A biography of lewis carroll a novelist

Biography[ edit ] Born in Hartford, Connecticut to Dr. Hartwell Greene Thompson, Sr.

See Article History Alternative Title: His poem The Hunting of the Snark is nonsense literature of the highest order. Early life Dodgson was the eldest son and third child in a family of seven girls and four boys born to Frances Jane Lutwidge, the wife of the Rev. He was born in the old parsonage at Daresbury.

His father was perpetual curate there from untilwhen he became rector of Croft in Yorkshire—a post he held for the rest of his life though later he became also archdeacon of Richmond and a canon of Ripon cathedral. The Dodgson children, living as they did in an isolated country village, had few friends outside the family but, like many other families in similar circumstances, found A biography of lewis carroll a novelist difficulty in entertaining themselves.

Charles from the first showed a great aptitude for inventing games to amuse them. In fact, Charles wrote nearly all of those that survive, beginning with Useful and Instructive Poetry ; published and following with The Rectory Magazine c.

He disliked his four years at public school, principally because of his innate shyness, although he was also subjected to a certain amount of bullying; he also endured several illnesses, one of which left him deaf in one ear.

After Rugby he spent a further year being tutored by his father, during which time he matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford May 23, He went into residence as an undergraduate there on January 24, Oxford and the Liddells Dodgson excelled in his mathematical and classical studies in ; on the strength of his performance in examinations, he was nominated to a studentship called a scholarship in other colleges.

In he gained a first in mathematical Finals—coming out at the head of the class—and proceeded to a bachelor of arts degree in December of the same year. He held his studentship until the end of his life. As was the case with all fellowships at that time, the studentship at Christ Church was dependent upon his remaining unmarried, and, by the terms of this particular endowment, proceeding to holy orders.

Dodgson was ordained a deacon in the Church of England on December 22, Had he gone on to become a priest, he could have married and would then have been appointed to a parish by the college.

But he felt himself unsuited for parish work and, though he considered the possibility of marriagedecided that he was perfectly content to remain a bachelor.

They had been preceded or were overlapped by the children of the writer George Macdonaldthe sons of the poet Alfred, Lord Tennysonand various other chance acquaintances. But the Liddell children undoubtedly held an especially high place in his affections—partly because they were the only children in Christ Church, since only heads of houses were free both to marry and to continue in residence.

As Alice remembered inthey used to sit on the big sofa on each side of him, while he told us stories, illustrating them by pencil or ink drawings as he went along.

They were not always entirely new. Sometimes they were new versions of old stories; sometimes they started on the old basis, but grew into new tales owing to the frequent interruptions which opened up fresh and undreamed-of possibilities.

Dodgson was able to write down the story more or less as told and added to it several extra adventures that had been told on other occasions. He illustrated it with his own crude but distinctive drawings and gave the finished product to Alice Liddell, with no thought of hearing of it again.

But the novelist Henry Kingsleywhile visiting the deanery, chanced to pick it up from the drawing-room table, read it, and urged Mrs. Liddell to persuade the author to publish it. The first edition was withdrawn because of bad printing, and only about 21 copies survive—one of the rare books of the 19th century—and the reprint was ready for publication by Christmas of the same year, though dated The book was a slow but steadily increasing success, and by the following year Dodgson was already considering a sequel to it, based on further stories told to the Liddells.

The result was Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There dated ; actually published Decembera work as good as, or better than, its predecessor.

But there is little or no evidence to back up such theorizing.

Lewis Carroll - Wikipedia

He in fact dropped the acquaintance of Alice Liddell when she was 12, as he did with most of his young friends. The best of these were collected by him as Notes by an Oxford Chiel Besides writing for them, Dodgson is also to be remembered as a fine photographer of children and of adults as well notable portraits of the actress Ellen Terrythe poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson, the poet-painter Dante Gabriel Rossettiand many others survive and have been often reproduced.

Dodgson had an early ambition to be an artist: He photographed children in every possible costume and situation, finally making nude studies of them. But in Dodgson abandoned his hobby altogether, feeling that it was taking up too much time that might be better spent.

Suggestions that this sudden decision was reached because of an impurity of motive for his nude studies have been made, but again without any evidence. Dodgson arrived at this pen name by taking his own names Charles Lutwidge, translating them into Latin as Carolus Ludovicus, then reversing and retranslating them into English.

He used the name afterward for all his nonacademic works.This page serves as a central navigational point for lists of more than 2, members of the University of Oxford, divided into relevant groupings for ease of initiativeblog.com vast majority were students at the university, although they did not necessarily take a degree; others have held fellowships at one of the university’s colleges; many fall into both categories.

You are here: Home / William Shakespeare Resources / The 30 Greatest Writers of All Time / Lewis Carroll: A Biography Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) () Lewis Carroll was an English academic, mathematician and Anglican deacon.

Lewis Carroll, pseudonym of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, (born January 27, , Daresbury, Cheshire, England—died January 14, , Guildford, Surrey), English logician, mathematician, photographer, and novelist, especially remembered for Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland () and its sequel, Through the Looking-Glass ().

His poem The Hunting of the Snark () is nonsense literature. Lewis Carroll: A Biography is a biography of author Lewis Carroll by Morton N. Cohen, first published by Knopf, later by Macmillan.

Oxford and the Liddells

It is generally considered to be the definitive scholarly work on Carroll's (real name Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) initiativeblog.com: Morton N. Cohen. 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, in Daresbury, Cheshire, England, Charles Dodgson wrote and created games as a .

Learn more about A.A. Milne, author of the classic Winnie-the-Pooh children's book series, at initiativeblog.com