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A Tribute to Lewis Carroll

© Arden Davidson

A bizarre imagination was Lewis Carroll's greatest gift. Born Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, this famous author was most known or his creation of Alice in Wonderland. But he also wrote a plethora of other stories and poems, both serious and humorous.

In order to understand his mind, we must first take a look at his life. Lewis Carroll was the son of a churchman and the oldest of eleven children. His mother and father were first cousins, and unusually religious. His father, Dr. Dodgson, was the vicar of Daresbury, Cheshire, and was a distinguished scholar with a passion for mathematics.

A creative child, Charles needed a way to pass the time, so he began to invent games to amuse himself and his brothers and sisters. He made a train with railway stations, he made a troupe of marionettes and a stage (he wrote the plays himself, of course!) He was extremely creative in his endeavors from the time of his birth.

Charles was home-schooled by his father until he was twelve years old. When he did attend school, his academic career was an endless series of excellent marks, prizes, and congratulations. After receiving his B.A. degree, he began contributing poems and stories to "The Comic Times". It was the editor of this magazine that helped him come up with the pseudonym "Lewis Carroll".

Because of his religious upbringing, Charles also spent some of his time preaching - often to the servants of the college but he primarily enjoyed preaching to children.

Then, on July 4, 1862, Lewis Carroll wrote in his diary, "I made an expedition up the river to Godstowe with the three Liddells, we had tea on the bank there, and did not reach Christ Church till half-past eight." Somewhat later he added, "on which occasion I told them the fairy tale of Alice's Adventures Underground, which I undertook; to write out for Alice." It was six years later that Through the Looking Glass was published.

The reviews were phenomenal... Carroll "was an interesting but erratic genius," as Henry Holiday, the illustrator of Svlvie and Bruno, said.

"It was "a spiritual volcano of children's books" (Harvey Darton).

And possibly the most penetrating analysis of Alice's position in children's literature is the novelist Sir Walter Besant's remark that "it admits us into a state of being which, until it was written, was not only unexplored but undiscovered."

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