The Lewis Carroll Society Website - Lewis Carroll's Diaries

Published in 1994 by the Lewis Carroll Society as Volume 2
156 pages.
ISBN-10: 0 904117 07 3
ISBN-13: 978 0 904117 07 3
Retail Price: £25
LCS Members' Price: £14

Synopsis

This period includes a number of significant events that were to have lasting impact on his life.

In February, at the suggestion of Edmund Yates, editor of The Train, Dodgson selected his now famous pseudonym from a choice of four; Edgar Cuthwellis, Edgar U. C. Westhill, Louis Carroll, and Lewis Carroll.

In March, with the help of his friend Reginald Southey, Dodgson acquired a camera (the wet collodion process had been invented about five years earlier). He was to devote 25 years to his hobby, leaving an opus of some 3000 photographs that command attention today for their unique and carefully considered composition, high quality of production and confirmation of photography as an art-form. Dodgson used his diary to record his sitters, and in this early period of his “one recreation” he took photographs of works of art (some copied from the pages of The Art Journal), scenes in the Lake District and Whitby, the Bishop of Ripon and his family, and many pictures of his extended family and friends. Probably the most important diary entry from all his journals occurred in this volume when he noted on 25 April:"Went over with Southey in the afternoon to the Deanery, to try and take a photograph of the Cathedral: both attempts proved failures. The three little girls were in the garden most of the time, and we became excellent friends: we tried to group them in the foreground of the picture, but they were not patient sitters. I mark this day with a white stone."

His meeting with Alice Liddell was to have a profound influence on his life and future reputation as an author. This journal listed a number of Victorian novels and poems that Dodgson read (Kingsley's Alton Locke, Tennyson's Maud, Dicken's Little Dorrit, Yonge's Heartsease, and Bronte's Wuthering Heights, among others), and in many cases he included his critical opinion of these books. He recorded his early literary contributions to national magazines. The summer was spent travelling in the Lake District and North Yorkshire and he described his holiday adventures; the places he visited and the people he met. Early excursions to the theatre are noted. The journal ends with a report of his “one-man” entertainment for the children (and parents) of Croft School during which he presented a magic lantern show, sang six solo songs, led the children in singing well-known songs of the day, and gave his impersonation of theatrical characters – not quite the activity of the shy and retiring character we have often been led to believe by his biographers

Corrections to the LCS Edition of this Journal

Page	Section	Correction
10	7 Jan 1856	footnote 10: Rosamond Esther Harriet (1844-1936)
12	7 Jan 1856	{the Greek is not accurately transcribed - accents have been omitted}
26	22 Jan 1856	footnote 49: ... photographic expedition to Richmond on 8 September 1855
44	26 Feb 1856	footnote 88: William Jacobson (1804-84)
59	3 Apr 1856	footnote 119: James Baker (1825-97)
62	14 Apr 1856	footnote 124: Charles Dodgson (1722-96)
67	1 May 1856	... Did some photographs with the spoiled collodion ...
68	8 May 1856	... Got some chemicals from London: 4oz iodised collodion ...
69	10 May 1856	footnote 136: The photograph of Henry Liddell in profile, among other photographs of him, are in the Southey albums (Princeton)
70	13 May 1856	footnote: For details of Southey's photograph of Harry Liddell see n. 136 above.
85	26 Jun 1856	Mrs Nichol {sic} arrived in the evening.
		footnote 170; Frances "Fanny" Mary Nicholl née Tweed (b. 1836), wife of Hume Nicholl (1834-95). They married in 1854.
87	9 Jul 1856	footnote 175: Caroline Robinson (1826) Job James Bulman of Coxlodge. Caroline was the daughter of George Robinson (father of William R and James Septimus Robinson) of Hendon Lodge, Sunderland. George's mother was Elizabeth Dixon, daughter of James Dixon, a coal fitter of Great Chilton. George Robinson founded the wine business which later became known as Bramwell & Robinson at 13/14 Church Street.
88	11 Jul 1856	footnote 178: Lucy Hutchinson Tate (1842-73); Ellen (1833-42); Charles Grey (1836-1900); John Samuel (1839-87)
105	8 Oct 1856	footnote 203: Henry Poole (1808-78) married firstly Elizabeth Noad (1819-49) in 1839, and they had five children: Isabel Mary (1840-68), Henrietta Elizabeth (1842-81), Henry Skeffington (b. 1844), Catherine Lucy (b. 1846), and Margaret Ellen (b. 1848). He married secondly Margaret Munro (1827-66) in 1851, and they had three children: Charles Arthur (1852-57), Mary Annie (b. 1853), and Octavia Charlotte (1854-55).
108	22 Oct 1856	footnote 209: ... who married James W. Frederick Lowthorpe
121	3 Dec 1856	footnote 234: Mrs. Litton, possibly the wife of Edward A. Litton (1813-97), and Robert Harry Inglis Synnot (1838-72) who matriculated at Christ Church in 1856: BA 1860, MA 1863.
122	12 Dec 1856	... and a Miss Louisa Vinning finished it ...
126	23 Dec 1856	footnote 244: Germain Lavie (b. 1836)
143	Index	Lavie, Germain
144	Index	Lowthorpe, James W. Frederick
152	15 Dec 1862	footnote 137. William Tuckwell is incorrectly described as headmaster of "Taunton School". He was headmaster of Bishop Fox's school, which has also been referred to as the "college school".

Updated:15 April 2005