Edith Mary Liddell (1854-1876), by Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson), an albumen print, Spring 1860. 5 7/8 in. x 7 in. (148 mm x 177 mm) uneven. © The National Portrait Gallery, London, NPG P991(6), by kind permission. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
The child's expression is supremely natural: she looks bored and sulky. Holding such a pose must have been easier than standing still, but no child enjoys having to be stuck in one spot for any length of time. Edith was one of Alice Liddell's siblings. Looking back, Alice (once the model for Dodgson's fictional Alice, and by then Mrs Reginald Hargreaves) wrote: "Most of Mr. Dodgson's stories were told to us on river expeditions to Nuneham or Godstow, near Oxford. My eldest sister, now Mrs. Skene, was " Prima," I was " Secunda," and "Tertia" was my sister Edith" (qtd. in Collingwood 96).
Image download, text and formatting by Jacqueline Banerjee. You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the source and (2) link your document to this URL or cite the Victorian Web in a print document.
Related Material
Reference
Collingwood, Stuart Dodgson. The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll (Rev. C. L. Dodgson). London: Unwin, 1898. Internet Archive. From the Fisher Walsh collection, University of Toronto. Web. 11 May 2015.
Created 11 May 2015