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LEWIS CARROLL

Lewis Carroll was the pen name of Charles L. Dodgson, author of the children's classics "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking-Glass."

Born on January 27, 1832 in Daresbury, Cheshire, England, Charles Dodgson wrote and created games as a child. At age 20 he received a studentship at Christ Church and was appointed a lecturer in mathematics. Dodgson was

shy but enjoyed creating stories for children. His books including "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" were published under the pen name Lewis Carroll. Dodgson died in 1898.

EARLY LIFE

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, best known by his pseudonym, Lewis Carroll, was born in the village of Daresbury, England, on January 27, 1832. 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 studentship (called a scholarship in other colleges) to Christ College. Apart from serving as a lecturer in mathematics, he was an avid photographer and wrote essays,

www. fairytails.biz

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political pamphlets and poetry. "The Hunting of the Snark" displays his wonderful ability in the genre of literary nonsense.

ALICE AND LITERARY SUCCESS

Carroll suffered from a bad stammer, but he found himself vocally fluent when speaking 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 small 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

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http://www.lewiscarroll.org/carroll/art/

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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. PHOTOGRAPHY AND LEGACY

Besides writing, Carroll

created a number of fine photographs. His notable portraits include those of the actress Ellen Terry and the poet Alfred Tennyson. He also photographed children in every possible costume and situation, eventually making nude studies of them. Despite conjecture,

little real evidence of child abuse can be brought against him. Shortly before his 66th birthday, Lewis Carroll caught a severe case of influenza, which led to pneumonia. He died on January 14, 1898, leaving an enigma behind him.

http://www.biography.com/people/lewis-carroll-9239598

http://www.lewiscarroll.org/carroll/art/

A Self-Portrait

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SIR JOHN TENNIEL

Sir John Tenniel (28 February, 1820 – 25 February, 1914) was an English illustrator.

He drew many topical cartoons and caricatures for Punch in the late 19th century, but is best remembered today for his illustrations in Lewis Carroll's “Alice's Adventures in Wonderland” and “Through the Looking-Glass”.

In 1865 he illustrated the first edition of “Alice's Adventures in Wonderland”. The first print run of 2,000 was shelved because Tenniel objected to the print quality; a new edition, released in December of the same year but carrying an 1866 date, was quickly printed and became an instant best-seller, securing Tenniel's lasting fame in the process. His illustrations for both books have taken their place among the most famous literary illustrations ever made. They were used as a reference for the costumes in Disney's “Alice in Wonderland”, and Tim Burton's “Alice in Wonderland”.

Tenniel's illustrations for the 'Alice' books were engraved onto blocks of wood, to be printed in the woodcut process. The original wood blocks are now in the collection of the Bodleian Library in Oxford. They are not usually on public display, but were exhibited in 2003.

http://aliceinwonderland.wikia.com/wiki/Sir_John_Tenniel

Self-portrait of John Tenniel, en.wikipedia.org

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The following John Tenniel’s illustrations of Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland” were taken from the Victorian Web – Literature, history & culture in the age of Victoria.

I’m late, I’m late (1865) Wood-engraving by Thomas Dalziel

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Alice, the Duchess, and the Baby (1865) Wood-engraving by Thomas Dalziel

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The Mad Hatter (1865) Wood-engraving by Thomas Dalziel

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The Gryphon and Mock-Turtle (1865) Wood-engraving by Thomas Dalziel

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Off with her head! (1865) Wood-engraving by Thomas Dalziel

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The King and Queen (1865) Wood-engraving by Thomas Dalziel

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http://www.victorianweb.org/art/illustration/tenniel/alice/12.3.html

‘You’re nothing but a pack of cards! (1865) Wood-engraving by Thomas Dalziel

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THE 100 BEST NOVELS: NO 18 – ALICE'S

ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND BY LEWIS CARROLL (1865)

Lewis Carroll's brilliant nonsense tale is one of the most influential and best loved in the English canon

by Robert McCrum, in The Observer, Sunday 19 January 2014

On 4 July 1862, a shy young Oxford mathematics don with a taste for puzzles and whimsy named Charles Dodgson rowed the three daughters of Henry Liddell, dean of Christ Church, five miles up the Thames to Godstow. On the way, to entertain his passengers, who included a 10-year-old named Alice, with whom he was strangely infatuated, Dodgson began to improvise the "Adventures Under Ground" of a bored young girl, also named Alice. Wordplay, logical conundrums, parody and riddles: Dodgson surpassed himself, and the girls were enchanted by the nonsense dreamworld he conjured up. The weather for this trip was reportedly "overcast", but those on board would remember it as "a golden afternoon".

This well-known story marks the beginning of perhaps the greatest, possibly most influential, and certainly the most world-famous Victorian English fiction, a book that hovers between a nonsense tale and an elaborate in-joke. Just three years later, extended, revised, and

Drink me': one of John Tenniel's original illustrations for Alice's

Adventures in Wonderland. Photograph: Bettmann/ Corbis

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retitled Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, now credited to a pseudonymous Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland (its popular title) was about to become the publishing sensation of Christmas 1865. It is said that among the first avid readers of Alice were Queen Victoria and the young Oscar Wilde. A second volume about Alice (Through the Looking-Glass) followed in 1871. Together these two short books (Wonderland is barely 28,000 words long) became two of the most quoted and best-loved volumes in the English canon.

What is the secret of Carroll's spell? Everyone will have their own answer, but I want to identify three crucial elements to the magic of Alice. First, and most emphatically, this is a story about a quite bad-tempered child that is not really for children, while at the same time addressing childish preoccupations. (Who am I? is a question Alice repeatedly vexes herself with.) Next, it has a dreamlike unreality peopled with some of the most entertaining characters in English literature. The White Rabbit, the Mad Hatter, the Mock Turtle, the Cheshire Cat and the King and Queen of Hearts are simply the most memorable of a cast from which every reader will find his or her favourite. Third, Carroll possessed an unforced genius for the most brilliant nonsense and deliciously mad dialogue. With his best lines ("What is the use of a book without pictures or conversations?") he is never less than intensely quotable. As well as the enchantment of Carroll's prose, both volumes of Alice contain numerous songs and poems, many of them parodies of popular Victorian originals, which have passed into folklore, like Alice

Alice in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll

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herself: You Are Old, Father William; The Lobster Quadrille; Beautiful Soup; and (from Through the Looking-Glass) Jabberwocky; The Walrus and the Carpenter; and The White Knight's Song. Finally, for 21st-century readers, it is now almost obligatory to point out that these books are pre-Freudian, with a strange, bruised innocence whose self-interrogations also evoke the tormented banality of psychoanalysis.

A NOTE ON THE TEXT

On 26 November 1865, the Reverend Charles Dodgson's tale was published by the house of Macmillan as Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, illustrated by John Tenniel, with whom Dodgson had a most uneasy relationship. Indeed, the first printing, some 2,000 copies, was withdrawn after Tenniel objected to the print quality of his drawings. A new edition, released in December of the same year, but carrying a new date, 1866, was rushed out for the Christmas market.

Later, the discarded first edition was sold with Dodgson's approval to the New York publisher, Appleton. The title page of the American Alice became an insert cancelling the original Macmillan title page of 1865, and bearing the New York publisher's imprint with the date 1866. Here, too, the first print run sold quickly. First editions are now rare and highly prized. Both Alice books have never been out of print. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland has been translated into about 100 languages, including classical Latin.

Alice encounters the caterpillar in another Tenniel illustration. Photograph: Alamy

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http://www.the-office.com/bedtime-story/aliceunderground.htm

ALICE IN WONDERLAND - ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT

The original manuscript of Lewis Carroll, the pen-name of Charles Dodgson, is one of the British Library's best-loved treasures. Dodgson was fond of children and became friends with Lorina, Alice and Edith Liddell, the young daughters of the Dean of his college, Christ Church. One summer's day, in 1862, he entertained them on a boat trip with a story of Alice's adventures in a magical world entered through a rabbit-hole. The ten-year-old Alice was so entranced that she begged him to write it down for her. It took him some time to write out the tale - in a tiny, neat hand - and complete the 37 illustrations. Alice finally received the 90-page book, dedicated to 'a dear child, in memory of a summer day', in November 1864.

Urged by friends to publish the story, Dodgson re-wrote and enlarged it, removing some of the private family references and adding two new chapters. The published version was illustrated by the artist John Tenniel.

Many years later, Alice was forced to sell her precious manuscript at auction. It was bought by an American collector, but returned to England, in 1948, when a group of American benefactors presented it to the British Library in appreciation of the British people's role in the Second World War.

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Here are some extracts of the handwritten manuscript Dodgson gave Alice. They are mainly of the pages that are illustrated, for as Dodgson wrote in the book:

“And what is the use of a book," thought Alice, "without pictures or conversation?”

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http://www.amusingplanet.com/2010/03/alice-in-wonderland-original-manuscript.html