Reginald Southey with Skeletons

An albumen photograph of Reginald Southey (1855-1899), a medical student at Oxford, posed with the skeletons of a human and a monkey, taken by Lewis Carroll (1832-1898) in June 1857.

Although known primarily as the author of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking-Glass (1872), Lewis Carroll (1832 – 1898), christened Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, was also a mathematics lecturer at Oxford University, a Deacon at Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, and an accomplished photographer.

This photograph shows Reginald Southey, Carroll's friend and photographic teacher, with human and monkey skeletons and skulls. It is a reference to the debates regarding Darwinism, and theories of evolution, which were raging at Oxford at the time.