Did Lewis Carroll take pictures of nude children?

Answer 1

It's impossible to be certain of such a thing, but what we can say is the image of his paedophilia that has been prevalent for so long as largely based on misunderstanding and imagination.

It is reported that Lewis Carroll did enjoy the company of children, but according to how the stories went this seemed to be in a very appropriate manner. He spent time around the Liddell children, telling the stories that became 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'.

The source of the accusations is Carroll's indisputable love for young girls and the fact he took photographs of several girls posed in the nude.

It is argued that while photographing naked children is shocking to our twenty-first century sensibilities, it was not so remarkable in the Victorian era during which time nude photographs of children, which represented innocence and purity, were considered quite normal and were a common subject. And it is worth bearing in mind that Carroll always took his photographs with the full knowledge of and permission from the girls' parents.

Carroll had deep and loving friendships with several children. Those who described their relationship with him in later life all described it with warmth and fondness. None of his child friends ever suggested that anything inappropriate or discomforting ever occurred.

Answer 2

There is speculation that Lewis Carroll, author of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland," took nude photographs of children. Some of his photographic subjects were nude or partially clothed, but the intention and context of these images are still debated among scholars and historians.

Answer 3

Your question needs improvement. Lewis Carroll (1832-1898) was not a painter; he was a photographer and an occasional artist who drew pictures of little girls. The word you want is "pedophile," spelled that way.

A lecturer in mathematics at Christ Church, Oxford, a logician, as well as the author of books for children, Lewis Carroll, the non-literary name of the Rev. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, was a Victorian. As many Victorians did, Carroll saw in children an innocence and purity that he idealized. A shy, introverted man who stuttered (the name of the Dodo in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) repeats his stutter, and the White Knight in Through the Looking Glass (1872) is also a gentle self-caricature), Carroll felt freest and most at home in the company of pre-adolescent girls. He made friends with many. He did not, however, use them in any way that Victorians or even that we today would consider improper.

He did photograph the real Alice of the books (Alice Pleasance Liddell (1852-1934), later Alice Hargreaves) and her sisters, plus Isa Bowman, Gertrude Chataway, Xie Kitchen, and other small girls whom he knew. He did make, with permission of their parents, some nude photographs of girls; four of these appear to have survived in hand colored examples. Although there can be no question that his erotic life, wholly suppressed, centered on children, he did not act on this impulse in any way that was considered improper. Throughout his life he lived in probity, in a highly moral way; he was devoutly religious. Whatever psychological drives lay behind the Alice books and behind Carroll's love of girls, he did not violate the innocence or purity of any of them. Indeed, sexuality appears to have frightened him and to have been a topic that his consciousness placed off limits.

Answer 4

yes