Carroll, Lewis [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson]

playful and friendly letters explaining the rules of two-player whist and arranging a theatrical expedition to London, 3 pages, oblong 8vo, Christ Church, Oxford, 15 May to 16 June 1895, light spotting 

"...Among the host of virtues whist, as you are no doubt aware, form the background of any character (a few trifling faults being thrown in as foreground ornaments, merely by way of contrast), a readiness to adopt suggestions (when they happen to coincide with my own inclinations) is one of the most marked..."

Dora Abdy (1872-1950) was the daughter of an acquaintance of the Dodgson family in Guildford, where she had been a student at Guildford High School. Dodgson's family home was 'The Chestnuts' in Guildford, and on a visit in January 1895 he met Dora, who was shortly to go up to St Hugh's College, Oxford. Dodgson was, of course, a resident fellow at Christ Church, and he agreed to help her settle in to Oxford life. The two evidently got on well and met numerous times in Oxford in the months and years that followed (see Lewis Carroll's Diaries ... 1892 to 1897 (2005) ed. Wakeling). In later life Abdy worked as a missionary in central Africa.