Los Angeles Adult Entertainment: Even-handed, fascinating look at Alice creator
Woolf effectively deals with these issues. She shows clearly that the nudity of little girls was considered in Victorian times to be the epitome of innocence and beauty, that Carroll was following a painting and photographic tradition, that there was never a hint by his subjects of anything but a chaste, innocent and caring relationship, and that Carroll took great care with those relationships to avoid controversy.
She shows that his professed hatred of boys was a pose, that he had friendships with both genders and a wide variety of ages, and some significant friendships with older women, and that he enjoyed confronting conventional morality while at the same time espousing high moral principles.
Woolf deftly juggles known facts about Carroll’s life and Victorian time with reasonable inferences; there are no wild leaps of faith that has allowed other biographers to superimpose upon Carroll their own sense of what he must have done.
Take, for example, her excellent discussion of whether Carroll’s diary notes of asking for forgiveness for sin imply that he had an adulterous affair, or that he engaged prostitutes, as others have conjectured.
See the full article from “Winnipeg Free Press”