Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, best known by his pseudonym, Lewis Carroll, was born in the village of Daresbury, England, on January 27, 1832. As a boy, Carroll excelled in mathematics and won many academic prizes. At age 20, he was awarded a studentship to Christ College. Apart from serving as a lecturer in mathematics, he was an avid photographer and wrote essays, political pamphlets and poetry. “The Hunting of the Snark” displays his wonderful ability in the genre of literary nonsense. His Carroll suffered from a bad stammer, but he found himself vocally fluent when speaking with children. Carroll loved to entertain children, and it was Alice, the daughter of Henry George Liddell, who can be credited with his pinnacle inspiration. 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. 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 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.He died on January 14, 1898, leaving an enigma behind him.
