Lewis Carroll's Private Journal No. 8

9 May 1864 to 6 September 1864

Published in 1997 by the Lewis Carroll Society as Volume 4
Includes a 'reconstruction' of the details of Dodgson's life during the period covered by the missing two previous volumes (18 April 1858 to 8 May 1862).
397 pages.
ISBN-10: 0 904117 09 X
ISBN-13: 978 0 904117 09 7
Retail Price: £30
LCS Members' Price: £21

Synopsis

Photography was Dodgson's main recreational activity, and by the time of this eighth journal, it had become a frequent and time-consuming pastime. Dodgson's care and attention given to his hobby resulted in a systematic numbering of the majority of his photographic prints. This numbering, usually recorded on the back of his photographs and sometimes shown in mirror-image on the photographs themselves, is chronological.

Dodgson's continuing interest in the theatre and the arts is clearly evident during this period. In this journal he records his meetings with Oscar Rejlander, Arthur Hughes, Thomas Woolner, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Christina Rossetti, John Tenniel, John Everett Millais, Clementina Hawarden, Jenny Lind, Valentine Prinsep, Henry Kingsley, the Terry family, and George Frederick Watts, among other Victorian celebrities. His eagerness to meet famous people of his time, and his assiduous attempts to track them down and meet them through letters of introduction provided by his growing number of artistic and literary friends, tends to counter the suggestions of some biographers that Dodgson was a shy man. His diary tells a different story. Taking photographs of important people was, without doubt, one of his main objectives. He also enjoyed conversation and discussion with the literary people he admired.

Perhaps the most important event to be chronicled in the pages of this journal was Dodgson's boat-trip with the three Liddell sisters, Lorina, Alice and Edith, together with his friend Robinson Duckworth, on 4 July 1862, during which Alice's Adventures were first told. However, it received just one sentence and a few supplementary notes written in retrospect by Dodgson. He was characteristically modest about the event which was to make him famous throughout the world.

A noticeable feature of this journal is the use Dodgson makes of these pages for recording prayers and supplications to help him lead a better life. Although prayers occurred in earlier volumes, the frequency and earnestness began to take on greater proportions in this journal. There has been much speculation about the reasons and purposes of the prayers. Reading them in the context of his unfolding life, there is no clear and obvious reason which can account for them. They do show that he experienced moments of great self-doubt and guilt. Some prayers indicate that feelings of slothfulness and lack of attention to his duties as mathematical lecturer gave rise to regret. However, there are some prayers which are more personal and poignant. One gets a deep sense of Dodgson's inability to come to terms with the troubles in his mind, and a feeling that he was unable to control these feelings which caused him such anguish and concern, whatever the cause may have been.

Corrections to the LCS Edition of this Journal