Was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) a paedophile, a pornographer, or both ?

A recent BBC documentary entitled  The Secret World of Lewis Caroll  produced some fairly strong circumstantial evidence to suggest that the answer is a qualified yes.

There was also argument to suggest that he was only a “repressed paedophile”and arguments (from those not wishing to see Caroll’s reputation sullied) that the attitude towards young children and their budding sexuality was far more liberal in the Victorian age.

Broadcaster and journalist Martha Kearney noted that in Victorian times the “fascination with the innocence of young girls was widespread”. So here are the  images demonstrating Dodgson’s fascination with the innocence of young girls.

The one that is cited most frequently is the photograph of Alice, taken in the family garden.  It’s difficult not to see this as anything other than a highly sexualised portrait of the very young child.  Certainly this looks more like a Victorian street urchin than the daughter of a Dean at Oxford University.

It worth contrasting this particular photo with another, altogether more demure one, that Dodgson took of Alice. It’s very easy to read too much into a single photograph. But there is an element within Dodgson’s photographic work that we would now interpret differently with a modern sensibility about the nature of the sexual relationships between older men and young girls.

There is no doubt that Alice is a precociously beautiful young girl and it is worth contrasting two photographs by famous American photographer Sally Mann of her daughter Candy. Like Alice, Candy is a precociously beautiful young girl. But the photos of Candy show young girl playing grown-ups and offer an important insight into the way in which an adult world of impinges on a child’s world.

Sally Mann is clearly a much better photographer than Dodgson ever was and her work has a far more confrontational aspect than Carroll’s but nonetheless in the first photograph of Alice, we have a young girl who appears to have been dressed up by the photographer to fulfil some idea ( fantasy?) of the photographer rather than to reflect the child at play or in some natural setting as is the case in much of Mann’s work.

Then there’s the picture of Alice kissing Dodgson.  Again, the picture has highly sexualised overtones. To the modern sensibility this is inappropriate behaviour and it’s certainly naive to be photographing it.  But perhaps that’s it. Perhaps Dodgson was simply very naive.

However, it is puzzling to understand why Dodgson would have taken such a photo in the first place and how and why it became public. It would be difficult to imagine that he would be likely to show a photograph like this to Alice’s parents. It is also unlikely that they would have agreed to it being in the public domain, especially given that her father was the Dean of Christ Church College, Oxford, presumably a pillar of respectable society.

Then there is a series of photographs that he had published in the late 1870s.

Beatrice Seated Before the White Cliffs

 This is a photograph of Beatrice Sheward Hatch, taken with the knowledge and consent of her mother, Evelyn, who moved in “stimulating circles”.  One can assume that the other two photos of Beatrice’s sister, also Evelyn, with similarly taken with her mother’s consent. So perhaps this is as innocent as the Caroll supporters would argue.

 Evelyn Hatch

Evelyn Hatch

Annie and Frances Henderson

One of the legal tests for defining pornography is “redeeming artistic merit”. In my opinion these pictures fail on this particular count and you could probably say that they are slightly on the wrong side of tacky but just short of purient.

But then at the end of the BBC programme came the stunning revelation. The programme’s producers had discovered some  of Dodgson’s photographs of Alice’s sister, Lorina, in a French museum one of which is a full frontal nude.

It’s difficult to argue that this is anything other than child pornography.

It is well known that there was a break between Dodgson and the Lindell family. The reasons for it have been open to speculation. The most widely accepted is that the Liddel family found out about Dodgson’s infatuation with Lorina.  However, they may also have found out about photographs like this one. It’s difficult to imagine any parents being pleased about this.

So where does this leave us in our assessment of Charles Dodgson?

On balance, its likely that by our modern definition, he was engaged in taking child pornography.   And possibly there will be revelations of other work that is hidden away in archives that will confirm this over time.

Coming close on the suggestion that Dodgson was a pornographer is the suggestion that he was also a paedophile. There is nothing to suggest that this was the case, no rumour, no innuendo. But more importantly there is nothing in the commentary of the women he photographed as children to suggest that it was any sexual element in his relationship with them.

The case of Dodgson in many ways a similar case of Woody Allen. For those who accept the veracity of the claims against Allen, they constitute a significantly negative element in the assessment of his work.

Lewis Carroll’s standing as a writer of children’s literature is far more significant than Allen’s as a film producer. However, it will be difficult from now on to read Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland without the shadow of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson falling across the page.

Readers may also be interested in

David Hamilton: The nymphets and the line between art and soft-core pornography

Can any of David Hamilton’s work be judged to be pornographic?

David Hamilton: bringing a soft focus to soft-core porn

Two views of female sexuality: David Hamilton’s Nymphettes and Norman Lindsay’s Amazons

David Hamilton and the sexuality of the nymphet (ii)

David Hamilton’s work did much to glamorise the sexual transition of the nymphet to the butterfly. His is not the world of pimples and awkwardness but of fabulously long-legged and beautiful young blondes floating around the etherial French countryside bathed in soft light and muslin dresses. Over time, his work underwent a series of subtle transitions: the muted erotic images of his early work gave way to more voyeuristic views of his young models. The emphasis moved subtlety from their beautiful faces to their rather less attractive genitalia. There was also a move towards sexualising the young women as the imagery moved from innocent young women exploring their surrounds to young lesbians exploring each other.

His early work was characterised by the wonderful photographs of the two young women in the French countryside.

These were wonderful compositions that captured the innocence of the young woman in the idealised countryside. They also showed the budding and blossoming of young friendships, as well as of young bodies.

The blossoming of the friendships was never free of erotic overtone. In many ways, the young subjects of Hamilton’s photography appeared to be non-existent outside their own sexuality.

The carefree gambolling and bicycle rides in the countryside appeared to be a thing of the past as Hamilton increasingly explored the developing sexuality and lesbian relationships between his subjects.

So the question arises: When does the celebration of the transition of young girl to young woman become male-oriented voyeurism? The photograph above must be getting close to that borderline. The issue is the extent to which Hamilton’s portrayal of these young women continues to be a celebration of the nymphet or has simply become a sexualisation of their obvious beauty.

Hamilton recalls an incident when he was young. He goes to visit a young woman he is attracted to and looks at the front door of her apartment:

She was naked on her bed; lying on her back, one leg outstretched and the other bent over. A lovely picture—a painting by Bonnard come to life. I looked at her for a moment, then realised that she was not alone; a man slept next to her, he too was naked. I left the rose for her. In my mind’s eye the image remains; the girl asleep in that beautiful position, the sheets in disarray; it is a favourite pose, which I have used many times in my photographs.

From this account, Hamilton makes it clear that this was an extremely sexually charged experience for him and he returns to this particular image again and again.

These images and this experience are important because they provide a very clear connection between the sexual nature of the relationship between the photographer and the model. It also shows the way an artist can return to sets of central themes in the composition of his photographs.

There is an element of Hamilton’s work that consists of pictures of very young nudes, possibly as young as 10. Set in the context of Hamilton’s consistent sexualising of his models, this takes is work to an area which may be increasingly discomforting for his audience. Many serious photographers have taken photographs of naked children: Bill Henson, Jock Sturges and Sally Mann and none have been free of controversy. Looking at the work of these three artists, it is possible to see the limitations of Hamilton’s work and the way in which these limitations are imposed by the relatively narrow nature of his vision of young girls. It is difficult to imagine Hamilton taking a photograph like Sally Mann’s evocative Candy Cigarette, 1989

Or a photo like Jock Sturges Estelle et Mylene, Montalivet, France where the subjects seem far less constrained by the photographers view of them and direct a quizzical and slightly confrontational gaze towards the camera.

Every photographer develops their own style and Hamilton was no exception. His photographs are immediately recognisable but it is his inimitable style which makes his photographs so beautiful but which ultimately serves as a limitation to the range and depth of his work.

The final photograph bears all the hallmarks of Hamilton’s handling of light and of the compositional strength of his photographs.

More on David Hamilton

David Hamilton’s soft porn images inspire new novel “The Merkin Chronicles“