Skip to main content

This auction has ended. View lot details

You may also be interested in

Own a similar item?

Submit your item online for a free auction estimate.

Lot 18

DODGSON (CHARLES LUTWIDGE)
Autograph letter signed (C.L. Dodgson"), to "My dear Mayo", refusing point blank to meet his nephew: Christ Church, Oxford, 1 May 1893

24 June 2015, 11:00 BST
London, Knightsbridge

Sold for £2,750 inc. premium

Own a similar item?

Submit your item online for a free auction estimate.

How to sell

Looking for a similar item?

Our Books & Manuscripts specialists can help you find a similar item at an auction or via a private sale.

Find your local specialist

Ask about this lot

DODGSON (CHARLES LUTWIDGE)

Autograph letter signed (C.L. Dodgson"), to "My dear Mayo", refusing point blank to meet his nephew: "First, because there are few things so intensely disagreeable to me as being introduced to ʻadmirers' in the capacity of an author. Secondly, I have no time even to cultivate the friendship of men of my own standing with whom I have some common interests – far less with undergraduates, with whom I have, practically, none"; pointing out furthermore that he is old and has no reason to expect many more years of active work, seeing little chance to complete what he has on hand, in consequence of which he "retired, years ago, from society, & decline all invitations (except to College High Tables with old friends)"; reassuring him, however, that, as an old friend, he will always be welcome as long as he brings no "admirers" with him; and ending with the hope that he has not expressed himself so as to hurt an old friend's feelings – "But it seemed best to tell you candidly how the matter presents itself to me", 3 pages, 8vo, Christ Church, Oxford, 1 May 1893

Footnotes

ʻFEW THINGS SO INTENSELY DISAGREEABLE TO ME AS BEING INTRODUCED TO "ADMIRERS" IN THE CAPACITY OF AN AUTHOR' – Lewis Carroll refuses to meet an undergraduate fan. Dodgson had retired from his lectureship at Christ Church in 1881 to devote more time to his writing projects, and even by 1893 the list of work to be done was extensive and included Sylvie and Bruno Concluded (published at the end of that year), three volumes of Symbolic Logic, as well as other writing projects. Although Dodgson had pursued literary celebrities such as Tennyson when younger, by this time his circle of friends was relatively fixed and most social invitations were declined; nor was he ever one to mix easily with undergraduates on a social basis.

The recipient of this letter was Dodgson's Christ Church contemporary, Robert Mayo, who was a month younger than Dodgson and matriculated in 1851. The nephew can be identified as John Pym Mayo, youngest child of his brother Charles Thomas Mayo, who was born in 1872 and an undergraduate at Balliol at this time. We are most grateful to Edward Wakeling for furnishing this information: see also his edition of Lewis Carroll's Diaries (1993-2007) and his Lewis Carroll: The Man and His Circle (2015). Our letter is not published in The Letters of Lewis Carroll, edited by Morton N. Cohen (1979). See illustration on preceding page.

Additional information

Bid now on these items

A Presentation Copy of Kennedy's First Book to Spencer Tracy. Kennedy, John F. 1917-1963. Why England Slept. New York: Wilfred Funk, Inc., 1940.

Signed to Spencer Tracy 1952 Hemingway, Ernest. 1899-1961. The Old Man and the Sea, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1952.

CORNELIUS, MATTHEWS, editor. 1817-1889. The Enchanted Moccasins and Other Legends of the American Indians.

CALEPINO, AMBROGIO. 1435-1511. [Dictionarium.] Calepinus Ad librum. Mos est putidas.... Venice: Peter Liechtenstein, January 3, 1509.

HEARN, LAFCADIO. 1850-1904. [Japanese Fairy Tales.] Philadelphia: Macrae-Smith, [But Tokyo: T. Hasegawa,] [c.1931].

HEMINGWAY, ERNEST. 1899-1961. PUTNAM, SAMUEL, translator. Kiki's Memoirs. Paris: Sign of the Black Manikin, 1930.