Lewis Carroll Photographer

About this book

Long before he published Alices Adventures in Wonderland Charles Lutwidge Dodgson ("Lewis Carroll" to the world) took up photography as a hobby. Unlike most of the other amateurs in his circle he persevered to become a dedicated prolific and remarkably gifted photographer creating approximately 3 000 images during his twenty-five years of photographic activity. This handsomely designed volume makes clear the remarkable extent and complexity of Carrolls photographic art. It publishes for the first time the worlds finest and most extensive collection of Carroll photographs many of which have never been reproduced before and are unknown even to committed Carroll enthusiasts. Roger Taylors thorough and sophisticated discussion of Carroll as a photographic artist and as a prominent member of Victorian society reveals the man as never before illuminating his relationships with the children he photographed in light of the idealism and social conventions of the day. This text illustrated with exquisite tritone plates is followed by Edward Wakelings fully illustrated and thoroughly annotated catalogue of the entire Princeton University Library collection. It features in addition to a trove of loose prints four rare albums made by Carroll himself to showcase his work to friends family and potential sitters. Reproduced in album order these images offer new insight into how Carroll thought about his work--and how he wanted it to be seen. Compelling portraits of Alice Liddell and other children are presented alongside those of eminent Victorians such as Alfred Tennyson and William Holman Hunt as well as evocative landscapes narrative tableaux and wonderfully strange studies of anatomical skeletons. The catalogue is followed by a chronological register of every known Carroll photograph--a remarkable resource for anyone studying his career as a photographer. This sumptuous volume is the definitive work on Carrolls photography. All who admire Carroll and his writing as well as everyone interested in Victorian England or the history of photography will find it both essential and irresistible.