He was an awkward, shy and slightly odd child with a stutter (Wolf, 2010). He amused himself by making pets of strange animals and letting his fervent imagination run wild whilst he created diverse amusements for himself (Richardson, 1963).

He was precociously intelligent, begging his father to explain the meaning of Logarithms at an early age. His burgeoning mathematical talent led him to his career in Oxford, where he had matriculated; gaining a first class honours in Mathematics and a second class honours in Classics.

At the time of Dodgson’s career in Oxford, Christ Church Dons by necessity, had to be unmarried. Eventually he was ordained as Deacon in 1861. He remained unmarried all his life (Bakewell, 1996).

After the publication of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’" (published under the Pseudonym ‘Lewis Carroll’), Dodgson’s literary career took off gaining him great fame and some notoriety.

In a conversation with a young mother in a railway carriage he was amused to find out she believed through popular rumour, that he had gone 'quite mad' (Bjork & Eriksson, 1993).

Dodgson later sent the girl's mother a copy of "Alice in Wonderland'" thanking her for a pleasant conversation; an act that must have caused some great consternation once the woman realised whom she had actually been talking to!

Dodgson lived rather an odd bachelor life and was known for his slightly bizarre sense of humour coupled with his eccentrically intense love of photography (Waggoner, 2020).

In later years his passion for photographing children led to some speculation about his nature and relationships; especially those with his numerous circle of ‘child-friends’.

Alice Liddell (later Mrs. Alice Hargreaves), the little girl he had the most important intimate friendship with - kept stoically and determinedly silent all her life about her relationship with Dodgson.

When Alice died it was discovered she had cherished the last letter Dodgson ever wrote to her. Although all her previous letters from him were purposefully destroyed by her family when she was a young girl (Cohen, 1996).

We will never know the truth and it is worth considering that social mores around children, particularly in Art, were very, very different in the Victorian era. It was certainly not the least uncommon to see naked children in paintings, and photography at the time was understood as an alternative to the art of painting or portraiture of any kind (Waggoner, 2020).

Dodgson all his life, was an avid letter writer, artist and photographer, hence much of his work has survived (Morton, 1996) His hand-written manuscript of Alice contains Dodgson's own imagined illustrations which were actually rather good but not as good as the John Tenniel illustrations finally settled upon for his books.

He went on to write another Alice book called "Through the Looking-Glass, and what Alice found there", as well as various other literature.

Many of Dodgson’s photographs have also survived and give a fascinating insight into the early development of photography as an Art form (Waggoner, 2020). Further beyond his fame as an author he also made significant scholarly contributions to the study of Mathematics (Langford, 1932).

As for the original manuscript of "Alice’s Adventures Under Ground", this was given personally by Dodgson to Alice Liddell, as he had faithfully promised her (Winchester, 2011).

Alice much later in life sold the manuscript to Dr. Rosenbach, an American antique book dealer for £15,400 which was a record sale for a book, especially a children's book, at the time.

The manuscript's journey continued through the years, and eventually Rosenbach sold the manuscript on again, making a huge profit, to a millionaire called Eldridge Johnson (Bjork & Eriksson, 1993). The original Manuscript is now safely held at the British Library, in London.

References and Further Recommended Reading:

Bjork, C., & Eriksson, I. (1993). The other Alice. Raben & Sjogren.

Bakewell, M. (1996). Lewis Carroll: A biography. Heinemann.

Cohen, M. N. (Ed.). (1979). The letters of Lewis Carroll. Macmillan.

Richardson, J. (1963). The young Lewis Carroll. Max Parrish.

Waggoner, D. (2020). Lewis Carroll's photography and modern childhood. Princeton University Press.

Winchester, S. (2011). The Alice behind Wonderland. Oxford University Press.

Woolf, J. (2010). The mystery of Lewis Carroll: Discovering the whimsical, thoughtful, and sometimes lonely man who created "Alice in Wonderland". St. Martin's Press.