- Hardcover: 294 pages
- Publisher: Peter Owen Ltd; illustrated edition edition (29 Mar 1999)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0720610443
- ISBN-13: 978-0720610444
- Product Dimensions: 22.4 x 14.4 x 2.1 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
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- #46 in Books > Biography > Science, Mathematics & Technology > Mathematics
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Charles Dodgson - aka Lewis Carroll, the author of the Alice books - was interested in photography, and his enthusiasm for photographing naked small girls has meant that he has come to be regarded as a passive paedophile. This new book sets out to show that this reputation is undeserved, and does so triumphantly. Dodgson's family appear to have tolerated the accusations of paedophilia in order to disguise a more enthusiastic interest in mature women - a less forgivable moral lapse! The book is a strange, fascinating and entirely original piece of research, showing considerable insight into Victorian social attitudes. (Kirkus UK) --.
In a vigorous effort to subvert the "potent mythology" surrounding Lewis Carroll, ne Charles Dodgson (1832-1898) - that he was a "Victorian clergyman, shy and prim, and locked to some degree in perpetual childhood," and, oddly at the same time a pedophile - Leach, a British playwright, claims that Dodgson had relationships with several mature women, albeit often selfish and cruel ones. These included the artist Gertrude Thomson and the writer Anna Thackery. The eponymous "dreamchild" is Alice Liddell, the daughter of Dodgson's dean at Christ College, Oxford, upon whom Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is based and for whom Dodgson assumed the role of attentive father figure. But by studying the "psychological crisis" evident in Dodgson's fragmentary journals (many pages were cut out and destroyed by relatives who feared scandal), Leach suggests Dodgson was more involved with Liddell's wife than with Alice and proposes that the seemingly suggestive photos of young girls that Dodgson took stem, in part, from "strange Victorian child-cult" in which "innocence was expressed ultimately through an affected and devotional love of children." As artfully told as a fine detective story, Leach's story of what truly seems a conspiracy among Dodgson scholars cogently argues that although new materials on Carroll have been released since the late 1970's (his unexpurgated diary, Leach says "is at present being prepared for publication"), the permanent sabotage of many of his papers has made it virtually impossible ever to attain a clear picture of this unusual individual. --Publishers Weekly
In a vigorous effort to subvert the "potent mythology" surrounding Lewis Carroll, ne Charles Dodgson (1832-1898) - that he was a "Victorian clergyman, shy and prim, and locked to some degree in perpetual childhood," and, oddly at the same time a pedophile - Leach, a British playwright, claims that Dodgson had relationships with several mature women, albeit often selfish and cruel ones. These included the artist Gertrude Thomson and the writer Anna Thackery. The eponymous "dreamchild" is Alice Liddell, the daughter of Dodgson's dean at Christ College, Oxford, upon whom Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is based and for whom Dodgson assumed the role of attentive father figure. But by studying the "psychological crisis" evident in Dodgson's fragmentary journals (many pages were cut out and destroyed by relatives who feared scandal), Leach suggests Dodgson was more involved with Liddell's wife than with Alice and proposes that the seemingly suggestive photos of young girls that Dodgson took stem, in part, from "strange Victorian child-cult" in which "innocence was expressed ultimately through an affected and devotional love of children." As artfully told as a fine detective story, Leach's story of what truly seems a conspiracy among Dodgson scholars cogently argues that although new materials on Carroll have been released since the late 1970's (his unexpurgated diary, Leach says "is at present being prepared for publication"), the permanent sabotage of many of his papers has made it virtually impossible ever to attain a clear picture of this unusual individual. --Publishers Weekly
Daily Telegraph
'Persuasive . . . Leach makes a good case'
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A daring but convincing new look at Lewis Carroll,
By A Customer
This review is from: Lewis Carroll - In the Shadow of the Dreamchild: New Understanding of Lewis Carroll (Hardcover)
If you thought Lewis Carroll was a shy, weedy confirmed bachelor who could only talk to little girls, think again after reading this book. I don't quite agree with Leach's vision of Carroll as virtually a sex god, but what she writes makes a lot of sense and she certainly demolishes the idea of him being fixated on little girls. In fact, it seems almost certain from the evidence that his family were panic stricken at his relationships with many grown up women, with whom he blatantly defied convention. The Charles L. Dodgson who appears in this book is a hard to pin down, utterly fascinating, complex and emotional man whose family have tried to push the view of him as a little-girl fixated oddity for years - and are apparently still doing so. Apparently they were hostile to this book, and it makes you wonder why, 100 years after his death, they still push the idea of their famous relative as a virginal quasi paedophile when the evidence suggests that this is very unlikely indeed. The book's only weak point is the idea that he had an affair with Mrs. Liddell. An affair yes, but not with her. I can't see it in a tiny, closed community like Christ Church was - and probably still is. Mrs. Liddell sounds too aware of her social position to bother with someone as low status as Carroll. The Liddells were very important people, and when Alice & Co were young Carroll seemed like a terrible match for their daughters, as nobody was to know he'd become world famous, (and also, to be honest, he sounds quite over emotional and difficult to deal with too). If you ever had the slightest interest in the author of Alice, read this book. It will probably make you even more interested in him.
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent and Accurate,
By A Customer
This review is from: Lewis Carroll - In the Shadow of the Dreamchild: New Understanding of Lewis Carroll (Hardcover)
The earlier reviewer who attacked this book got one thing right - this is a detective story and one of the best. But to describe this seminal and now highly influential book as 'fiction' smacks of a desperate defence by the 'old school' who are having to come to terms with the fact that they are simply wrong. Abuse is used in place of honest criticism - and this shows they have already lost the argument.Contrary to the silly claims of the earlier reviewer, Leach doesn't base her argument on a 'scrap of paper' - as the writer of the previous review must know. She bases her argument on a mass of first hand evidence that clearly shows Lewis Carroll was not the shy adult-fearing man of legend. Her book appeared five years ago - and to this day no one has been able to fault her research or most of her conclusions. This is why they must resort to the kind of silly ad hominems about 'fiction' and 'fantasy'. Don't be taken in by these devices. Read the book and make up your own minds
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Lewis Carroll Through the Looking-Glass,
By A Customer
This review is from: Lewis Carroll - In the Shadow of the Dreamchild: New Understanding of Lewis Carroll (Hardcover)
For children - and those with a taste for nonsense literature - "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and its sequel "Through the Looking-Glass" are charming fancies from the pen of a master storyteller. Lewis Carroll is an ever-indulgent friend whose wonderfully absurdist fantasies and unforgettable characters serve as lifelong delights. But to the adult, the cynic or the biographer, "Lewis Carroll" is the barely-adherent mask covering the dark fathoms of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson - the lifelong bachelor with a dislike of boys, the voyeur with a taste for photographing nude prepubescent girls, the barely-suppressed paedophile whose fictions are thinly disguised confessions of his lusts. Indeed, this view of Dodgson is so commonplace that it comes as a shock to be shown and told there is no truth to any of it.The cetral thesis of "In the Shadow of the Dreamchild" is easily stated - rather than being the shy, weedy eccentric whose books were a sublimated love letter to the child Alice Liddell, Karoline Leach tells us Dodgson was, in fact, a vital man of wit, intellect and charm who, if he had a sexual relationship with any of the Liddell women, bedded not prepubescent Alice, but almost certainly her mother Lorina.Not a striking revelation, one might think, until such a thesis is presented in direct opposition to the legendary "Lewis Carroll." Miss Leach has put herself in the unenviable position not only of challenging the legend of Carroll, but questioning the entire drift of Dodgson study. If she is correct - and her book marshals many supportive arguments - all previous interpretations of "Alice," "Looking-Glass," "Sylvie and Bruno" and "The Hunting of the Snark" as seen through the prism of Dodgson's presumed paedophilia must not only be reconsidered, but in many cases discarded altogether.It would be a disservice to Miss Leach's book to present a full summary of her arguments in support of her "new understanding." She has, however, made discoveries in private Dodgson family papers which assist her speculation for an affair between him and Lorina Liddell, and believes such an interpretation - as well as offering new explanations for his literary allusions - solves one of the central mysteries in Dodgson's life: why he was allowed to live out his life at Christ Church without ever taking holy orders, in direct violation of both college rules and his own avowed intention.The Charles Dodgson who emerges from these pages is by turns charming and cold, inspired and insufferable, entertaining and evasive. He is, in short, a fully-rounded individual free of the pallid "dreamer" image he, his family and subsequent biographers strove so hard to sustain. Lewis Carroll does not live in this book - but Charles Dodgson does.
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