English author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, best known by his
pseudonym, Lewis Carroll, was born on January 27, 1832 in the village of
Daresbury, England. The eldest boy in a family of 11 children, Carroll was
rather adept at entertaining himself and his siblings. His father, a clergyman,
raised them in the rectory. As a boy, Carroll excelled in mathematics and won
many academic prizes. At age 20, he was awarded a scholarship to Christ Church College
- Oxford. Apart from serving as a lecturer in mathematics, he was an avid
photographer and wrote essays, political pamphlets and poetry.
All of his life Carroll suffered from a bad stammer, but he
found himself able to speak with children. The relationships he had with young
people in his adult years are of great interest, as they undoubtedly inspired
his best-known writings and have been a point of disturbed speculation over the
years. Carroll loved to entertain children, and it was Alice, the daughter of
Henry George Liddell, who can be credited with his pinnacle inspiration. Alice
Liddell remembers spending many hours with Carroll, sitting on his couch while
he told fantastic tales of dream worlds. During an afternoon picnic with Alice
and her two sisters, Carroll told the first iteration of what would later
become Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. When Alice arrived home, she
exclaimed that he must write the story down for her.
He fulfilled the girl's request, and through a series of
coincidences, the story fell into the hands of the novelist Henry Kingsley, who
urged Carroll to publish it. The book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
was released in 1865. It gained steady popularity, and as a result, Carroll
wrote the sequel, Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There
(1871). By the time of his death, Alice had become the most popular
children's book in England, and by 1932 it was one of the most popular in the
world. Besides writing, Carroll created a number of fine photographs. His
notable portraits include those of the actress Ellen Terry and the poet Alfred
Lord Tennyson. Lewis Carroll died on January 14, 1898.
No comments:
Post a Comment