Carroll, Lewis

(1832-1898)

   Lewis Carroll is the pen name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, author and mathematician. Born at Daresbury, near Warrington-where his father was the minister and afterwards archdeacon of Richmond and one of the canons of Ripon Cathedral-he was educated at Rugby and Christ Church, Oxford, where he was lecturer in mathematics from 1855 to 1881. In 1861 he was ordained deacon, but never took priest's orders, partly perhaps from shyness, and partly from a constitutional stammer that prevented reading aloud. He wrote Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) for Alice Liddell (afterwards Mrs. Reginald Hargreaves), the second daughter of Dean Liddell of Oxford. Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There was published in 1887. Both books were illustrated by Mr. (afterwards Sir) John Tenniel. Among his many other books was Euclid and his Modern Rivals (1879). Some of his poems: "A Long Tale," "A Mouse's Tale," "Disillusioned," "Four Riddles," "Limerick," "Solitude," "The Baker's Tale," "The Valley of the Shadow of Death," "You Are Old Father William." Mrs. Hargreaves died in 1934 at the age of 82 and is buried in the churchyard at Lyndhurst, Hampshire.

   Sources: Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition, 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite DVD, 2006. The Faber Book of Comic Verse. Michael Roberts and Janet Adam Smith, eds. Faber & Faber, 1978. The Humorous Verse of Lewis Carroll. Amereon Ltd., 1960. The National Portrait Gallery (www.npg.org.uk). The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000. Westminster Abbey Official Guide (no date).