Lewis Carroll
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<!-- [[Image:CharlesDodgson.jpg|thumb|right|230px|Lewis Carroll]] -->
{{Infobox Writer <!-- for more information see [[:Template:Infobox Writer/doc]] -->
| name = Charles Lutwidge Dodgson
| image = CharlesDodgson.jpg
| imagesize = 230px
| caption =
| pseudonym = Lewis Carroll
| birthdate = {{Birth date |1832|01|27|df=yes}}
| birthplace = [[Daresbury]], [[Cheshire]], [[England]]
| deathdate = {{death date and age|1898|01|14 |1832|01|27|df=yes}}
| deathplace = [[Guildford]], [[Surrey]], [[England]]
| occupation = [[Author]], [[mathematics|Mathematician]], [[Anglican]] [[Clergyman]], [[photography|Photographer]], [[Logic]]ian
| nationality = [[United Kingdom|British]]
| genre = [[Children's literature]], [[Fantasy literature]], [[Poetry]]
| notableworks = ''[[Alice's Adventures in Wonderland]]'', ''[[Through the Looking-Glass]]'', "[[The Hunting of the Snark]]", "[[Jabberwocky]]"
}}
''' Charles Lutwidge Dodgson ''' ({{IPAEng|ˈdɒdsən}}) ([[27 January]] [[1832]] – [[14 January]] [[1898]]), better known by the [[pen name]] '''Lewis Carroll''' ({{IPA|/ˈkærəl/}}), was an [[England|English]] [[author]], [[mathematics|mathematician]], [[logic]]ian, [[Anglican]] and [[photographer]].
His most famous writings are ''[[Alice's Adventures in Wonderland]]'' and its sequel ''[[Through the Looking-Glass]]'' as well as the poems "[[The Hunting of the Snark]]" and "[[Jabberwocky]]", all considered to be within the genre of [[literary nonsense]].
His facility at [[word play]], [[logic]], and [[fantasy]] has delighted audiences ranging from children to the literary elite, and beyond this his work has become embedded deeply in modern culture, directly influencing many artists.
There are societies dedicated to the enjoyment and promotion of his works and the investigation of his life in many parts of the world including [[North America]], [[Japan]], the [[United Kingdom]], and [[New Zealand]].
==Early life==
===Antecedents===
Dodgson's family was predominantly northern [[England|English]], with [[Ireland|Irish]] connections. Conservative and [[High Church]] [[Anglicanism|Anglican]], most of Dodgson's ancestors were [[British Army|army]] officers or [[Church of England]] clergymen. His great-grandfather, also Charles Dodgson, had risen through the ranks of the church to become a bishop. His grandfather, another Charles, had been an [[army]] [[Captain (United Kingdom)|captain]], killed in action in 1803 when his two sons were hardly more than babies. His mother's name was Frances Jane Lutwidge.
The elder of these sons — yet another Charles — was Carroll's father. He reverted to the other family business and took [[holy orders]]. He went to [[Rugby School]], and thence to [[Christ Church, Oxford]]. He was [[mathematics|mathematically]] gifted and won a double first degree, which could have been the prelude to a brilliant academic career. Instead he married his first cousin in 1827 and retired into obscurity as a country [[parson]] <ref name = "kqihew"> Cohen, Morton ''Lewis Carroll, a biography'' pp. 30-35. </ref>
Young Charles' father was an active and highly conservative clergyman of the Anglican church who involved himself, sometimes influentially, in the intense religious disputes that were dividing the Anglican church. He was High Church, inclining to [[Anglo-Catholicism]], an admirer of [[John Henry Newman|Newman]] and the [[Tractarian movement]], and he did his best to instill such views in his children. Young Charles, however, was to develop an ambiguous relationship with his father's values and with the Anglican church as a whole.<ref> Cohen, Morton ''Lewis Carroll, a biography'' pp. 200-2. </ref>
===Young Charles===
Dodgson was born in the little [[parsonage]] of [[Daresbury]] in [[Cheshire]], the oldest boy but already the third child of the four-and-a-half year old marriage. Eight more were to follow and, remarkably for the time, all of them — seven girls and four boys (including [[Edwin H. Dodgson]]) — survived into adulthood. When Charles was 11, his father was given the living of [[Croft-on-Tees]] in north [[Yorkshire]], and the whole family moved to the spacious Rectory. This remained their home for the next twenty-five years.
During the earlier times in his life, young Dodgson was educated at home. His "reading lists" preserved in the family testify to a precocious intellect: at the age of seven the child was reading ''[[The Pilgrim's Progress]]''. He also suffered from a [[stammer]] — a condition shared by his siblings — that often influenced his social life throughout his years. At twelve he was sent away to a small private school at nearby [[Richmond, North Yorkshire|Richmond]], where he appears to have been happy and settled. But in 1846, young Dodgson moved on to [[Rugby School]], where he was evidently less happy, for as he wrote some years after leaving the place:
''I cannot say ... that any earthly considerations would induce me to go through my three years again ... I can honestly say that if I could have been ... secure from annoyance at night, the hardships of the daily life would have been comparative trifles to bear''.<ref name="colly"> Collingwood, Stuart Dodgson. ''[http://www.bookrags.com/ebooks/11483/1.html The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll]'', [http://www.bookrags.com/ebooks/11483/18.html 18].</ref>
Scholastically, though, he excelled with apparent ease. "I have not had a more promising boy his age since I came to Rugby" observed R.B. Mayor, the Mathematics master.<ref name="colly"> Collingwood, Stuart Dodgson. ''[http://www.bookrags.com/ebooks/11483/1.html The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll]'', [http://www.bookrags.com/ebooks/11483/18.html 18].</ref>
===Oxford===
He left Rugby at the end of 1849 and, after an interval that remains unexplained, went on in January 1851 to [[University of Oxford|Oxford]], attending his father's old college, [[Christ Church, Oxford|Christ Church]]. He had only been at Oxford two days when he received a summons home. His mother had died of "inflammation of the [[brain]]" — perhaps [[meningitis]] or a [[stroke]] — at the age of forty-seven.<ref name = "kqihew"/>
His early academic career veered between high-octane promise and irresistible distraction. He may not always have worked hard, but he was exceptionally gifted and achievement came easily to him. In 1852 he received a first in Honour Moderations, and shortly after he was nominated to a [[Studentship]], by his father's old friend Canon [[Edward Pusey]]. However, a little later he failed an important scholarship through his self-confessed inability to apply himself to study. Even so, his talent as a [[mathematician]] won him the Christ Church Mathematical Lectureship, which he continued to hold for the next twenty-six years. The income was good, but the work bored him. Many of his pupils were older and richer than he was, and almost all of them were uninterested. However, despite early unhappiness, Dodgson was to remain at Christ Church, in various capacities, until his death.<ref> Leach, Karoline ''In the Shadow of the Dreamchild'' Ch. 2. </ref>
==Character and appearance==
===Physical appearance===
The young adult Charles Dodgson was about six feet tall, slender and handsome, with curling brown hair and blue or grey eyes (depending on the account). He was described in later life as somewhat [[Asymmetry|asymmetrical]], and as carrying himself rather stiffly and awkwardly, though this may be on account of a knee injury sustained in middle age. As a very young child, he suffered a fever that left him deaf in one ear. At the age of seventeen, he suffered a severe attack of [[Pertussis|whooping cough]], which was probably responsible for his chronically weak chest in later life. Another defect he carried into adulthood was what he referred to as his "hesitation", a [[Stuttering|stammer]] he acquired in early childhood and which plagued him throughout his life.<ref name = "ekfvyz"> Leach, Karoline ''In the Shadow of the Dreamchild'' Ch. 2</ref>
===Stammer===
The stammer has always been a potent part of the [[legend|conceptions]] of Dodgson; it is part of the belief that he stammered only in adult company and was free and fluent with children, but there is no evidence to support this idea.<ref>Leach, p. 91</ref> Many children of his acquaintance remembered the stammer while many adults failed to notice it. Dodgson himself seems to have been far more acutely aware of it than most people he met; it is said he [[caricature]]d himself as the [[Dodo (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland)|Dodo]] in ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'', referring to his difficulty in pronouncing his last name, but this is one of the many "facts" oft-repeated, for which no firsthand evidence remains. He did indeed refer to himself as the dodo, but that this was a reference to his stammer is simply speculation<ref> Leach, Karoline ''In the Shadow of the Dreamchild'' Ch. 2.</ref>
===Personality===
Although Dodgson's stammer troubled him, it was never so debilitating that it prevented him from applying his other personal qualities to do well in society. At a time when people commonly devised their own amusements and when singing and recitation were required social skills, the young Dodgson was well-equipped to be an engaging entertainer. He could sing tolerably well and was not afraid to do so before an audience. He was adept at mimicry and storytelling, and was, reputedly, quite good at [[charades]].<ref name = "ekfvyz"/>
Dodgson was also quite socially ambitious and anxious to make his mark on the world as a writer or an artist. In the interim between his early published writing and the success of the ''Alice'' books, he began to move in the [[Pre-Raphaelite]] social circle. His scholastic career may well have been intended as something of a stop-gap on the way to other more exciting achievements. He first met [[John Ruskin]] in 1857 and became friendly with him. He developed a close relationship with [[Dante Gabriel Rossetti]] and his family, and also knew [[William Holman Hunt]], [[John Everett Millais]], and [[Arthur Hughes (artist)|Arthur Hughes]] among other artists. He also knew the fairy-tale author [[George MacDonald]] well — it was the enthusiastic reception of ''Alice'' by the young MacDonald children that convinced him to submit the work for publication<ref name = "ekfvyz"/><ref name = "snaogq"> Cohen, Morton ''Lewis Carroll, a biography'' </ref>.
==Dodgson the artist==
===The author===
From a young age, Dodgson wrote poetry and [[short story|short stories]], both contributing heavily to the family magazine [[Mischmasch]] and later sending them to various magazines, enjoying moderate success. Between 1854 and 1856, his work appeared in the national publications, ''The Comic Times'' and ''The Train'', as well as smaller magazines like the ''[[Whitby Gazette]]'' and the ''Oxford Critic''. Most of this output was humorous, sometimes [[satire|satirical]], but his standards and ambitions were exacting. "I do not think I have yet written anything worthy of real publication (in which I do not include the ''Whitby Gazette'' or the ''Oxonian Advertiser''), but I do not despair of doing so some day", he wrote in July 1855<ref name = "ekfvyz"/>.
In 1856 he published his first piece of work under the name that would make him famous. A romantic poem called "Solitude" appeared in ''The Train'' under the authorship of "Lewis Carroll". This [[pseudonym]] was a play on his real name; ''Lewis'' was the [[anglicise]]d form of ''Ludovicus'', which was the [[Latin]] for ''Lutwidge'', and ''Carroll'' being an anglicised version of ''Carolus'', the Latin for ''Charles''<ref name = "kqihew"/>.
====Alice====
[[Image:Alice par John Tenniel 30.png|thumb|right|250px|"The chief difficulty [[Alice (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland)|Alice]] found at first was in managing her [[flamingo]]"]]
In the same year, 1856, a new Dean, [[Henry Liddell]], arrived at [[Christ Church, Oxford|Christ Church]], bringing with him his young family, all of whom would figure largely in Dodgson's life and, over the following years, greatly influence his writing career. Dodgson became close friends with Liddell's wife, Lorina, and their children, particularly the three sisters: Lorina, Edith and Alice Liddell. He was for many years widely assumed to have derived his own "Alice" from [[Alice Liddell]]. This was given some apparent substance by the fact the acrostic poem at the end of ''Through the Looking Glass'' spells out her name, and that there are many superficial references to her hidden in the text of both books. Dodgson himself, however, repeatedly denied in later life that his "little heroine" was based on any real child,<ref> Cohen, Morton N. (ed), ''The Letters of Lewis Carroll'', London: Macmillan, 1979.</ref> <ref name = "nbrhxm"> Leach, Karoline ''In the Shadow of the Dreamchild'' Ch. 5 "The Unreal Alice"</ref> and frequently dedicated his works to girls of his acquaintance and added their names in acrostic poems at the beginning of the text. Gertrude Chataway's name appears in this form at the beginning of [[The Hunting of the Snark]], and no one has ever suggested this means any of the characters in the narrative are based on her<ref name = "nbrhxm"/>.
Though information is scarce (Dodgson's diaries for the years 1858–1862 are missing), it does seem clear that his friendship with the Liddell family was an important part of his life in the late 1850s, and he grew into the habit of taking the children (first the boy, Harry, and later the three girls) on rowing trips to nearby [[Nuneham Courtenay]] or [[Godstow]]<ref name = "ulsdnc"> Leach, Karoline ''In the Shadow of the Dreamchild'' Ch. 4 </ref> .
It was on one such expedition, on [[July 4]] [[1862]], that Dodgson invented the outline of the story that eventually became his first and largest commercial success. Having told the story and been begged by Alice Liddell to write it down, Dodgson eventually (after much delay) presented her with a handwritten, illustrated manuscript entitled ''Alice's Adventures Under Ground'' in November 1864<ref name = "ulsdnc"/>.
Before this, the family of friend and mentor [[George MacDonald]] read Dodgson's incomplete manuscript, and the enthusiasm of the MacDonald children encouraged Dodgson to seek publication. In 1863, he had taken the unfinished manuscript to Macmillan the publisher, who liked it immediately. After the possible alternative titles ''Alice Among the Fairies'' and ''Alice's Golden Hour'' were rejected, the work was finally published as ''[[Alice's Adventures in Wonderland]]'' in 1865 under the Lewis Carroll pen name, which Dodgson had first used some nine years earlier <ref name = "snaogq"/>. The illustrations this time were by [[John Tenniel|Sir John Tenniel]]; Dodgson evidently thought that a published book would need the skills of a professional artist.
The overwhelming commercial success of the first Alice book changed Dodgson's life in many ways. The fame of his alter ego "Lewis Carroll" soon spread around the world. He was inundated with fan mail and with sometimes unwanted attention. He also began earning quite substantial sums of money. However, he didn't use this income as a means of abandoning his seemingly disliked post at Christ Church<ref name = "snaogq"/>.
In 1872, a sequel — ''[[Through the Looking-Glass]]'' — was published. Its somewhat darker mood possibly reflects the changes in Dodgson's life. His father had recently died (1868), plunging him into a depression that would last some years<ref name = "snaogq"/>.
====''The Hunting of the Snark''====
In 1876, Dodgson produced his last great work, ''[[The Hunting of the Snark]]'', a fantastic "nonsense" poem, exploring the adventures of a bizarre crew of variously inadequate beings, and one beaver, who set off to find the eponymous creature. The painter [[Dante Gabriel Rossetti]] reputedly became convinced the poem was about him<ref name = "snaogq"/>.
===The photographer===
[[Image:Alice Liddell 2.jpg|thumb|Photo of [[Alice Liddell]] taken by Lewis Carroll (1858).]]
In 1856, Dodgson took up the new art form of [[photography]], first under the influence of his uncle Skeffington Lutwidge, and later his Oxford friend [[Reginald Southey]].
He soon excelled at the art and became a well-known gentleman-photographer, and he seems even to have toyed with the idea of making a living out of it in his very early years <ref name = "snaogq"/>.
A recent study by Roger Taylor and Edward Wakeling<ref>Roger Taylor and Edward Wakeling. (2002). ''Lewis Carroll, Photographer''. </ref> exhaustively lists every surviving print, and Taylor calculates that just over fifty percent of his surviving work depicts young girls. He would later use many of his photographs of children in conjunction with his writings to add illustration to his work. [[Alexandra Kitchin]], known as "Xie" (pronounced "Ecksy"), was his favourite photographic subject. From 1869 until he gave up photography in 1880, Dodgson photographed her at least fifty times, ending just before her sixteenth birthday. Less than a third of his original portfolio has survived<ref>[http://lewiscarroll.cc/howmuchisthere.html how much evidence is there?<!-- Both generated title -->]</ref>, however; Dodgson also made many studies of men, women, male children and landscapes; his subjects also include skeletons, dolls, dogs, statues and paintings, trees, scholars, scientists, old men and little girls. His studies of nude children were long presumed lost, but six have since surfaced, five of which have been published.
[[Image:Effie&john.jpg|thumb|left|250px|Photo of [[John Everett Millais]] and his wife [[Effie Gray]] with two of their children, signed by Effie (c. 1860)]]
He also found photography to be a useful entrée into higher social circles. During the most productive part of his career, he made portraits of notable sitters such as [[John Everett Millais]], [[Ellen Terry]], [[Dante Gabriel Rossetti]], [[Julia Margaret Cameron]], [[Michael Faraday]] and [[Alfred, Lord Tennyson]]<ref name = "snaogq"/>.
Dodgson abruptly ceased to photograph in 1880. Over 24 years, he had completely mastered the medium, set up his own studio on the roof of Tom Quad, and created around 3,000 images. Fewer than 1,000 have survived time and deliberate destruction. His reasons for abandoning photography remain uncertain.
With the advent of [[Modernism]] tastes changed, and his photography was forgotten from around 1920 until the 1960s. He is now considered by many to be one of the very best Victorian photographers, and is certainly the one who has had the most influence on modern [[Fine art photography|art photographers]].
===The inventor===
To promote letter writing, Dodgson invented ''The Wonderland Postage-Stamp Case'' in 1889. This was a cloth-backed folder with twelve slots, two marked for inserting the then most commonly used 1d. stamp, and one each for the other current denominations to 1s. The folder was then put into a slip case decorated with a picture of Alice on the front and the [[Cheshire Cat]] on the back. All could be conveniently carried in a pocket or purse. When issued it also included a copy of Carroll's pamphletted lecture, ''Eight or Nine Wise Words About Letter-Writing''.<ref>Flodden W. Heron, "Lewis Carroll, Inventor of Postage Stamp Case" in ''Stamps'', vol. 26, no. 12, [[March 25]] [[1939]]</ref><ref>http://www.parkhurstrarebooks.com/newarrivals.htm</ref><ref>[http://lewiscarrollsociety.org.uk/pages/inspired/stamps.htm The Lewis Carroll Society Website - Carroll Related Postage Stamps<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref>
Another invention is a writing tablet called the ''Nyctograph'' for use at night that allowed for note-taking in the dark; thus eliminating the trouble of getting out of bed and striking a light when one wakes with an idea. The device consisted of a gridded card with sixteen squares and system of symbols representing an alphabet of Dodgson's design.
Among the games he devised outside of logic, croquet, billiards and those played on a chess board, there are a number of word games, including an early version of what today is known as [[Scrabble]]. He also appears to have invented, or at least certainly popularised, the [[Word Ladder]] (or "doublet" as it was known at first); a form of brain-teaser that is still popular today: the game of changing one word into another by altering one letter at a time, each successive change always resulting in a genuine word. For instance, CAT is transformed into DOG by the following steps: CAT, COT, DOT, DOG <ref name = "snaogq"/>
Other items include a rule for finding the day of the week for any date; a means for justifying right margins on a typewriter; a steering device for a velociam (a type of tricycle); new systems of parliamentary representation<ref>{{cite book|url=http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=PN1dAAAACAAJ|title=A Mathematical Approach to Proportional Representation|author=Duncan Black, Iain McLean, Alistair McMillan, Burt L. Monroe, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson|isbn=0792396200}}</ref> ; more nearly fair elimination rules for tennis tournaments; a new sort of postal money order; rules for reckoning postage; rules for a win in betting; rules for dividing a number by various divisors; a cardboard scale for the college common room he worked in later in life, which held, next to a glass, insured the right amount of liqueur for the price paid; a double sided adhesive strip for things like the fastening of envelopes or mounting things in books; a device for helping a bedridden invalid to read from a book placed sideways; and at least two ciphers. <ref name = "snaogq"/>.
[[Richard Grey]]'s ''Memoria Technica'' and John Jaques ''In Statu Quo'' traveling chess set have at times been mistakenly credited to Dodgson.
==The later years==
Over the remaining twenty years of his life, throughout his growing wealth and fame, his existence remained little changed. He continued to teach at Christ Church until 1881, and remained in residence there until his death. His last novel, the two-volume ''[[Sylvie and Bruno]]'', was published in 1889 and 1893 respectively. Its extraordinary convolutions and apparent confusion baffled most readers and it achieved little success. It does contain an extremely concise account of three-valued logic when Bruno counts "about a thousand and four" pigs because he is certain about the four but estimates the remainder. In three-valued logic, unknown plus four = unknown (see [[Null (SQL)]]).
The only occasion on which (as far as is known) he travelled abroad was a trip to Russia in 1867, which he recounts in his "Russian Journal" which was first commercially published in 1935.<ref>http://www.lewiscarroll.org/works.html</ref>
He died on [[January 14]] [[1898]] at his sisters' home, 'The Chestnuts' in [[Guildford]], of pneumonia following influenza. He was 2 weeks away from turning 66 years old. He is buried in Guildford at the [[Mount Cemetery]]<ref name = "snaogq"/>.
==Controversies and mysteries==
===The possibility of drug use===
Many people have interpreted the encounters and events in the ''Alice'' books as [[hallucinations]], usually noting the drinking of tea, consumption of [[Psychedelic mushrooms|mushrooms]] and the [[hookah]] smoking caterpillar, as references to [[Psychedelics, dissociatives and deliriants|psychedelic substances]]. The suggestion of drug use made him extremely popular to the [[counterculture]] of the 1960s, often being utilised by drug users as a positive way of showing the mainstream that one of their most famous and highly regarded writers also used these forbidden substances.
However, there is no evidence that he ever used drugs. It is true that the standard domestic painkiller of the time, [[laudanum]], was in fact a tincture of [[opium]] and could produce a "high" if used in a large enough dose<ref>http://drugs.uta.edu/laudanum</ref> and that Dodgson, most historians would agree, probably used it from time to time, but again there is no evidence he ever used it to excess or that its effects had any impact on his work.
===The priesthood===
Dodgson had been groomed for the ordained ministry in the [[Anglican Church]] from a very early age and was expected, as a condition of his residency at Christ Church, to take [[holy orders]] within four years of obtaining his master's degree. However, he evidently became reluctant to do this. He delayed the process for some time but eventually took deacon's orders in December 1861. But when the time came a year later to progress to priestly orders, Dodgson appealed to the dean for permission not to proceed. This was against college rules, and Dean Liddell told him he would very likely have to leave his job if he refused to take orders. He told Dodgson he would have to consult the college ruling body, which would almost undoubtedly have resulted in his being expelled. However, for unknown reasons, Dean Liddell changed his mind and permitted Dodgson to remain at the college, in defiance of the rules.<ref>Dodgson's MS diaries, volume 8, [[October 22]]–[[October 24]] [[1862]]</ref> Dodgson never became a priest.
There is currently no conclusive evidence about why Dodgson rejected the priesthood. Some have suggested his stammer made him reluctant to take the step, because he was afraid of having to preach,{{Fact|date=March 2008}} but this seems unlikely given his willingness to take on other public performances (story-telling, recitations, magic lantern shows), and the fact that he did indeed preach in later life, even though not in orders.{{Fact|date=March 2008}} Others have suggested that he was having serious doubts about the Anglican church.{{Fact|date=March 2008}} It is known that he was interested in minority forms of Christianity (he was an admirer of [[Frederick Maurice|FD Maurice]]) and "alternative" religions ([[theosophy]]).{{Fact|date=March 2008}} Dodgson was deeply troubled by an unexplained sense of sin and guilt at this time (the early 1860s), and frequently expressed the view in his diaries that he was a "vile and worthless" sinner, unworthy of the priesthood.<ref> Dodgson's MS diaries, volume 8, see prayers scattered throughout the text</ref>
===The missing diaries===
At least four complete volumes<ref>Leach, p. 48</ref> and around seven pages<ref>Leach, p. 51</ref> of text are missing from Dodgson's 13 diaries. The loss of the volumes remains unexplained; the pages have been deliberately removed by an unknown hand. Most scholars assume the diary material was removed by family members in the interests of preserving the family name, but this has not been proven.<ref>Leach, pp. 48–51</ref> All of the missing material, with the exception of a single page, is believed to date from the period between 1853 (when Dodgson was 22) and 1863 (when he was 32).<ref>Leach, p. 52</ref>
Many theories have been put forward to explain the missing material. A popular explanation for one particular missing page ([[June 27]], [[1863]]) is that it might have been torn out to conceal the belief that Dodgson had proposed marriage on that day to the 11-year old Alice Liddell. However, there has never been any evidence to suggest this was so, and a paper<ref>Dodgson Family Collection, Cat. No. F/17/1. "[http://www.lewiscarroll.cc/cutpages.html Cut Pages in Diary]". (For an account of its discovery see ''The Times Literary Supplement'', [[3 May]] [[1996]].)</ref> that came to light in the Dodgson family archive in 1996 provides some evidence to the contrary.
====The "Cut Pages in Diary" document====
[[Image:Cutpagesdoc.jpg|thumb|The "cut pages in diary" document, in the Dodgson family archive in Woking, UK.]]
This paper, known as the [http://lewiscarroll.cc/cutpagesindiarydoc.html "cut pages in diary document"], was compiled by various members of Carroll's family after his death. Part of it at least was presumably written at the time that some of the pages were being mutilated, as it offers a brief summary of two diary pages that are now missing, including the one for [[June 27]] [[1863]]. The summary for this page states that Mrs. Liddell told Dodgson there was gossip circulating about him and the Liddell family's governess, as well as about his relationship with "Ina", presumably Alice's older sister, Lorina Liddell. The "break" with the Liddell family that occurred soon after was presumably in response to this gossip.<ref> Leach, Karoline [http://shadowofthedreamchild.wild-reality.net''In the Shadow of the Dreamchild''] pp. 170–2. </ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.lewiscarroll.cc/cutpages.html |work=Looking for Lewis Carroll |title=Text available on-line |accessdate=2007-05-04}}</ref> An alternate interpretation has been made regarding Carroll's rumored involvement with "Ina": Lorina was also the name of Alice Liddell's mother. What is deemed most crucial and surprising is that the entry seems to make it clear Dodgson's break with the family was not connected with Alice at all.
===Migraine and Epilepsy===
In his diary for the year 1880 Dodgson recorded experiencing his first episode of [[migraine]] with aura, describing very accurately the process of 'moving fortifications' that are a manifestation of the aura stage of the syndrome<ref>"The Diaries of Lewis Carroll", vol 9 p. 52</ref>. Given this manifestation, it's possible that he chronically experienced the more common form of migraine, consisting simply of headache and nausea, but no real evidence exists either way, though several people have suggested the odd experiences Alice undergoes in the stories may have been inspired by migraine-like symptoms. Indeed a condition, [[Alice in Wonderland Syndrome]], has been named after it. Also known as [[micropsia]] and [[macropsia]], it is a brain condition affecting the way objects are perceived by the mind. For example, an afflicted person may look at a larger object, like a basketball, and perceive it as if it were the size of a mouse.
Dodgson also suffered two attacks in which he lost consciousness. He was diagnosed by three different doctors; a Dr. Morshead, Dr. Brooks, and Dr. Stedman, believed the attack and a consequent attack to be an "epileptiform" seizure (initially thought to be fainting, but Brooks changed his mind). Some have concluded from this he was a lifetime sufferer from this condition, yet his diaries do record what Carroll himself referred to as "epilepsy" in his later years. "The Diaries of Lewis Carroll", vol 9 </ref>. Some authors, in particular [[Sadi Ranson]], have suggested Carroll may have suffered from [[temporal lobe epilepsy]] in which consciousness is not always completely lost, but altered, and in which the symptoms mimic many of the same experiences as Alice in Wonderland. Note that Carroll had at least once incidence in which he suffered full loss of consciousness and awoke with a bloody nose, which he recorded in his diary and noted that the episode left him not feeling himself for "quite sometime afterward". This attack was diagnosed as possibly "epileptiform" and Carroll himself later wrote of his "seizures" in the same diary. It's worth noting that epilepsy runs in families, and Carroll had at least one other family member with epilepsy (also recorded in his diaries), and that speech hesitations, facial asyemmetry, as well as some deafness are not uncommon in certain epilepsies. It is also recorded that several or Dodgson's siblings suffered from a speech hesitation, suggesting again that any existing neurological condition was within the family as reported in Interviews & Recollections, editor Morton N. Cohen.
===Suggestions of Paedophilia===
Dodgson's friendships with young girls, together with his perceived lack of interest in romantic attachments to adult women, and psychological readings of his work — especially his photographs of nude or semi-nude girls<ref>Cohen, 1995, pp. 166–167, 254–255.</ref> — have all led to speculation that he was, in modern parlance, a [[paedophile]]. This possibility has underpinned numerous modern interpretations of his life and work, particularly [[Dennis Potter]]'s play ''Alice'' and his screenplay for the motion picture, ''[[Dreamchild]]'', and a number of recent biographies, including [[Michael Bakewell]]'s ''Lewis Carroll: A Biography'' (1996), Donald Thomas's ''Lewis Carroll: A Portrait with Background'' (1996) and [[Morton N. Cohen]]'s ''Lewis Carroll: A Biography'' (1995). All of these works more or less unequivocally assume that Dodgson was a paedophile, albeit a repressed and celibate one.
Cohen claims Dodgson's "sexual energies sought unconventional outlets", and further writes:
:''We cannot know to what extent sexual urges lay behind Charles's preference for drawing and photographing children in the nude. He contended the preference was entirely aesthetic. But given his emotional attachment to children as well as his aesthetic appreciation of their forms, his assertion that his interest was strictly artistic is naive. He probably felt more than he dared acknowledge, even to himself.''<ref>Cohen, 1995</ref>
Cohen notes that Dodgson "apparently convinced many of his friends that his attachment to the nude female child form was free of any [[erotic]]ism", but adds that "later generations look beneath the surface" (p. 229).
Cohen and other biographers argue that Dodgson may have wanted to marry the 11-year old Alice Liddell and that this was the cause of the unexplained "break" with the family in June 1863.<ref>Cohen pp 100–4. </ref> But there has never been significant evidence to support the idea, and the 1996 discovery of the "cut pages in diary document" (see above) might imply that the 1863 "break" had less to do with Alice, but was perhaps connected with rumors involving her older sister Lorina, or possibly their governess.
Some writers, e.g., Derek Hudson and [[Roger Lancelyn Green]], who have fallen short of accepting Dodgson as a paedophile, have tended to concur that he had a passion for small female children and next to no interest in the adult world.
=="The Carroll Myth"==
The accepted view of Dodgson's biography has been challenged recently by a group of scholars led by [[Hugues Lebailly]] and [[Karoline Leach]] and others who argue that Dodgson's diaries and letters reveal him to have been very different in many key aspects from the traditional image. Leach's book, [[In the Shadow of the Dreamchild|In the Shadow of the Dream Child]], in particular has raised a considerable amount of controversy.
Lebailly has endeavoured to set Dodgson's child-photography within the "Victorian Child Cult", which perceived child-nudity as essentially an expression of innocence. Lebailly claims that studies of child nudes were mainstream and fashionable in Dodgson's time and that most photographers, including Oscar Rejlander and [[Julia Margaret Cameron]], made them as a matter of course. Lebailly continues that child nudes even appeared on Victorian Christmas cards — implying a very different social and aesthetic assessment of such material. Lebailly concludes that it has been an error of Dodgson's biographers to view his child-photography with 20th or 21st century eyes, and to have presented it as some form of personal idiosyncrasy, when it was in fact a response to a prevalent aesthetic and philosophical movement of the time.
Leach posed a new analysis of Dodgson's sexuality. She argues that the allegations of paedophilia rose initially from a misunderstanding of Victorian morals, as well as the mistaken idea, fostered by Dodgson's various biographers, that he had no interest in adult women. She termed the traditional image of Dodgson "the Carroll Myth".<ref>[http://carrollmyth.com "The Carroll Myth"]</ref> She asserts his diaries show he was also keenly interested in adult women, married and single, and enjoyed several scandalous (by the social standards of his time) relationships with them. In later life many of those he described as "child-friends" were girls in their late teens and even twenties.<ref>Leach, pp. 16–17</ref>. She argues that suggestions of paedophilia evolved only many years after his death, when his well-meaning family had suppressed all evidence of his relationships with women in an effort to preserve his reputation, thus giving a false impression of a man interested only in little girls. Similarly, Leach traces the claim that many of Carroll's female friendships ended when the girls reached the age of 14 to a 1932 biography by Langford Reed,<ref>Leach, p. 33</ref> who Leach claims intended to suggest from this that Dodgson was a "pure man" untainted by sexual desire.<ref>Leach, p. 32</ref>
[[Sherry L. Ackerman, Ph.D.]], published a book with [[Cambridge Scholars Publishing]] in 2008, ''[[Behind the Looking Glass]]'', in which she argues that the Carroll Myth also extends to traditional, mainstream views of Carroll's spiritual persona. Rather than being a conservative [[Victorian era|Victorian]] [[Anglican]], Ackerman's research indicates that Carroll was actually a mystic. She links Carroll to the nineteenth century [[Neoplatonic]] Revival in Great Britain, as well as to accompanying trends of [[theosophy]] and spiritualism.
The concept of the Carroll Myth has been opposed by some leading Carroll scholars, in particular [[Morton Cohen]] and [[Martin Gardner]].
==Works==
<div class= style="-moz-column-count:2; column-count:2;">
*''[[Alice's Adventures in Wonderland]]''
*''[[Through the Looking-Glass|Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There]]'' (includes [[Jabberwocky]])
*''[[The Hunting of the Snark]]''
*''Rhyme? And Reason?'' (also published as ''Phantasmagoria'')
*''A Tangled Tale''
*''[[Sylvie and Bruno]]''
*''[[Sylvie and Bruno Concluded]]''
*''Three Sunsets and Other Poems''
*''Pillow Problems''
*''The Game of Logic''
*''Symbolic Logic Part I''
*''Symbolic Logic Part II'' (published posthumously)
*''An Elementary Treatise on Determinants, With Their Application to Simultaneous Linear Equations and Algebraic Equations''
*''[[What the Tortoise Said to Achilles]]''
*''[[Euclid and his Modern Rivals]]'' (1879)
*''Facts''
*''He thought he saw an elephant''
</div>
==See also==
* [[Barbershop paradox]]
* ''[[Jack the Ripper, Light-Hearted Friend]]'': deals with the unusual idea that Carroll may have been the Ripper.
* ''[[Phantasmagoria: The Visions of Lewis Carroll]]'': An upcoming film based on the life of Lewis Carroll, directed by Marilyn Manson.
==Notes==
{{Reflist}}
==References==
{{sourcesstart}}
* Bowman, Isa (1899), ''The Story of Lewis Carroll, Told by the Real Alice in Wonderland'', London: Dent
* [[Morton N. Cohen|Cohen, Morton N.]] (1995), ''Lewis Carroll: A Biography'', London: Macmillan
* Collingwood, Stuart Dodgson (1898), ''The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll'', London: T. Fisher Unwin
* [[Darien Graham-Smith|Graham-Smith, Darien]] (2005), ''Contextualising Carroll'', University of Wales, Bangor: PhD Thesis ([http://library.bangor.ac.uk/search/Xcontextualising&searchscope=5&b=&SORT=A&l=&m=&Da=&Db=&p=/Xcontextualising&searchscope=5&b=&SORT=A&l=&m=&Da=&Db=&p=/1%2C19%2C19%2CB/frameset&FF=Xcontextualising&SORT=A&4%2C4%2C])
* Huxley, Francis (1976), ''The Raven and the Writing Desk''. (ISBN 0-06-012113-0).
* Kelly, Richard, ''Lewis Carroll''. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1990.
* Kelly, Richard, [http://www.broadviewpress.com/bvbooks.asp?BookID=208 ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland''.]
* [[Karoline Leach|Leach, Karoline]] (1999), ''[[In the Shadow of the Dreamchild: A New Understanding of Lewis Carroll]]'', London: Peter Owen Publishers
* Lennon, Florence Becker (1947), ''Lewis Carroll'', London: Cassell
* Reed, Langford (1932), ''The Life of Lewis Carroll'', London: W. and G. Foyle
* Sunghyun Kim, 'Political Unconscious in Fantastic Narrative: Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland(Korean)', Yonsei University Graduate School, 2005
* Taylor, Alexander L., Knight (1952), ''The White Knight'', Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd
* Taylor, Roger & Wakeling, Edward, ''Lewis Carroll, Photographer'', 2002 (Catalogues nearly every Carroll photograph known to be still in existence.)
* Wullschläger, Jackie, ''Inventing Wonderland'', (ISBN 0-7432-2892-8) — also looks at [[Edward Lear]] (of the "nonsense" verses), [[J. M. Barrie]] (''[[Peter Pan]]''), [[Kenneth Grahame]] (''[[The Wind in the Willows]]''), and [[A. A. Milne]] (''[[Winnie-the-Pooh]]'').
* n.n., ''Dreaming in Pictures: The Photography of Lewis Carroll''. Yale University Press & SFMOMA, 2004. (Places Carroll firmly in the [[art photography]] tradition.)
{{sourcesend}}
==External links==
{{commons|Charles Lutwidge Dodgson|Lewis Carroll}}
{{wikiquote}}
{{wikisource author}}
*[http://www.carrollmyth.com/ The Carroll Myth] background on the current controversy.
*[http://www.lewiscarroll.cc/ Looking for Lewis Carroll]
*[http://lewiscarrollsociety.org.uk/ The Lewis Carroll Society]
*[http://www.lewiscarroll.org/ Lewis Carroll Society of North America]
*[http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/carroll/carrollov.html Lewis Carroll at victorianweb.org]
*[http://contrariwise.wild-reality.net Contrariwise; the Association for New Lewis Carroll Studies]
*{{gutenberg author | id=Lewis_Carroll | name=Lewis Carroll}}
*[http://photographyoflewiscarroll.googlepages.com/ The Photography of Lewis Carroll] (selected colourised plates from his child photography)
* [http://research.hrc.utexas.edu:8080/hrcxtf/view?docId=ead/00284.xml&query=carroll,%20lewis&query-join=and Lewis Carroll Collection] at the [[Harry Ransom Center]] at the [[University of Texas at Austin]]
* [http://tantmieux.squarespace.com/lewis-carroll/ Lewis Carroll on Tant Mieux] A collection of articles by S. Ranson-Polizzotti and note of forthcoming book, summer, 2008.
{{19CBritChildrensLiterature}}
{{Alice}}
{{Persondata
|NAME=Carroll, Lewis
|ALTERNATIVE NAMES=Dodgson, Charles Lutwidge (real name)
|SHORT DESCRIPTION=Author, mathematician, and clergyman
|DATE OF BIRTH={{birth date|1832|1|27|mf=y}}
|PLACE OF BIRTH=[[Daresbury]], [[Cheshire]], [[England]]
|DATE OF DEATH={{death date|1898|1|14|mf=y}}
|PLACE OF DEATH=[[Guildford]], [[England]]
}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Carroll, Lewis}}
[[Category:Lewis Carroll|*]]
[[Category:19th century British children's literature]]
[[Category:English children's writers]]
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[[Category:Old Rugbeians]]
[[Category:People from Daresbury]]
[[Category:1832 births]]
[[Category:1898 deaths]]
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