DODGSON, Charles Lutwidge (1832-1898). 'Lewis Carroll'.
Attractive Autograph Letter Signed ('C.L. Dodgson') to a child friend, Mabel Burton ('My dear Mab'), 1 page 8vo, Ch[rist] Ch[urch], Oxford, 20 June 1880. Petulantly demanding an answer to his question about 'going to the Pictures in the early morning'.

'... If I were to call for you on Saturday morning, what answer should I get? "Miss Mabel is fast asleep and snoring". ...'

Mabel was one of the little girls whom Carroll had photographed. Dodgson met her in 1877 when she was eight years old. Their first meeting is recorded by Dodgson in his diary for 16 August 1877: "I never became friends with a child so easily or so quickly." Following Dodgson's instruction that his letters were for her eyes only, she refused to allow any of them to be copied and published by editors of Dodgson's correspondence. At Burton's request, his correspondence was never published and this letter remains unpublished.
[No: 21365]