Over the past few decades, the author of Alice in Wonderland has been characterized as child-centered and unworldly, and harboring an unnatural sexuality in regard to children in general and
specifically to Alice Liddell and her siblings. All this may be true, says Leach, a successful playwright now for nearly two decades, but if so at all, it refers not to the actual person
Charles Dodgson--a well known and respected logician--but to Lewis Carroll, the persona he created as thoroughly as he did the other fantasy characters associated with the story. She sorts
through the evidence to reveal Dodgson's actual life, and particularly his relationship with the Liddell family and with women in general. Of particular interest, she shows how photographs and
texts that would today be considered child pornography were innocent standard fare in Victorian England. She has revised the 1999 first edition for this second. Annotation 穢2009 Book News,
Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
