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Famous People’s Scandalous Diaries
Charles Dodgson, better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, wrote an extensive set of journals since childhood, totaling 13 volumes. After the Alice in Wonderland author’s death in 1898, his family took control of the writings, until 1969 when the British Library purchased them. An edited version was initially published in the 1950s, but the unexpurgated copy didn’t arrive until much later. Up until that point, Dodgson’s sexuality and claims of pedophilia were often at the center of conversation when it came to discussing the writer’s personal relationships — particularly the controversial one he had with young family friend, Alice Liddell. Dodgson abruptly cut all ties with the Liddells in 1863, but his diary doesn’t reveal the reasons why, as the pages for those dates are missing. (Four volumes also mysteriously vanished.) Speculation about a marriage proposal to an 11-year-old Alice and other inappropriate romantic entanglements have abounded, but only those lost writings contain the truth.
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