DODGSON, Charles Lutwidge (1832-1898). 'Lewis Carroll'.
Miniature Autograph Letter Signed to a child friend, Gladys Baly, 1 page ?32mo, 80 x 50 mm (3 x 2 inches) with matching miniature envelope, Ch[rist] Ch[urch], 17 Dec 1892. Thanking Gladys for the gift of a picture, and sending Christmas greetings to her and her sister.

'I thank you very much for the picture of little Bridget running home. it is very nicely copied, and I am very glad to have it. ... I wish you, & your little sister, a very happy Christmas.'

Not in The Letters of Lewis Carroll ed. Morton N. Cohen, and apparently unpublished. Cohen publishes two stanzas written by Dodgson for Gladys and also records how they had met in Eastbourne in October 1891 where they were fellow-lodgers:

'Gladys herself later reminisced about their friendship: "I was six years old ... when a letter arrived addressed to me. It bore no postage stamp and it was typewritten, at a time when few people used typewriters. ... It was an invitation to tea from the gentleman staying the rooms above ours ... Next day, I was dressed in my best and sent upstairs to my party. I was shy, and he teased me about my funny little mannerisms, but all in the kindest way. I was a tiny bit afraid of the tall thin gentleman, with a halo of greyish hair round a not too handsome face, yet I recollect him best as someone who really understood my feelings when grown-ups told me that I could not, or must not, do certain things ... Happy engrossing hours were those I spent with Mr. Dodgson, when he showed me tricks and puzzles and showed me how to make a paper pistol that would go off with a bang ... I quite clearly recollect him taking Though the Looking-Glass out of a box of new books and giving it to me with his name written inside. He wrote to me many times after I left Eastbourne, although I never saw him again. In return I sent him drawings of ships and horses which, at that time, I was fond of making. ..."'

This is apparently the only known surviving letter to this particular child friend. Gladys Mary Baly (b. 1884) married (1913) Edward Lionel Hayes (d. 1944), a farmer.
[No: 20709]