Leslie Stephen, 1864

This is the photograph of Leslie Stephen on which an 1870 engraving by Edward Whymper was based. Stephen thought that he appeared to some people “to be silent, cold and sarcastic.” In his memoir, Stephen noted: “I am, like my father, ‘skinless’: oversensitive and nervously irritable. I am apt also to be a little absent in mind, absorbed in thoughts about my books or my writings, and occasionally paying very little attention to what is passing around me.” Stephen was also supersensitive to criticism: “I am so touchy that I have long ceased to read reviews of myself.”

Reproduction of plate 35h from Leslie Stephen’s Photograph Album
Original: albumen print (9.4 x 5.8 cm., arched top)
Mortimer Rare Book Room, Smith College