Professional Documents
Culture Documents
English Project
Class: VI-B
Roll No. 1
Lewis Carroll
A man of Maths & Science who also happened to
write poems!!!
Dodgson
27 January 1832 14 January
1898)
His most famous writings areAlice's Adventures in Wonderland, its sequelThrough the
Looking-Glass, which includes the poemJabberwocky, and the poem-The Hunting of the
Snark, all examples of the genre ofliterary nonsense.
There are societies in many parts of the world dedicated to the enjoyment and
promotion of his works and the investigation of his life.
From a young age Carroll wrote poetry and short stories that he would send to
magazines.
These magazine companies would publish his work and he loved believing he was
famous.
In 1856 he published his first piece of work under the name that would
make him famous. A romantic poem called "Solitude" appeared inThe
Trainunder the authorship of "Lewis Carroll".
This pseudonym was chosen by editor Edmund Yates from a list of four
submitted by Dodgson; the others being Edgar Cuthwellis, Edgar U. C.
Westhill and Louis Carroll
Carrolls Childhood
Lewis moved with his family to the spacious Rectory at the age
of 11 and lived there for 25 years.
After his experiences in Oxford he went off in the world and did
his own thing.
Antecedents
Lewis
connections.
His
Education
Home life
Rugby
Education
Oxford
His early academic career veered between high promise and irresistible
distraction.
He did not always work hard, but was exceptionally gifted and achievement came
easily to him. In 1852 he obtainedfirst-class honoursin
MathematicsModerations, and was shortly thereafter nominated to
aStudentship.
Carrolls Work
From a young age, Dodgson wrote poetry and short stories, both contributing heavily to the family
magazineMishmash and later sending them to various magazines, enjoying moderate success.
Between 1854 and 1856, his work appeared in the national publications,The Comic TimesandThe
Train, as well as smaller magazines like theWhitby Gazetteand theOxford Critic. Most of this
output was humorous and satirical.
After 1850, he wrote apuppetplays for his siblings' entertainment, of which one has survived:La
Guida di Bragia.
In 1856 he published his first piece of work under the name that would make him famous. A
romantic poem called "Solitude" appeared inThe Trainunder the authorship of "Lewis Carroll".
Alicebooks
In 1856, Henry Liddell, arrived atChrist Church, with his family, which influenced Dodgson's life and his writing
career. Dodgson became close friends with Liddell's wife & his children, particularly Alice Liddell.
He was for many years widely assumed to have derived his own "Alice" fromAlice Liddell: theacrosticpoem at
the end ofThrough the Looking Glassspells out her name in full.
It has been noted that Dodgson himself repeatedly denied in later life that his "little heroine" was based on any
real child.
On 4 July 1862, Dodgson invented the outline of the story that eventually became his first and greatest
commercial success. Dodgson eventually presented Alice with a handwritten, illustrated manuscript
entitledAlice's Adventures Under Groundin November 1864.
In 1863, he had taken the unfinished manuscript to Macmillan (publisher), who liked it immediately. After the
possible alternative titlesAlice Among the FairiesandAlice's Golden Hourwere rejected, the work was finally
published asAlice's Adventures in Wonderlandin 1865 under the Lewis Carroll pen-name, which Dodgson had
first used some nine years earlier.
The overwhelming commercial success of the first Alice book changed Dodgson's life in many ways.
Late in 1871, a sequel Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There was published. Its somewhat
darker mood possibly reflects the changes in Dodgson's life.
Literary works
La Guida di Bragia, a Ballad Opera for the Marionette Theatre(around 1850), A
Tangled Tale, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland(1865), Facts, Rhyme? And
Reason?, Pillow Problems, Sylvie and Bruno, Sylvie and Bruno Concluded, The
Hunting of the Snark(1876), Three Sunsets and Other Poems(1898), Through
the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There(includes "Jabberwocky" and
"The Walrus and the Carpenter") (1871), What the Tortoise Said to
Achilles(1895)
Mathematical works
A Syllabus of Plane Algebraic Geometry(1860), The Fifth Book of Euclid Treated
Algebraically(1858 and 1868), An Elementary Treatise on Determinants, With
Their Application to Simultaneous Linear Equations and Algebraic Equations,
Euclid and his Modern Rivals(1879), both literary and mathematical in style,
Symbolic Logic Part I, Symbolic Logic Part II(published posthumously), The
Alphabet Cipher(1868), The Game of Logic(1887), Curiosa Mathematica
I(1888), Curiosa Mathematica II(1892), The Theory of Committees and
Elections, collected, edited, analysed, and published in 1958, by Duncan Black
Other works
Some Popular Fallacies about Vivisection, Eight or Nine Wise Words About LetterWriting