Lewis Carroll

LEWIS CARROLL(Charles Lutwidge Dodgson): His Life

Born in Cheshire in 1832, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson was a "precociously intelligent" child who begged his father to explain logarithms at an early age. Despite a lifelong stutter and a "slightly odd," shy demeanor, he possessed a fervent imagination, often amusing himself by creating diverse entertainments and befriending "strange animals" (Richardson, 1963).

His mathematical brilliance eventually led him to Oxford, where he matriculated with double honours before becoming a mathematical lecturer at Christ Church. As an Oxford Don, Dodgson lived a dedicated bachelor life, having been ordained as a Deacon in 1861 (Bakewell, 1996).

The publication of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll brought him immense fame—and occasionally, amusing notoriety. He famously delighted in the popular rumour that he had gone "quite mad," once surprising a mother and daughter on a train by sending them a copy of Alice after they had discussed his supposed insanity without realizing who he was (Bjork & Eriksson, 1993).

Dodgson’s private life remained eccentric, defined by a "bizarre sense of humour" and an intense, pioneering passion for the art of photography. While modern speculation often lingers on his numerous "child-friends," it is vital to view his work through the lens of Victorian social mores. At the time, photography was emerging as a new alternative to classical portraiture and painting, often following the same artistic traditions used by Victorian painters (Waggoner, 2020).

His most famous "child-friend," Alice Liddell, maintained a stoic silence regarding their friendship throughout her life. It was only after her passing that it was discovered she had cherished the final letter Dodgson ever wrote to her, despite her family having destroyed his earlier correspondence years prior (Cohen, 1996).

The Final Chapter
Charles Dodgson’s long and productive life came to a close on January 14, 1898. He passed away at his sisters' home, "The Chestnuts" in Guildford, from a severe bout of pneumonia following a case of influenza. He was 65 years old. He was laid to rest at the Mount Cemetery in Guildford, leaving behind a legacy that bridged the rigid world of Victorian mathematics with the eternal, lawless magic of Wonderland.

LEWIS CARROLL(Charles Lutwidge Dodgson): His Work

On July 4th, 1862, during a "Golden Afternoon" on the River Thames, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson spun a tale to amuse young Alice Liddell that would become the cornerstone of children's literature: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

While Dodgson was a talented artist whose hand-drawn manuscript illustrations showed great imagination, the world-famous identity of the book was truly forged through his collaboration with the Punch cartoonist Sir John Tenniel. Tenniel’s grotesque yet disciplined wood-engravings provided the perfect visual anchor for Carroll's surreal logic.

Beyond the Alice books and his sequel Through the Looking-Glass, Dodgson was a prolific letter writer and a pioneer of photography as a burgeoning art form (Waggoner, 2020). He also maintained his "staid" identity as an Oxford lecturer, contributing significant scholarly works to the field of Mathematics (Langford, 1932).

The physical journey of the original manuscript, Alice’s Adventures Under Ground, is a story in itself. Faithfully gifted to Alice Liddell as promised (Winchester, 2011), she later sold it in 1928 to the American dealer Dr. Rosenbach for a record-breaking £15,400. After passing through the hands of American collectors, the manuscript finally returned home in 1948—donated to the British Library by a group of Americans in recognition of Britain's courage during the Second World War.
The original Manuscript is now safely held at the British Library in London.

Curator's Resource: You can view the digitized pages of the original "Alice’s Adventures Under Ground" manuscript at the British Library’s Lewis Carroll Collection.