Sex in History – Alice In Wonderland

The new Alice in Wonderland movie has been creating quite the buzz since its opening. The new 3D movement has made this epic story a must see. However, the few times I’ve commented on Lewis Carroll’s past to movie/book enthusiasts, I was met with great resistance. So who was Lewis Carroll and why is his history seeping in sexual mystery?

Lewis Carroll (known by birth as Charles Dodgson) was the author of two immortal children’s books, Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. But Carroll, a renowned Oxford University mathematician, writer and photographer was – to put it mildly – interested in little girls.

The Alice books were written for Alice Liddell, the young daughter of an Oxford dean. Alice was however only one of Carroll’s many young friends, as the writer had a succession of close friendships with at least 40 girls – friendships that generally (though not always) faded when the girls reached their teen years. He wrote thousands of letters to these girls, often illustrating them with his own notable artwork or photography. This photography was a great passion for Carroll, as he photographed innumerable young girls, many of them naked. And no, Carroll never married.

To diagnose the great writer as a heterosexual pedophile is fraught with risk and is complicated by conflicting motives: the desire to read psychopathology into the lives of important historical figures versus the desire to preserve the sanctity of one of the world’s most beloved children’s authors. Many biographical writers downplay the pedophile possibility by describing Carroll as a Peter Pan-like figure who was socially inept and simply remained asexual throughout his life. Others however point to his diaries (which still exist) and the deep guilt he expressed but never made clear, mixed with the fact that some key pages of these diaries have been excised.

Even if we accept the likelihood that Carroll was a pedophile, it is still impossible to know whether he limited his activities to simple voyeurism (as his photography suggests) or went that unspeakable step further, to actual sexual contact with children. Unless the mystery diary pages resurface, Carroll’s sexuality is likely to remain an enigma. But perhaps some things are better left as such. After all, eating magic mushrooms, chasing white rabbits and running from the Queen of hearts, poses enough symbolic questions on their own.

Tags: 3D, Alice In Wonderland, childrens books, Dr. Teesha Morgan, Lewis Carroll, mushrooms, pedophile, Through the Looking Glass

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