Author(s): Anne Higonnet

Photography

A man of many talents, Lewis Carroll (1832-1898), the pen name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, was a distinguished Professor of Mathematics at Christ Church College, Oxford and a successful author of children's books. Long before he published the famous "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" story, Carroll was a dedicated and prolific photographer, creating approximately 3,000 images during his twenty-five years of photographic activity. He is mostly remembered for his exceptional photographs of children, which include portraits of Alice Liddell, the inspiration behind his classic book. Carroll also used to compile his photographs into albums and send them to major cultural figures in Victorian society in the hope that they might want similar portraits of themselves or their children.His photographs thus include sitters such as the family of the Pre-Raphaelite painter and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Everett Millais and Alfred Lord Tennyson amongst others. His work also features portraits of close family and friends as well as landscapes and still lifes, demonstrating the remarkable extent and complexity of Carroll's photographic art.