DODGSON, Charles Lutwidge (1832-1898). 'Lewis Carroll'.
Autograph Letter Signed ('C.L. Dodgson') to Florence Burton, sister of his child friend, Mabel, 4½ pages 8vo with autograph envelope, Ch[rist] Ch[urch], Oxford, 22 October 1883. Tentatively asking if the Burtons belong to the Plymouth Brethren, and questioning whether or not he had upset Mabel by suggesting that she had never been to the theatre.

'... The poor child flushed up, & seemed really distressed & ... said most earnestly that she thought it wrong to go & would never go to one as long as she lived. ... I trust however that she is not brought up to put theatre-going among wilful & open sins, such as lying & stealing, instead of regarding it as a thing which some conscientiously disapprove, & others, quite as conscientiously, approve. I should be sorry to be regarded by her as one living in wilful & open sin - in which case our friendship scarcely could continue to exist. ...'

Mabel was one of the little girls whom Carroll had photographed.Dodgson met her in 1877 when she was eight years old. Their firstmeeting 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 At Burton's request, his correspondence was never published and this letter, too remains unpublished.
[No: 21366]