View source for In the Shadow of the Dreamchild

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'''''In the Shadow of the Dreamchild: A New Understanding of Lewis Carroll''''' is a 1999 book by British author [[Karoline Leach]] that posited the concept of the "Carroll Myth": the idea that many of the most famous aspects of [[Lewis Carroll]]'s biography, including his supposed adoration of [[Alice Liddell]], are more legend than fact.
Its main contentions are:
* Lewis Carroll was not 'exclusively focused' on female children as has been claimed by all previous biographers.
*He did not 'lose interest' in girls over the age of 14, and that many of his so-called 'child-friends' had actually been grown women.
*Alice Liddell was not 'the real Alice', and that Carroll was never in love with her, or asked to marry her.
*His relationships with adult women have been consistently under-examined and misreported.
* His life was haunted by an unnamed pain that may have involved a guilty love affair.
The book has had considerable impact on Carroll studies and reactions to it have been very polarised.{{citation needed|date=November 2021}}
==See also==
*[[Morton N. Cohen]]
*[[Hugues Lebailly]]
==Further reading==
*Ronnen, Meir. [https://archive.today/20130131151431/http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/jpost/access/41814696.html?dids=41814696:41814696&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&date=May+20,+1999&author=Meir+Ronnen&pub=Jerusalem+Post&desc=Lewis+Carroll's+girls&pqatl=google "Lewis Carroll's girls"]. ''[[Jerusalem Post]]''. 20 May 1999. {{subscription required}}
*Heptonstall, Geoffrey. [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2242/is_1603_275/ai_55683947/ "In the Shadow of the Dreamchild"]. ''[[Contemporary Review]]''. August 1999. Accessed 11 April 2011.{{dead link|date=November 2017}}
*Rankin, Donald. [http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/victorian_studies/v043/43.4rackin.html Review]. ''[[Victorian Studies]]'' '''43'''(4): 650–653. Summer 2001. {{doi|10.1353/vic.2001.0112}} {{subscription required}}
*Shulevitz, Judith. [https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C06E7DA1E3BF934A35757C0A9649C8B63 "THE CLOSE READER; What Was on Lewis Carroll's Mind?"]. ''[[The New York Times]]''. 7 April 2002. Accessed 11 April 2011.
==External links==
*[http://shadowofthedreamchild.wild-reality.net ''In the Shadow of the Dreamchild'', website for the book]
[[Category:1999 non-fiction books]]
[[Category:Cultural depictions of Lewis Carroll]]
[[Category:British non-fiction literature]]
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