The Man Who Loved Children: Lewis Carroll Studies' Evidence Problem

Abstract

Recent decades have witnessed a trend in Lewis Carroll studies to dismiss investigations into Charles Dodgson’s sexuality as outmoded, even unscholarly. This is partly a response to the speculative biographical criticism of the 1990s, which placed undue emphasis on his alleged pedophilia. But it also speaks to a proprietary attitude towards the author’s extensive archival record by those who claim to understand him best. This essay argues that the question of Dodgson’s sexuality gains new relevance in the current cultural climate, which asks us to reassess our enthusiasm for the work of male artists with troubling sexual proclivities. As Through the Looking-Glass’s sesquicentenary approaches, it is particularly important that we examine Dodgson’s desires without either demonizing or dismissing them. One possible mode of engagement is to approach his relationships with young girls and adolescents in terms of their tremendous scale, so that quantification precludes any need for speculation. Examining over twenty years’ worth of diary entries recorded during Dodgson’s annual holidays in Eastbourne, I show that the author's enormous emotional and temporal investment in cultivating and documenting child-friendships functions as its own form of evidence, one that is collective and highly suggestive rather than singular and definitive.