AUTHOR:

Derek Hudson

This book, in conjunction with the edited Diaries of Lewis Carroll published the previous year, was a direct response to Taylor's claim that Carroll was in love with Alice Liddell. But Hudson didn't criticise Taylor for his obvious lack of evidence. He criticised him for bringing Carroll down from his pedestal of innocence, where Hudson, Green and other Apologists believed he should remain. These Apologists seem to have basically accepted Carroll was a pedophile, in desire at least, and balked merely at using the word, preferring to defend him obliquely with claims of how harmless his child-obsession was. The idea he wasn't actualy as child-obsessed as anyone imagined had long ago sunk into the Swamp of Forgetting.

SOUNDBITE:

"even if he was a pedophile, do we really have to say so?"

IMPACT AND INFLUENCE:

Highly influential. His 'Apologist' POV was the received viewpoint of most Carrollians for a long time. But his plea for 'understanding' didn't go over with the more general public, who perceived Hudson was really saying Carroll was a pedo in all but name.

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