The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll
by Stuart Dodgson Collingwood

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Title: The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll

Author: Stuart Dodgson Collingwood

Release Date: March 6, 2004 [EBook #11483]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE

LIFE AND LETTERS

OF

LEWIS CARROLL

(REV. C. L. DODGSON)

BY

STUART DODGSON COLLINGWOOD

B.A. CHRIST CHURCH, OXFORD

1898

TO THE

CHILD FRIENDS

OF

LEWIS CARROLL

AND TO ALL WHO LOVE HIS WRITINGS

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED

PREFACE

It is with no undue confidence that I have accepted the
invitation of the brothers and sisters of Lewis Carroll to write
this Memoir. I am well aware that the path of the biographer is
beset with pitfalls, and that, for him, _suppressio veri_ is
almost necessarily _suggestio falsi_--the least omission may
distort the whole picture.

To write the life of Lewis Carroll as it should be written
would tax the powers of a man of far greater experience and
insight than I have any pretension to possess, and even he would
probably fail to represent adequately such a complex personality.
At least I have done my best to justify their choice, and if in
any way I have wronged my uncle's memory, unintentionally, I
trust that my readers will pardon me.

My task has been a delightful one. Intimately as I thought I
knew Mr. Dodgson during his life, I seem since his death to have
become still better acquainted with him. If this Memoir helps
others of his admirers to a fuller knowledge of a man whom to
know was to love, I shall not have written in vain.

I take this opportunity of thanking those who have so kindly
assisted me in my work, and first I must mention my old
schoolmaster, the Rev. Watson Hagger, M.A., to whom my readers
are indebted for the portions of this book dealing with Mr.
Dodgson's mathematical works. I am greatly indebted to Mr.
Dodgson's relatives, and to all those kind friends of his and
others who have aided me, in so many ways, in my difficult