Isa Bowman (1874–1958) was an

actress An actor or actress is a person who portrays a Character (arts), character in a performance. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. The analogous Greek ...

, a close friend of

Lewis Carroll Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (; 27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898), better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English author, poet and mathematician. His most notable works are ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (1865) and its sequel ...

and author of a memoir about his life, ''The Story of Lewis Carroll, Told for Young People by the Real Alice in Wonderland''. She met Carroll in 1886 when she played a small part in the stage version of ''

Alice in Wonderland ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (commonly ''Alice in Wonderland'') is an 1865 English novel by Lewis Carroll. It details the story of a young girl named Alice who falls through a rabbit hole into a fantasy world of anthropomorphic creatur ...

'' with

Phoebe Carlo Phoebe Ellen Carlo (30 May 1874–1898) was an English actress of the late Victorian era. She is most notable for playing Alice in the musical '' Alice in Wonderland'' (1886), making her the first actress to play the titular character in a p ...

in the title role: she replaced Carlo as Alice in the 1888 revival. She visited and stayed with him between the ages of fifteen and nineteen: Carroll described a visit in July 1888 in ''Isa's Visit to Oxford'', which she reprinted in her memoir. Carroll introduced her to

Ellen Terry Dame Alice Ellen Terry, (27 February 184721 July 1928), was a leading English actress of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Born into a family of actors, Terry began performing as a child, acting in Shakespeare plays in London, and tour ...

, who gave her elocution lessons. Carroll dedicated his last novel '' Sylvie and Bruno'' to her in 1889: her name appears in a double

acrostic An acrostic is a poem or other word composition in which the ''first'' letter (or syllable, or word) of each new line (or paragraph, or other recurring feature in the text) spells out a word, message or the alphabet. The term comes from the Fre ...

poem in the introduction. She married the journalist

George Reginald Bacchus George Reginald Bacchus (1874–1945) was an English author. He was the author of a number of erotic books published by the Erotika Biblion Society.James G. Nelson, Peter Mendes, ''Publisher to the decadents: Leonard Smithers in the careers of Bea ...

in 1899. In 1899-1900 Bacchus published a fictionalised version of her life in ''Society'', a magazine he was editing.James G. Nelson, Peter Mendes, (2000) p.291 The publisher Leonard Smithers then commissioned a pornographic version which was published as ''The Confessions of Nemesis Hunt'' (issued in three volumes 1902, 1903, 1906).James G. Nelson, Peter Mendes, (2000) p.348 Isa Bowman was the daughter of Charles Andrew Bowman (b. 1851), a music teacher, and Helen Herd, née Holmes. Her sisters, Empsie, Nellie (Mrs Spens) and Maggie (Mrs Tom Morton) Bowman were all actresses, and also friends of Carroll. According to Maggie's father-in-law, William Morton, the sisters were all actresses from a very early age. He said that Maggie had an amusing diary in rhyme written by Carroll about her visit to Oxford as a young child. Isa played a small part in the 1949 British film ''

Vote for Huggett ''Vote for Huggett'' is a 1949 British comedy film directed by Ken Annakin and starring Jack Warner, Kathleen Harrison, Susan Shaw and Petula Clark. Warner reprises his role as the head of a London family, in the post-war years. In this, the t ...

'', together with her sisters Empsie and Nellie.

In popular culture

Gyles Brandreth Gyles Daubeney Brandreth (born 8 March 1948) is an English broadcaster, writer and former politician. He has worked as a television presenter, theatre producer, journalist, author and publisher. He was a presenter for TV-am's '' Good Morning ...

's play ''Wonderland'' about the relationship between Isa Bowman and Dodgson was performed at the

Edinburgh Festival Fringe The Edinburgh Festival Fringe (also referred to as The Fringe, Edinburgh Fringe, or Edinburgh Fringe Festival) is the world's largest arts and media festival, which in 2019 spanned 25 days and featured more than 59,600 performances of 3,841 dif ...

in 2010.

References

* * * * * * *

External links

* * * 'Isa's Visit to Oxford' by Lewis Carroll, full text with annotations and illustrations at
Lewis Carroll Resources
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bowman, Isa 1874 births 1958 deaths British child actresses British stage actresses British biographers Lewis Carroll