Charles Lutwidge Dodgson

Lewis Carroll's real name was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson and he was born, the son of a country clergyman, on January 27, 1832. Born in the small English village of Daresbury, Cheshire (as in Cheshire Cat) there were 11 children in the family. Charles was the eldest of his three brothers and had seven sisters.

As a young boy he made pets of snails and frogs, was constantly inventing games for his brothers and sisters and he built a small theatre with dolls as the actors, moving them around the stage with strings. He performed tricks of magic dressed in a brown wig and long white robe, started a home magazine for which he wrote poems and plays and illustrated himself with his own comical and spirited drawings.

When eighteen years old, he entered the Oxford College, Christ Church, where he spent the rest of his life as a lecturer in mathematics. For the next fifty years he led a sort of double life. He had become a clergyman and as the Rev. C. L. Dodgson he taught mathematics and wrote textbooks.

As Lewis Carroll, he wrote verses for comic papers and stories for children. He made his pen name ingeniously out of his real Christian names. Lutwidge, is an old German form of Lewis, and Charles in Latin is Carolus; so transposing Charles Lutwidge, he arrived at Lewis Carroll.

The Head of his college, Dr. Liddell, Dean of Christ Church, had three young daughters of whom Charles Dodgson became very fond of. He used to take the three little girls for trips on the river at Oxford, rowing to picnic spots on the banks of the Thames and telling stories. According to Alice Liddell, the beginning of Alice In Wonderland originated here in 1862.

It was not until three years later that the book Alice in Wonderland was actually published. Lewis Carroll had promised to write out the story for Alice Liddell without any plan of its being printed for other readers. But he happened to show the manuscript to his friend, George MacDonald and MacDonald urged him to send it to a publisher. More than 120,000 copies were sold in the first twenty years.

By all accounts Dodgson had a grave, rather sad face, a quiet, shy manner and a slight stammer in his speech. Beneath that outer reserve was a spirit of fun as he would entertain children with fantastic stories and when he travelled he'd fill his pockets with ingenious puzzles of his own invention to amuse any child he might meet on the railway train. He would also write long, delightful letters to his young friends, full of fun and nonsense.

Dodgson read and possessed lots of books. He had a diary that consisted of thirteen volumes. From January 1861 until his death in 1898 he kept a register of all the letters that he ever wrote. It consisted of twenty four volumes and contained 98,721 letters!

He died from pneumonia on January 14, 1898. His gravestone bears first his full name, Rev Charles Lutwidge Dodgson; underneath it is the name by which thousands who have never heard the other, know and love him: Lewis Carroll.