Lewis Carroll's Photography and Modern Childhood by Diane Waggoner (review).

This text focuses on Diane Waggoner’s book *Lewis Carroll’s Photography and Modern Childhood*, which examines Charles Lutwidge Dodgson’s (Lewis Carroll’s) photographic work within Victorian visual culture and evolving notions of childhood and masculinity. Waggoner provides the first detailed analysis of Dodgson’s photographs of boys, particularly his Twyford School series, situating them amid mid-nineteenth-century educational reforms and ideals of manliness. The book also explores Dodgson’s complex and often private photographic depictions of young girls, including nude portraits, highlighting the social and legal contexts of age and consent in Victorian England. Waggoner draws on extensive archival material to consider Dodgson’s aesthetic strategies, theatrical influences, and the ambiguities surrounding his relationships with child sitters, while acknowledging unresolved questions about his motivations and the boundaries of Victorian propriety. [Extracted from the article]