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Dossier 1 Lewis Carroll
Lewis Carroll Early Life
Quick facts
Name: Charles Lutwidge Dodgson AKA: Lewis Carroll Born: in Daresbury, Cheshire on 27th January, 1832 Died: in Guildford, England on 14th January, 1898 (aged 65) Education: Rugby School, University of Oxford Key works: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865), Through the Looking-Glass (1871), The Hunting of the Snark (1876)
The mathematics textbook that Carroll used at Rugby School still survives and contains an inscription in Latin, which translates into: This book belongs to Charles Lutwidge Dodgson - hands off!
6 Charles Lutwidge Dodgson was born on January 27th, 1832 and was the eldest son of Frances Jane Lutwidge and the Reverend Charles Dodgson. He had a happy childhood and he often made up games and wrote stories for his brothers and sisters. Some of these were later published.
In 1846 he went to Rugby School for three years but it wasn’t a happy time for Charles. Later he went to Christ Church College at Oxford University where he studied classics and mathematics. In 1855 he became a mathematical lecturer at the college.
Rugby School opened in 1567.
Religious life
Dodgson was a very spiritual man and in December 1861 he became a deacon of the Church of England. He also agreed to remain unmarried. His father was a conservative Anglican parson and raised his son with traditional values. These values remained throughout his life, although he went no further than being a deacon and stayed in Christ Church for the rest of his life teaching and writing.
A lower position than that of a priest.
A priest in charge of a very small parish.
A section of the stained-glass window at All Saints Church, Daresbury, showing Lewis Carroll and Alice.
Literature
Carroll wrote poetry and short stories from a very young age but he published his first piece of work under his famous name in March 1856. His pseudonym was a play on his real name. Lewis was the anglicised name for Lutwidge and Carroll was an Irish surname similar to the name Charles. Although Carroll denied it, it is widely believed that his Alice character was based on the daughter of his friend, Henry Liddell. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was finally published in 1865 and its illustrations were by Sir John Tenniel, a professional artist. It was a great success
Front cover of the 1898 edition of Alice in Wonderland.
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8 and it changed his life. He even got fan mail! One popular story is that Queen Victoria loved his book so much that she wanted him to dedicate his next book to her. In 1871, he published the Alice sequel Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There. This was followed by The Hunting of the Snark in 1876, a “nonsense” poem and in 1895 a story of fairy siblings Sylvie and Bruno.
Alice in Wonderland remains a very popular story today.
Photography
Carroll loved the arts and particularly the theatre. He often went to the theatre and also became particularly interested in photography. He took up photography in 1856 and his favourite subjects were children and famous people. Although photography was mainly a hobby for Carroll, he spent a lot of his time developing his passion and at one point even considered
making a living out of it. His subjects included notable people of the period like Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Julia Margaret Cameron and Alfred Tennyson. One of his child photography subjects was Alice Liddell, the daughter of a friend, who it is thought was his inspiration for the Alice stories. He suddenly stopped taking photographs in 1880 after over 24 years. He died of pneumonia at his sisters’ home in 1898.
Carroll was about 6 feet (1.83m) tall and slim. He had curly brown hair and blue or grey eyes. He had a fever when he was a child and became deaf in one ear.
A photograph of Alice Liddell by Lewis Carroll, 1858.
Self Portrait by Lewis Carroll.
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