Best known for his fantasy children’s books, Lewis Carroll was a mathematician, logician, novelist and poet. He captured the imagination of young and old alike with his stories of Alice and her adventures in the fantastical Wonderland. Still a staple of any child’s bookshelf to this day, Carroll remains one of the greatest English storytellers of his era.
Lewis Carroll was born Charles Lutwidge Dodgson in Daresbury, Cheshire on January 27th, 1832. He was the third of eleven children, having three brothers and seven sisters. His father was a man of the church, and thus the whole family had to move wherever he was assigned.
During his early years, Carroll was educated at home and was not sent away to school until the age of twelve. He attended private boys schools in Richmond and Rugby, where, although his intelligence was obvious, he was hampered by a slight stammer. However, despite this, he still earned a place at Christ Church College, Oxford University.
Carroll’s academic career continued until 1881. He was highly decorated during his tenure as a student at Oxford but missed out on one particularly important scholarship owing to his own laziness. He did, however, win the Christ Church Mathematical Lectureship because of his brilliance in the field of mathematics, thus he remained as a lecturer for a further 26 years.
Carroll wrote poetry and short stories throughout his academic career. Between 1854 and 1856, he had material accepted for numerous publications such as the Whitby Gazette and The Comic Times. He first adopted the penname ‘Lewis Carroll’ in 1856 when a poem called ‘Solitude’ appeared in The Train.
Around this time he began to pursue the hobby of photography. He preferred to take photographs of famous people as well as of older women and little girls. He was skilled enough at the art to have four prints exhibited at the Photographic Society in London.
The love of art, especially photography, Carroll held continued throughout his life. When his father died in 1868, Carroll bought ‘The Chestnuts’ in Guildford, Surrey and built a photographic studio on the roof. He also spent time in a study, writing for hours every day. He moved in and spent the rest of his life there.
Although Carroll found it hard to relate to adults, he could converse easily with children. His enjoyment of photographing young girls, some of whom were semi-naked, has led to speculation that he was a paedophile despite there being no evidence to back the claim up. However, it was one of the little girls he befriended that first gave him the inspiration for his most famous literary work.
Alice Pleasance Liddell, the daughter of a colleague, provided the inspiration for the character of Alice in Carroll’s fantasy books. During a picnic on July 4th, 1862, Carroll began to tell her the tale that became Alice’s Adventures Underground upon its completion in 1863. His friendship with the Liddell family abruptly ended the same year, but the book appeared in print in 1865 regardless. It was later renamed Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
In the book, Alice falls asleep in a meadow and dreams that she falls down a rabbit hole. In her dream world, she meets the Queen of Hearts and the Cheshire Cat, amongst others, and finds herself in numerous bizarre dilemmas. Finally she rejects the dream and wakes up. The sequel, Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There, was published in 1872.
Throughout this period, Carroll continued to publish seminal mathematical research and theses. A Syllabus of Plane Algebraic Geometry and The Dynamics of a Particle were written alongside his tales of fantasy. However, his fictional works featured certain elements of his academic work, such as subverting the logical paths of thought in order to make sense of irrational dreams.
Carroll began to write a new children’s series, called Sylvie and Bruno, in 1867. It was featured in Aunt Judy’s Magazineuntil the final episode in 1889. The whole series appeared in two published volumes in 1889 and 1893 and served to further increase Carroll’s popularity as an author.
Carroll finally devoted himself to writing full time in 1881 when he gave up his lectureship. He quickly became a prolific writer and was in demand by a number of sources. He wrote political articles, children’s stories and continued writing mathematical and scientific material.
Academia had provided Carroll with an income whilst he built his reputation in the literary world. However, he was ambivalent about his enduring legacy as a children’s writer. Ultimately, he viewed himself as a man of science, although his literary achievements dictated otherwise.
Carroll died on January 14th, 1898 of bronchitis. He was aged 65.
