ABSTRACT
In 1882, when he had turned fifty, Charles Dodgson (a.k.a. Lewis Carroll) began floating the idea of preparing an edition of Shakespeare for girls. He wrote in March to the mother of his young friend Marion Richards, telling her, “I have a dream of Bowdlerising Bowdler, i.e., of editing a Shakespeare which shall be absolutely fit for girls. For this I need advice, from mothers, as to which plays they would like to be included.” A few weeks later, on April 5th, he noted in his diary that he had begun “sending round printed request, to lady-friends, for lists of plays of Shakespeare suitable for girls” (Letters, 457; Diaries, 1971:405), and later that spring he published advertisements in two magazines for women and girls, inviting the readers “to send in their own lists of selections founded on recollections of their own girlhood or on observation of their daughters’ reading” (Bakewell, 248).
