Lewis Carroll (0)

Lewis Carroll
27 January 1832 ­ 14 January
1898
Charles L. Dodgson
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (27 January 1832 ­ 14 January 1898), better known
by the pseudonym Lewis Carroll, was an English author, mathematician,
logician, Anglican deacon and photographer. His most famous writings are Alice's
Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the LookingGlass, as well as
the poems "The Hunting of the Snark" and "Jabberwocky", all examples of the
genre of literary nonsense. He is noted for his facility at word play, logic, and
fantasy, and there are societies dedicated to the enjoyment and promotion of his
works and the investigation of his life in many parts of the world, including the
United Kingdom, Japan, the United States, and New Zealand.
Family
Dodgson's family was predominantly northern English, with Irish connections.
Conservative and High Church Anglican, most of Dodgson's ancestors were army
officers or Church of England clergymen. His greatgrandfather, also Charles
Dodgson, had risen through the ranks of the church to become a bishop. His
grandfather, another Charles, had been an army captain, killed in action in Ireland
in 1803, when his two sons were hardly more than babies. His mother's name was
Frances Jane Lutwidge.
The elder of these sons ­ yet another Charles ­ was Carroll's father. He reverted to
the other family business and took holy orders. He went to Rugby School, and
thence to Christ Church, Oxford. He was mathematically gifted and won a double
first degree, which could have been the prelude to a brilliant academic career.
Instead he married his first cousin in 1827 and became a country parson.
Young Charles' father was an active and highly conservative clergyman of the
Anglican church who later became Archdeacon of Richmondand involved
himself, sometimes influentially, in the intense religious disputes that were
dividing the Anglican church. He was High Church, inclining to Anglo
Catholicism, an admirer of Newman and the Tractarian movement, and did his
best to instill such views in his children. Young Charles was to develop an
ambiguous relationship with his father's values and with the Anglican church as a
whole.
Dodgson was born in the little parsonage of Daresbury in Cheshire county (near
the towns of Warrington and Runcorn), the eldest boy but already the third child
of the fourandahalfyearold marriage. Eight more children were to follow.
When Charles was 11, his father was given the living of CroftonTees in North
Yorkshire, and the whole family moved to the spacious Rectory. This remained
their home for the next twentyfive years.
Health & Appearance
The young adult Charles Dodgson was about six feet tall, slender, and had curling
brown hair and blue or grey eyes (depending on the account). He was described in
later life as somewhat asymmetrical, and as carrying himself rather stiffly and
awkwardly, though this may be on account of a knee injury sustained in middle
age. As a very young child, he suffered a fever that left him deaf in one ear. At the
age of seventeen, he suffered a severe attack of whooping cough, which was
probably responsible for his chronically weak chest in later life. Another defect he
carried into adulthood was what he referred to as his "hesitation", a stammer he
acquired in early childhood and which plagued him throughout his life.
At a time when people commonly devised their own amusements and when
singing and recitation were required social skills, the young Dodgson was well
equipped to be an engaging entertainer. He reportedly could sing tolerably well
and was not afraid to do so before an audience. He was adept at mimicry and
storytelling, and was reputedly quite good at charades.
Social Connections
In the interim between his early published writing and the success of the Alice
books, Dodgson began to move in the PreRaphaelite social circle. He first met
John Ruskin in 1857 and became friendly with him. He developed a close
relationship with Dante Gabriel Rossetti and his family, and also knew William
Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, and Arthur Hughes, among other artists. He
also knew the fairytale author George MacDonald well ­ it was the enthusiastic
reception of Alice by the young MacDonald children that convinced him to submit
the work for publication.
Talent J
From a young age, Dodgson wrote poetry and short stories, both
contributing heavily to the family magazine Mischmasch and later
sending them to various magazines, enjoying moderate success.
Between 1854 and 1856, his work appeared in the national
publications, The Comic Times and The Train, as well as smaller
magazines like the Whitby Gazette and the Oxford Critic. Most of this
output was humorous, sometimes satirical, but his standards and
ambitions were exacting. "I do not think I have yet written anything
worthy of real publication (in which I do not include the Whitby
Gazette or the Oxonian Advertiser), but I do not despair of doing so
some day," he wrote in July 1855.
In 1856 he published his first piece of work under the name that would make him
famous. A romantic poem called "Solitude" appeared in The Train under the
authorship of "Lewis Carroll." This pseudonym was a play on his real name;
Lewis was the anglicised form of Ludovicus, which was the Latin for Lutwidge,
and Carroll an Irish surname similar to the Latin name Carolus, from which the
name Charles comes.
Alice
In the same year, 1856, a new Dean, Henry Liddell, arrived at Christ
Church, bringing with him his young family, all of whom would figure
largely in Dodgson's life and, over the following years, greatly influence
his writing career. Dodgson became close friends with Liddell's wife,
Lorina, and their children, particularly the three sisters: Lorina, Edith and
Alice Liddell.
He was for many years widely assumed to have derived his own "Alice" from
Alice Liddell. This was given some apparent substance by the fact the acrostic
poem at the end of Through the Looking Glass spells out her name, and that there
are many superficial references to her hidden in the text of both books. It has been
pointed out that Dodgson himself repeatedly denied in later life that his "little
heroine" was based on any real child, and frequently dedicated his works to girls
of his acquaintance, adding their names in acrostic poems at the beginning of the
text. Gertrude Chataway's name appears in this form at the beginning of The
Hunting of the Snark, and no one has ever suggested this means any of the
characters in the narrative are based on her.
Though information is scarce (Dodgson's diaries for the years 1858­1862 are
missing), it does seem clear that his friendship with the Liddell family was an
important part of his life in the late 1850s, and he grew into the habit of taking the
children (first the boy, Harry, and later the three girls) on rowing trips
accompanied by an adult friend to nearby Nuneham Courtenay or Godstow.
It was on one such expedition, on 4 July 1862, that Dodgson invented the outline
of the story that eventually became his first and largest commercial success.
Having told the story and been begged by Alice Liddell to write it down, Dodgson
eventually (after much delay) presented her with a handwritten, illustrated
manuscript entitled Alice's Adventures Under Ground in November 1864.
Happy End J