Lewis Carroll was an Oxford don, and owned thousands of books. They offer a unique insight into the topics which specially interested him.
Medical Books
His collection included many medical books, for he.was fascinated by both the human mind and the human body.
He thought highly of Sir James Paget’s book “Clinical Lectures.” He was personally acquainted with the distinguished Dr. Paget, Surgeon to the Prince of Wales, and Paget had attended Carroll’s favourite uncle when he was ill. “Clinical Lectures” covers subjects ranging from surgical topics like strangulated hernia to what we would now call psychosomatic symptoms: “Nervous Mimicry” or “Stuttering with Other Organs than Those of Speech.”
Psychology Titles
Psychology was in its infancy during Carroll’s lifetime, and he owned many books about madness and by the workings of the sane mind. Among the books on psychology that he owned were Benjamin Brodie’s “Psychological Inquiries” which aimed to illustrate how the mind and body worked together in matters such as stammering. (Carroll was plagued by a stammer and sought help for it all his life.)
Carroll not only knew Professor Brodie personally but he also took his children out rowing on the river in the 1860s, not long after he ceased taking the Liddell children out. Perhaps he told Professor Brodie’s children stories too!
Books on Literature
Apart from his medical books, which ran into hundreds, the largest category of books in Lewis Carroll’s library was that of literature, with over seven hundred titles recorded.
Some of these books were valuable first editions, and some were rather surprising to find in a churchman’s library, such as Swinburne’s scandalous “Poems and Ballads” of 1866. Carroll had also met Swinburne, although he never recorded what he thought of him.
Famous Novelists
His taste in reading shows that he liked many of the famous authors of the Victorian era. They include Dickens, the Brontes (although only one book by George Eliot).
He was very fond of the American author James Fenimore Cooper, who wrote many sea stories and historical tales, and owned many of his books. In later life he liked the stories of Rudyard Kipling. He loved poetry, and had a rather stormy personal relationship with his favourite poet Tennyson, all of whose works he owned.
He was also a fan of Robert Louis Stevenson and the now half-forgotten Maria Edgeworth, the Anglo-Irish writer. Carroll had family links with Ireland, and owned her political “Essay on Irish Bulls” but most of the Maria Edgeworth books he owned were for children, and since her books were popular in his own childhood, these are probably some of his own favourite boyhood books.
He also owned popular children's books of the later19th century, like Stevenson's "Treasure Island" and "Kidnapped" and a whole library of Comic Nursery Tales, among others.
Theology and Religion
His Christian faith was important to Carroll. His many books on theology ranged between collections of H.P. Liddon’s closely argued High Church sermons to the intriguing, anonymously written “Fallen Angels” which deals with pain and suffering in the context of reincarnation and evolution. In fact, Carroll attended the famous 1860 debate between Huxley and Wilberforce at the Oxford Union. He was particularly concerned about how evolution related to religion – a topic which preoccupied many religious Victorians.
Entire books could be written about the contents of Carroll’s library, and this article gives just a tiny hint of the wide ranging interests of his unusual mind.
For more about Lewis Carroll, take a look at this article about his money, or at The Mystery of Lewis Carroll.
Jennifer Woolf - Jennifer Woolf
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