November 2017 Auction Ends Thursday, November 16th, 5pm Pacific
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 11/16/2017
Charles Dodgson autograph letter twice-signed, datelined Christ Church on 29 July 1875. Dodgson writes to a man whose daughter had enjoyed ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' and apparently requested a signed copy from Dodgson. The letter also references Dodgson's controversial preference for photos of young girls, as he requests one of the girl. Penned in his signature purple ink, Dodgson writes in full, ''My dear Sir, I have much pleasure in sending a presentation-copy of 'Alice' for your daughter, inscribed as you suggest: & I have also ventured to inscribe some acrostic-verses on her name, hoping that she is still enough of a child to allow such a composition to be addressed to her. Perhaps you will kindly tell me her age when next you write (in fact the names & ages of the family would be of interest to me), & if the art of photography is as rife with you as it is here, & she would kindly give me a likeness of herself, it would be some consolation for the fact that in all human probability 'I shall never see' herself. / You need not trouble yourself very particularly to keep my name a secret. I do not make a secret of it here, & no doubt many have been told it - but I don't want it printed, as I wish the book to retain its present anonymous character. / Thank you for the next copy of verses in the Transit of Venus - which I presume are your own. You lose something of effect, I think, in [?] the 'Don Juan' stanza of two lines; one fancies that the ear rather needs the dis-alternating lines, in order to rest comfortably on the final couplet. / You will observe a [?] in the last of my verses: the last line but one ought to have been 'indented', since it rhymes with the last line - / Hoping that the book will reach its destination safely, I remain very truly yours / CL Dodgson / P.S. My address is simply 'Rev. C.L. Dodgson / Ch. Ch. Oxford' - I have no other titles. We don't usually append the academical 'M.A.'''. Four-page letter on card-style stationery measures 4.5'' x 7''. Folds and light creasing, otherwise near fine condition with bold handwriting.
Charles Dodgson Autograph Letter Twice-Signed -- ''...I have much pleasure sending a presentation copy of 'Alice' for your daughter...''
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