Description

“SHE WAS VERY ROSY?”: FIRST EDITION OF LEWIS CARROLL’S
RHYME? AND REASON?, FINE WARMLY INSCRIBED ASSOCIATION COPY
PRESENTED TO ONE OF CARROLL’S YOUNG PHOTOGRAPHY SUBJECTS,
WITH PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN BY CARROLL

CARROLL, Lewis. Rhyme? And Reason? London: Macmillan, 1883. Octavo, original full green cloth gilt. Housed in custom half green morocco clamshell box.

First edition, warmly inscribed in the month of publication on the half title by Lewis Carroll in his usual purple ink: “Theodosia Heaphy, from the Author. Dec. 9/83.” Accompanied by photograph by Carroll of the person to whom the book is inscribed.

Lewis Carroll (Charles Dodgson) visited, corresponded, and sent gifts, puzzles, poems, and copies of his books to children with whom he was friendly. He first became acquainted with Theodosia Heaphy when he called upon her father, the painter Thomas Heaphy, in 1867. In a letter to his sister written a few days after the visit, Dodgson tells of viewing Mr. Heaphy’s painting of “General Fairfax retreating, accompanied by his little daughter? her face is one of the loveliest bits of painting I have seen for a long time? I was anxious to know who the original was, to see if there was a chance of photographing her, and was glad to find it was his own child. She came into the room while we were talking, and he put her into the position of the picture, but as she was very rosy, and kept a broad grin on her face the whole time, she did not quite realise it: however, she will make a very pretty photograph, I expect, if I take my camera to town this summer” (Cohen, 104-105).

Dodgson noted that he photographed Theo some three years later, in a July 1870 diary entry. Tipped in to this copy is one of Carroll’s photographs of Heaphy. Accompanying the photograph is a memorial card for Theodosia signed by her husband. It describes Heaphy as “an especial favorite” of Dodgson’s, with the note that “she was the original of the large oil painting of a little fair girl under a table ‘Reading Fairy Tales,” which painted to his commission [presumably by her father], occupied the place of honour in his rooms at Christ Church.” Their correspondence was frequent and extensive for the remainder of Dodgson’s life, and in one letter, he describes her as: “My old child friend whom I first learned to know and love before she knew what care or trouble meant.” Rhyme? And Reason? was published on 8 December 1883. Dodgson inscribed this volume to Theo on the following day. Several of Dodgson’s poems appear for the first time in this volume, which also includes 65 illustrations by Arthur B. Frost and nine by Henry Holiday.

Only light spotting to edges, with minor wear to spine ends. Extremely good condition. A desirable inscribed copy with a wonderful association.