Christ Church receives remarkable Lewis Carroll donation
One of the world’s largest privately held collection of letters, photographs, books, illustrations and other materials by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832–98), known internationally under the pen name 'Lewis Carroll', has been donated to Christ Church. The unique collection was gifted by the American businessman, philanthropist, book collector and author–editor Jon A. Lindseth, who also donated historically important works by the English artist, poet, author and musician Edward Lear (1812–88).
Today Lewis Carroll is best known for his Alice books, which have delighted generations of children the world over, as well as being adapted for Hollywood films, but the author’s professional life was spent chiefly as an academic – a mathematician and logician at Christ Church, University of Oxford. Excelling here as a student, he received the Christ Church Mathematical Lectureship in 1855 and remained at the College in various guises until his death in 1898. It is at Christ Church that Carroll met Alice Liddell, daughter of the College's Dean Henry Liddell and the original inspiration for Alice in Wonderland, and it is here that he produced the hundreds of letters, photographs and sketches that now return home as part of the remarkable collection expertly curated by Jon Lindseth.
Lindseth is General Editor of Alice in a World of Wonderlands: The Translations of Lewis Carroll’s Masterpiece (Oak Knoll in cooperation with the Lewis Carroll Society of North America, 2015) and Alice in a World of Wonderlands: The English Language Editions of the Four Alice Books Published Worldwide (ATBOSH Media Ltd. in cooperation with the Lewis Carroll Society of North America, 2023). He has written on Lewis Carroll for the journals of the Lewis Carroll Society (London) and the Lewis Carroll Society of North America and has curated two exhibitions on Carroll and his achievements at The Grolier Club of New York. In the words of Arnold Hirshon, President of the Lewis Carroll Society of North America and Lindseth Family University Librarian Emeritus, 'Over the years, Jon has proved himself to be more than an exceptional collector – he is also an outstanding scholar and a generous benefactor who has underwritten and advances research about the works of Lewis Carroll.'
Since Christ Church was Carroll’s home for most of his life, it is no surprise that its Library – where the author even served as Sub-Librarian for a time – has long been one of the foremost archives of his works. With this unparalleled donation from Lindseth, however, there can now be no doubt that the College is now the pre-eminent institutional collection of Lewis Carroll material in the UK. This gift transforms Christ Church’s collection of Carroll materials, representing the largest donation to the Library since his day.
Included in the Jon A. Lindseth Lewis Carroll Collection are more than 200 autograph letters from Carroll. It also contains a vast number of significant early editions of his works, including the Alice books, The Hunting of the Snark and mathematical works including The Game of Logic and Symbolic Logic. Many of the printed books are presentation copies from Carroll. Of particular note is a first edition of the 1886 facsimile copy of Alice’s Adventures Under Ground inscribed to Alice’s mother Lorina Liddell, inscribed by Carroll in purple ink: 'To Her, whose children’s smiles fed the narrator’s fancy and were his rich reward: from the Author. Xmas 1886.'
Carroll is considered one of the best amateur photographers of his time. He had a photographic studio built on the roof of his rooms at Christ Church. The Lindseth collection contains over 100 Carroll photographs including the iconic image of Alice Liddell as 'The Beggar Maid', photographs of Alexandra 'Xie' Kitchin and of Carroll’s friends and noted figures of his day such as Alfred Lord Tennyson and Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
The collection also contains proofs, drawings by Carroll and by his foremost illustrators John Tenniel and Harry Furniss. Materials related to Carroll illustrate his work’s contemporary and ongoing cultural impact, a very rich collection of reference works and an exceptional collection of Carroll books in translation from the very early translations through to more recent ones issued by Evertype Publishing who specialise in 'Wonderland and Carrolliana'.
The Jon A. Lindseth Lewis Carroll Collection is of tremendous scholarly value and the Library looks forward to making it accessible to current and future generations. Cataloguing and digitisation of the collection has just started and the Library team welcomes enquiries at any time to library@chch.ox.ac.uk.
An exhibition displaying some of the most exceptional items in the Jon A. Lindseth Lewis Carroll Collection has begun and runs until 17 April. Learn more about the exhibition here.
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