Four volumes and seven individual pages are missing from Lewis Carroll's private diaries. The presumption is that most if not all of them were destroyed by his family after his death. Interestingly, all of this material, with the exception of a single page, belongs to the same ten-year period, 1853-63.

The true reason why his family removed the pages has still to be determined, but it may have been connected with the other evidence of a possible unhappy love affair at this time.

The discovery of the 'cut pages in diary' document in 1996 has allowed some light to be shed on one of the lost pages and one of the most enduring mysteries in Carroll's life.