Edward Wakeling is a former chairman of the Lewis Carroll Society. He trained as a teacher in secondary education and taught for eighteen years in a large comprehensive school north of London before moving into the educational advisory field and becoming a school inspector. Wakeling retired as an educator in 1999.
Wakeling’s interest in Lewis Carroll began in 1975 when he attended an exhibition at Hatfield House, Hertfordshire, organized by the Lewis Carroll Society. Since that time, he has collected Carroll’s works and now owns one of the finest collections of Carroll material in private hands. Wakeling spent 1981-82 at Christ Church, Oxford, studying for a master’s degree in mathematical education as well as carrying out further Carrollian research.
A frequent contributor to the Lewis Carroll Society’s journals—Jabberwocky,
The Journal of the Lewis Carroll Society and The Carrollian, The Journal of the
Lewis Carroll Society (the former changed its title to The Carrollian in 1998)
and Bandersnatch, The Newsletter of the Lewis Carroll Society, Wakeling also has
published many books about Carroll’s life and works. As of mid-2004 he has
edited eight of nine volumes of Lewis Carroll’s Diaries for publication;
making Carroll’s private journals available to the public in an unabridged
and annotated edition for the first time, with the kind permission of the Trustees
of the C. L. Dodgson Estate. Other books by Wakeling include: The Logic of Lewis
Carroll (published privately, 1978), The Cipher Alice (Lewis Carroll Society,
1990), Lewis Carroll’s Games and Puzzles (Dover Publications, 1992), Skeffington
Hume Dodgson, Vicar of Vowchurch (published privately, 1992), Lewis Carroll’s
Oxford Pamphlets (University Press of Virginia, 1993), Rediscovered Lewis Carroll
Puzzles (Dover Publications, 1995), Alice in Wonderland Deck and Book Set (US
Games Systems, 1996), Lewis Carroll Photographer with Roger Taylor (Princeton
University Press, 2002), and Lewis Carroll and His Illustrators jointly with Morton
N. Cohen (Cornell University Press, 2003). A recognized Carrollian scholar, Edward
Wakeling is frequently called upon to contribute to conferences and television
programs and to serve as a consultant to publishers, auctioneers, and exhibition
organizers worldwide.