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29Original ink drawing of Edith Blakemore by Lewis Carroll

Currency:USD Category:Books / Antiquarian & Collectible Start Price:8,000.00 USD Estimated At:8,000.00 - 12,000.00 USD
Original ink drawing of Edith Blakemore by Lewis Carroll
29. Original ink drawing of Edith Blakemore by Lewis Carroll. Dodgson, Charles Lutwidge (Lewis Carroll). A fine original drawing, accomplished in Carroll’s trademark violet ink on an Octavo leaf measuring 5 ½ x 8 ½ in., of Edith Blakemore in a bathing costume, holding a bucket and spade, leaning against the wheel of a bathing machine, inscribed beneath the image “Edith, Sept. 14/[18]80”. 1877 was the first year Dodgson spent his summer at Eastbourne, repeated every year thereafter until his death. Unusually in his relations with young girls, Dodgson continued a friendly correspondence with Edith for nearly 20 years. He acknowledged this in a letter written in March, 1890, addressing her as ‘my old friend Edith’ (then aged 18), describing her as “rather the exception among the hundred or so child-friends who have brightened my life. Usually the child becomes so entirely a different being as she grows into a woman that our friendship had to change too…I hope we may continue equally good friends for the years.” Blakemore showered Dodgson with gifts for many years – things she had made for him and drawings she had painted for him. This version, very similar to that reproduced on page 115 of The Selected Letters of Lewis Carroll (edited by Morton N. Cohen, 1982), exhibits very minor differences. Light spotting. $8,000 – $12,000