Lewis Carroll's Friendships With Adult Women

The thesis makes the following points, among others:

The press has been the ones who have turned Lewis Carroll into a pedophile. Some of the photos he took of young girls would, in today's world, get him into a lot of trouble. (One thing I want to point out here: he did not just invite young girls up to his apartment and then take nude photos of them. He always went to the parents first and got their permission. Pedophiles don't go asking parents of young girls for permission like that.)

The author goes on to talk about how, at that time, taking nude photos of young girls were quite acceptable. Such young girls were viewed as innocence. One they started puberty, though, then attitudes changed. The thesis notes he did use models who were over 13 (but not just some young woman at random.)

It discusses two grown women who stayed with Carroll in seaside lodgings. Things like that is what the gossip about Carroll was.

In his diaries the author says he recorded relationships with grown women. He wrote over 225 letters to grown women. He even escorted married women up to London for the weekend according to the paper. His family was responsible for destroying many of his documents.

The writers says that neither his diaries or letters indicate any overwhelming attachment to Alice Liddell. Then it talks about how Alice in Wonderland came about and says that it's not true that the night of their journey on the river he rushed home to get to writing. Apparently he just wrote out the headings, sort of an outline of what he wanted to do.

For the last thirty years of his life there were very few references to Alice in his diaries.

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