Stephen Roberts on Lewis Carroll, the original fantasy writer, who began his famous career telling stories to his siblings at their home at the vicarage in Daresbury
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, aka Lewis Carroll, was, most famously, the author of the ‘Alice’ stories, but also a poet, illustrator, master of wordplay, creator of fantasy, purveyor of nonsense, mathematician, maths lecturer and author, logician, lover of puzzles, teacher, photographer and even an inventor.
If you have wondered exactly where the nom de plume Lewis Carroll came from, well, the Cheshire polymath translated his forenames into Latin (Carolus Lodovicus), then anglicised them (Carroll Lewis), then reversed their order (Lewis Carroll). Curiouser and curiouser.
Born at Daresbury, near Warrington, Dodgson was the scion of a family of army officers and clergymen. His father, another Charles Dodgson (1800-68), attended Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford, then took holy orders. His son would emulate the latter two and, in fact, would form an even stronger connection with Christ Church where he resided for most of his life as both scholar and teacher. The father was as gifted as the son would be, achieving a double first. He married Frances Lutwidge and settled down to the unambitious life of a country parson.
READ MORE: Daresbury - the birthplace of Lewis Carroll
Our Dodgson was born on January 27, 1832, during that momentous year of the Great Reform Act, in thevicarage/parsonage of All Saints, Daresbury, a building that no longer exists. The oldest boy and third most senior of 11 siblings, to whom he would
tell his stories as a youngster, he was baptised in his father’s church on July 11, 1832.
An indication of his brightness was the fact he had consumed John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress by the age of seven. His association with Cheshire would last for about a decade, the whole family being uprooted when he was aged 11 when his father transferred to a new living in Yorkshire. Educated at Rugby (1846-49) and Christ Church, Oxford, Dodgson graduated B.A. in 1854. He achieved a First in Mathematics. His destiny appeared to be to follow in his father’s footsteps.
Dodgson took orders in 1861 and was also a mathematical lecturer for more than a quarter century between 1855-81, introducing problems of logic into the nursery with Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and its sequel, Through the Looking-Glass (1872). With fantasy illustrations by the London-born illustrator Sir John Tenniel (1820-1914), these books very quickly became classics of not just the nursery but the household, a prequel if you like to Harry Potter – books for children that became equally beloved by adults. They have been translated plentifully.
If you’re familiar with the books you’ll know of the grinning Cheshire Cat character, which Dodgson popularised but did not invent. Apparently, the mischievous feline predated the first of the Alice yarns. Incidentally, although he had taken holy orders, Dodgson was never ordained a priest, partly because he suffered with a stammer that would have made preaching extremely onerous.
He was also afflicted with numerous illnesses, shyness and deafness in one ear. His pursuits included the theatre and photography (it was while he was taking pictures of Christ Church Cathedral that he first encountered the Liddells).
Dodgson most enjoyed photographing young children and the real Alice would be one of his subjects. Of some 3,000 photographs he took, just over half are of children. We should add perhaps that attitudes to photographing other people’s children have changed somewhat since Victorian times. What was acceptable then, innocent even, is frowned upon today.
The dream child ‘Alice’ was reputedly based on the young Alice Liddell (1852-1934), one of the daughters of Henry George Liddell (1811-98), the Dean of Christ Church. Alice was 10 at the time. She would marry the wealthy inheritor and occasional Hampshire cricketer Reginald Hargreaves and spend much of her life in Hampshire’s New Forest but would never quite shake off the shadow of the other ‘Alice’. The fact that Dodgson and Alice remain intertwined is illustrated by a window in the Great Hall of Christ Church. It is dedicated to Dodgson and his tales but features a portrait of the real Alice Liddell.
Coincidentally the hall was used in the filming of Harry Potter. Dodgson, meanwhile, would never be free of the suspicion he was obsessed with young girls, although some feel he has fallen victim to modern mores. What is undeniable is that Dodgson’s connection with Christ Church, and his befriending of the Liddell family, led to his magnum opus and true fame.
Oxford and its environs loomed large in this story. The nearby village of Binsey apparently provided the inspiration for the treacle well mentioned by the dormouse in the first of the two books. It’s possible the young Alice may have accompanied him on the trip to Binsey and seen said well (which is replete with water of course, not treacle, although it is known locally as the Binsey treacle mine).
Alice’s nurse at the time was the splendidly named Miss Prickett, dubbed ‘Pricks’ apparently, being ‘one of the thorny kind’ and inspired the Red Queen in Through the Looking Glass. Dodgson himself denied that Alice Liddell had inspired the fictional character but there are clues in the books they are one and the same.
READ MORE: Who was the real Alice in Wonderland?
Although Dodgson is principally famous for those two Alice books, he did publish a number of other works, including: Phantasmagoria (1869); Hunting of the Snark (1876); Euclid and his Modern Rivals (1879); Parliamentary Elections, and The Principle of Parliamentary Representation (both 1884); Sylvie and Bruno (1889-93) with illustrations by Furniss; Curiosa Mathematica (also 1888-93); Symbolic Logic (1896); What the Tortoise said to Achilles in ‘Mind’ (1895).
He was the original fantasy author, pipping the likes of J.R.R. Tolkien (The Lord of the Rings) and C.S. Lewis (Narnia) to this accolade by a century or so. Dodgson’s ‘Alice’ continues to inhabit our imaginations and has inspired the likes of Walt Disney and Salvador Dali.
He was a nifty exponent of nonsense poetry too and although he contributed much nonsense, ironically some of his nonsensical words have actually entered common parlance, one example being ‘chortle’, a conflation of snort and chuckle, which inhabits
his Jabberwocky.
Charles Dodgson died 125 years ago on January 14, 1898, in Guildford, Surrey, just shy of his 66th birthday. Although he had become largely estranged from the Liddells, in 1863, he nevertheless gave Alice the gift of a bound Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland manuscript the following year. That original manuscript was sold to a US buyer by the girl herself in 1928 for £15,400 (approaching £750,000 in today’s money). Incidentally, if you have a first edition of the first Alice book, it’s also worth a bit. That first edition was withdrawn rather hastily because of poor print quality; there are therefore fewer than two dozen out there.
Although Dodgson’s birthplace no longer exists, it’s possible to visit the site (managed by the National Trust) where the footings
of the house can be discerned. The Lewis Carroll Centre, attached to All Saints Church in Daresbury, was opened in 2012 to commemorate the 180th anniversary of Dodgson’s birth.
The author also has a memorial stone in Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey.
