DODGSON, Charles Lutwidge (1832-1898). 'Lewis Carroll'.
Autograph Letter Signed ('C.L. Dodgson') to a child friend, Mabel Burton ('My dear Mab'), 3 pages 8vo, Ch[rist] Ch[urch], Oxford, 13 June 1880. Inviting her to accompany him to the Royal Academy at 8 am ('You need not have breakfast before you come: we would have breakfast at 9') and posing a riddle based on her name.

'Though my name begins with D, I think I like B better - so I think I'll come some day when you are only MAB, stead of coming - to your birthday feast. That sentence has a very deep meaning in it. I wonder if you understand it? ...'

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 hereyes only, she refused to allow any of them to be copied andpublished by editors of Dodgson's correspondence. At Burton'srequest, his correspondence was never published and this letterremains unpublished.
[No: 21367]