Lewis Carroll
English writer and mathematician
Lewis Carroll is the pseudonym of the English writer and mathematician Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, who was born on 27 January, 1832 in England.
Background
The son of a clergyman and the firstborn of 11 children, Carroll began at an early age to entertain himself and his family with magic tricks, marionette shows, and poems written for homemade newspapers. Puzzles, anagrams, riddles, chess problems and some other things occupied his mind for all his life. Lewis was responsible for some new innovations, including “Doublets” invented in 1879 and “The Game of Logic” in 1886.
Education
From 1846 to 1850 lewis attended Rugby School. In 1854 he graduated from Christ Church College, Oxford. Then, Carroll remained there, lecturing on mathematics. In 1861 he took deacon’s orders. Early in 1856 he took up photography and became proficient at it especially at photographing children.
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
Carroll is known as the author of the famous children’s books Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, written in 1865 and its sequel, Through the Looking Glass in 1872. He developed these stories from tales he told to the children of Henry George Liddell, the dean of Christ Church College, one of whom was named Alice. Many of his characters—the Mad Hatter, the March Hare, the White Rabbit, the Red Queen, and the White Queen—have become familiar figures in literature and conversation. As Carroll himself said, the books combined elements of fantasy, logic and nonsense.
Other works
He also wrote humorous verses, the most popular of which was The Hunting of the Snark in 1876. His later stories for children, Sylvie and Bruno and Sylvie and Bruno Concluded were unsuccessful attempts to re-create the Alice fantasies.
Death
Lewis Carroll died on 14 January in 1898.
