New Exhibit Offers A Look Into<br>The Mind Of Lewis Carroll
- by Michael Stillman
The Lewis Carroll scrapbook exhibition.Courtesy Library of Congress
By Michael Stillman
A new online exhibition that will intrigue followers of Lewis Carroll has opened on the Library of Congress website. Carroll, of course, is the author of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. They are the works of a most unusual mind, reality warped into fantasy that still sucks us in today. However, that mind lived in a very different reality from the one we now know. Lewis Carroll lived in 19th century England, passing away slightly before the dawn of the 20th. The input that went into the brain which turned out Alice is very different from what we experience today.
Now along comes the Library of Congress, with some very considerable help from Edward Wakeling, to give us a glimpse of the things that intrigued Carroll. Carroll kept a scrapbook, probably from 1855-1872. Alice was published in 1865 and Through the Looking Glass in 1871. All the while, Carroll remained behind the scene, not seeking the notoriety which would have come to the writer of these books. In reality, "Carroll" was the Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, mild-mannered mathematics instructor at Oxford, who only became Superman to the world of literature when he put on his Lewis Carroll suit.
Carroll's scrapbook has been sitting in the Library of Congress for years, but was never accessible to anyone but a select few who knew about it and were interested. One such person was Edward Wakeling, who learned about the scrapbook in 1985. Even then, it took another 17 years before he actually laid his hands upon it. But Wakeling was evidently fascinated by this scrapbook, so much so that he decided to make it available to all. So began the digitization project, where Wakeling and others created digital files for all of the book's pages that could be uploaded to a website. It was an approximately 200-page scrapbook, but Carroll only pasted items on 63 of those pages. Those and a few loose ones comprise the exhibit.
Wakeling and his friends went one step further in creating this exhibition. Since the scrapbook consisted of items cut out of newspapers and magazines, they went back to locate the originals, so we would know where Carroll found them. They were not always successful, but in most cases they provide the original source for the pieces Carroll saved. The earliest dated to 1834, just two years after Carroll's birth. Wakeling opines that Carroll received it from his father. The last was from 1872. With 26 more years to live and 130 blank pages to fill, evidently Carroll tired of keeping a scrapbook, but he did hang onto it.
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Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: An Exceptionally Fine Copy of Austenís Emma: A Novel in Three Volumes. $40,000 - $60,000.
Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: Presentation Copy of Ernest Hemmingwayís A Farewell to Arms for Edward Titus of the Black Mankin Press. $30,000 - $50,000.
Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: Autograph Manuscript Signed Integrally for "The Songs of Pooh," by Alan Alexander. $30,000 - $50,000.
Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: Autograph Manuscript of "Three Fragments from Gˆtterd‰mmerung" by Richard Wagner. $30,000 - $50,000.
Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: Original Preliminary Artwork, for the First Edition of Snow Crash. $20,000 - $30,000.
Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: Autograph Letter Signed ("T.R. Malthus") to Economist Nassau Senior on Wealth, Labor and Adam Smith. $20,000 - $30,000.
Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides Finely Bound by Michael Wilcox. $20,000 - $30,000.
Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: First Edition of Lewis and Clark: Travels to the Source of the Missouri River and Across the American Continent to the Pacific Ocean. $8,000 - $12,000.
Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: Original Artwork for the First Edition of Neal Stephenson's Groundbreaking Novel Snow Crash. $100,000 - $150,000.
Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: A Complete Set Signed Deluxe Editions of King's The Dark Tower Series by Stephen King. $8,000 - $12,000.
Bonhams, Dec. 8-18: Autograph Letter Signed ("John Adams") to James Le Ray de Chaumont During the Crucial Years of the Revolutionary War. $8,000 - $12,000.
Sotheby’s Book Week December 9-17, 2025
Sotheby’s, Dec. 17: Francesco Colonna. Hypnerotomachie, Paris, 1546, Parisian calf by Wotton Binder C for Marcus Fugger. €200,000 to €300,000.
Sotheby’s, Dec. 17: Nausea. De principiis dialectices Gorgias, and other works, Venice, 1523, morocco gilt for Cardinal Campeggio. €3,000 to €4,000.
Sotheby’s, Dec. 17: Billon. Le fort inexpugnable de l'honneur, Paris, 1555, Parisian calf gilt for Peter Ernst, Graf von Mansfeld. €120,000 to €180,000.
Sotheby’s Book Week December 9-17, 2025
Sotheby’s, Dec. 16: Salinger, J.D. The Graham Family archive, including autographed letters, an inscribed Catcher, a rare studio photograph of the author, and more. $120,000 to $180,000.
Sotheby’s, Dec. 16: [Austen, Jane]. A handsome first edition of Sense and Sensibility, the author's first novel. $60,000 to $80,000.
Sotheby’s, Dec. 16: Massachusetts General Court. A powerful precursor to the Declaration of Independence: "every Act of Government … without the Consent of the People, is … Tyranny." $40,000 to $60,000.
Heritage Auctions Rare Books Signature Auction December 15, 2025
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Heritage, Dec. 15: Edgar Rice Burroughs. Tarzan of the Apes.
Heritage, Dec. 15: F. Scott Fitzgerald. Tender is the Night. A Romance.
Heritage, Dec. 15: Jerry Thomas. How to Mix Drinks, or the Bon-Vivant's Companion, Containing Clear and Reliable Directions for Mixing All the Beverages Used in the United States…
![<b>Sotheby’s, Dec. 16:</b> [Austen, Jane]. A handsome first edition of <i>Sense and Sensibility,</i> the author's first novel. $60,000 to $80,000.](https://ae-files.s3.amazonaws.com/AdvertisementPhotos/9a74d9ff-42dd-46a1-8bb2-b636c4cec796.png "<b>Sotheby’s, Dec. 16:</b> [Austen, Jane]. A handsome first edition of <i>Sense and Sensibility,</i> the author's first novel. $60,000 to $80,000.")
![<b>Heritage, Dec. 15:</b> John Donne. <i>Poems, By J. D. With Elegies on the Author's Death.</i> London: M[iles]. F[lesher]. for John Marriot, 1633.](https://ae-files.s3.amazonaws.com/AdvertisementPhotos/8caddaea-4c1f-47a7-9455-62f53af36e3f.jpg "<b>Heritage, Dec. 15:</b> John Donne. <i>Poems, By J. D. With Elegies on the Author's Death.</i> London: M[iles]. F[lesher]. for John Marriot, 1633.")
