AUTHOR: Herbert Langford Reed

This is basically the same information that was in Collingwood's biography, with Reed's slightly mental ideas tacked on, and all of Collingwood's subtle hints of darker adulthood removed. Carroll's family refused - as they usually did with biographers - to grant him any access to private papers, but Reed was unfazed and simply guessed the facts he wasn't allowed to know. Among other things he made up the entire idea of a split personality, based only on the fact Carroll used different colored inks from time to time. He forgot all about Collingwood's hint of an unhappy love affair and announced Carroll had no romantic interest in women, becoming the first to make the legendary claim that all of Carroll's female friendships ended when the girls reached puberty. Not content with just that (did we mention he was crazy?), he even alleged Carroll would only deal with post-pubescent women by mail rather than risk actually meeting them in person. He produced no evidence for any of this, as indeed he couldn't, because he had made it all up. But that didn't stop it becoming a 'fact' for many subsequent generations.

SOUNDBITE:

Completely barking mad

IMPACT AND INFLUENCE:

Highly influential. The whole modern image of Carroll can be traced to this book more than any other single source.

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