The Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832–98,) better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English writer and an Anglican cleric. This author of the whimsical children’s classics Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass was also a reputed mathematician and photographer.
Born in Daresbury, Cheshire, Dodgson was educated at Christ Church, Oxford; he received first-class honors in mathematics in 1854. He remained on a clerical fellowship at Christ Church for the rest of his life. His position required him to take orders in the Anglican Church and remain unmarried. Though ordained a deacon in 1861, Carroll was too reserved and stricken with a stammer to work as a preacher. He taught mathematics 1855–81.
In the mid-1850s, Carroll began writing both humorous and mathematical works. In 1856, he generated the pseudonym “Lewis Carroll” by translating his first and middle names into Latin, swapping their order, and translating them back into English. However, his mathematics texts appeared under his real name.
Carroll could overcome his social awkwardness only in the company of children. He frequently made up stories for Alice Liddell, the 4-year-old daughter of the Dean of Christ Church, and her sisters. While picnicking with the Liddell girls, Carroll narrated the adventures of a little girl who fell into a rabbit hole. Alice asked that he write the tale for her. The first version, Alice’s Adventures under Ground, evolved into Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865.) Encouraged by its success, Carroll wrote the sequel Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There (1872.)
Unlike most of the children’s books of his day, the Alice books are celebrated as delightful adventure stories in which a healthy, sensible little girl reacts to the “reality” of the adult world. Alice’s intelligent responses to the many absurdities of language and action appealed to adults also.
Carroll also wrote a book of children’s poetry The Hunting of the Snark (1876) and the children’s novels Sylvie and Bruno (1889) and Sylvie and Bruno Concluded (1893.)
Around the world, many Carroll’s fan-societies delight in the enjoyment and promotion of his works and the investigation of his life. While the Reverend C. L. Dodgson was a shy and finicky bachelor, Lewis Carroll was a charming companion to the children for whom he wrote engrossing nonsense stories and poems. Biographers and psychologists have wondered how “Dodgson” and “Carroll” were facets of one personality.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
Yet what are all such gaieties to me whose thoughts are full of indices and surds?
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
Topics: Mathematics
Theres the Kings Messenger. Hes in prison now, being punished: and the trial doesnt begin until next Wednesday: and of course the crime comes last of all. Suppose he never commits the crime? said Alice. That would be all the better, wouldnt it? the Queen said.
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
I’d give all wealth that years have piled,
The slow result of Life’s decay,
To be once more a little child
For one bright summer day.
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
Topics: Childhood
No, no! said the Queen. Sentence first – verdict afterwards.
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
Alice laughed: “There’s no use trying,” she said; “one can’t believe impossible things.” “I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
Topics: Belief
I’m very brave generally, he went on in a low voice: only today I happen to have a headache.
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
Topics: Courage, Bravery
I think I could, if I only knew how to begin. For, you see, so many out-of-the-way things had happened lately that Alice had begun to think that very few things indeed were really impossible.
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
Topics: Knowledge
A loaf of bread, the Walrus said, Is what we chiefly need: Pepper and vinegar besides Are very good indeed—Now if you’re ready, Oysters, dear,
We can begin to feed!
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
Topics: Eating
It was getting dark so suddenly that Alice thought there must be a thunderstorm coming on. What a thick black cloud that is! she said.
And how fast it comes! Why I do believe it’s got wings!
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying,” she said. “One can’t believe impossible things.” “I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it half an hour a day. Why, sometimes, I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
Topics: Possibilities
How queer everything is to-day! And yesterday things went on just as usual. I wonder if I’ve been changed in the night? Let me think: was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I’m not the same, the next question is, Who in the world am I? Ah, that’s the great puzzle!
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
“The horror of that moment,” the King went on, “I shall never, never forget!” “You will, though,” the Queen said, “if you don’t make a memorandum of it.
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
Topics: Remorse, Repentance, Adversity, Regret
Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here? “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat. “I don’t much care where,” said Alice. “Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
Topics: Goals
When I use a word, Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, it means just what I choose it to meanneither more nor less. The question is, said Alice, whether you can make words mean so many different things. The question is, said Humpty Dumpty, which is to be masterthats all.
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
Topics: Words
Take care of the sense and the sounds will take care of themselves.
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
Topics: Communication
Who in the world am I?. Ah, that’s the great puzzle.
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
Topics: Discovery, Self-Discovery
It is a very inconvenient habit of kittens (Alice had once made the remark) that whatever you say to them, they always purr.
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
Topics: Cats
Reeling and writhing, of course to begin with, Mock Turtle replied, “and the different branches of arithmetic—ambition, distraction, uglification and derision.”
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
Topics: Education
Everything’s got a moral, if only you can find it.
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
There is no use trying, said Alice, “one can’t believe impossible things”. “I dare say you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
Topics: Action, Belief, Imagination, General
It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards.
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
Topics: Memories, Imagination
And thus they give the time, that Nature meant for peaceful sleep and meditative snores, to ceaseless din and mindless merriment and waste of shoes and floors.
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
Topics: Nature
“Begin at the beginning,” the King said gravely, “and go till you come to the end; then stop.”
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
We are but older children, dear, Who fret to find our bedtime near.
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
Topics: Aging
If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
Topics: Goals
When you are describing,
A shape, or sound, or tint;
Don’t state the matter plainly,
But put it in a hint;
And learn to look at all things,
With a sort of mental squint.
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
Topics: Imagination, Writing
What I tell you three times is true.
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
Topics: Truth
If you limit your actions in life to things that nobody can possibly find fault with, you will not do much.
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
Topics: Risk, Success
Would you tell me please, which way I ought to go from here? “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat. “I don’t much care where…” said Alice. “Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
Topics: Good
Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, and what is the use of a book thought Alice, without pictures or conversations?
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
Topics: Books
There comes a pause, for human strength will not endure to dance without cessation; and everyone must reach the point at length of absolute prostration.
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
Topics: Dancing, Dance
There are three hundred and sixty-four days when you might get un-birthday presents … and only one for birthday presents, you know.
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
Now here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
If everybody minded their own business, the Duchess said in a hoarse growl, “the world would go round a deal faster than it does.”
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
Be what you would seem to be—or, if you’d like it put more simply—never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise.
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
Topics: Hypocrisy
Speak roughly to your little boy, and beat him when he sneezes: he only does it to annoy, because he knows it teases.
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
Topics: Children
Write that down, the King said to the jury, and the jury eagerly wrote down all three dates on their slates, and then added them up, and reduced the answer to shillings and pence.
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
Topics: Justice
One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree. Which road do I take? she asked. Where do you want to go? was his response. I don’t know, Alice answered. Then, said the cat, it doesn’t matter.
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
Topics: Goals
The Unicorn looked dreamily at Alice, and said
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
Topics: Belief
The rule is, jam tomorrow and jam yesterday—but never jam today.
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
Topics: Promises
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
Benjamin Whichcote British Anglican Priest
Laurence Sterne Irish Anglican Novelist
John Wilkins English Anglican Clergyman
Rudyard Kipling British Children’s Books Writer
Bertrand A. Russell British Philosopher, Mathematician
William Ralph Inge English Anglican Clergyman
Frances Ridley Havergal English Anglican Poet
William Cowper English Anglican Poet
George Herbert Welsh Anglican Poet
Arthur C. Clarke English Science-fiction Writer