occupy girls with after meeting them. He admitted to becoming a pretty good mathematician because he often awoke late at night or early in the morning thinking thoughts that he felt he ought not be thinking and, to get his mind off them, he would start doing math tables in his head. Since he was a good mathematician, we can deduce he must have been doing math tables in his head quite often. As the girls aged, Carroll often broke off the relationship but not always. He knew Alice Liddell and her sisters well into their adulthood. He sometimes sketched girls in the nude but they were non-pornographic in nature and he always had their mothers present. He was never known to have hurt a child.

I don't really agree with the idea that he was a repressed pedophile. Repressed means to me someone with those proclivities but who denies he has them--not just to others but especially to himself. Repressed people are dangerous people and nothing about Carroll suggested that he was in any way a danger to anyone. Repressed homosexuals are the most pathetic lot of people you'll ever see. If they are not a danger to people, they are, at the very least, hypocrites. Look at the conservative republican men these last few months who have been caught having sex with other men. All of them were serving on committees that persecute gay people or oppose gay rights.

So, I think, Carroll admitted to himself that he had such feelings for girls but rather feel shame over it, he acknowledged it and so was better able to control it rather than obsess over it.