It’s always a sad day when someone dies.
Such was the case on this date, January 14, 1898, when that talented author, poet, and mathematician named Lewis Carroll passed on. He died of pneumonia following influenza after being on Earth for 65 years.
We know him best for writing one of the most classic tales of all time, Alice In Wonderland. More on that to come.
But first to Lewis.
He was born January 27, 1832, in Daresbury, Cheshire, England. And when he came out of the womb, his parents named him Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. He was one of eleven children, the third born and the oldest boy in the family.
Charles was an extremely smart boy and read voraciously. By age seven, he had dug in deep with The Pilgrim’s Progress, for example. At age seven, I was reading “Mr. Bear: Squash-You-All-Flat.”
Perhaps that is the reason I did not speak with a stammer. Easy words. But. Young Charles did stammer. In fact, it was a condition shared by most of his siblings. Which I find curious.
However, perhaps all that stammering is what made him the thinker he was. From a young age, Dodgson wrote poetry and short stories and eventually moved in many other directions, including his novels.
But he was a bit of an entertainer from an early age and would often amuse his brothers and sisters on end. He’d create elaborate games for them to play and often invented stories.
In addition to all of that, he had a mathematical mind. He was a puzzler, always creating and solving them. In fact, he wrote a weekly column for Vanity Fair and always created one of his famous “Doublets,” a word ladder puzzle, for his articles.
Most of us have heard the story of how he created “Alice In Wonderland.” But I’ll tell it again here.
In 1856, Dean Henry Liddell arrived at Christ Church. He brought with him his entire young family. These people would figure largely in Dodgson’s life over the following years. They greatly influenced his writing career.
Dodgson became close friends with the wife, Lorena Liddell, and the children, particularly Alice and Edith. He really put a great deal of importance on his friendship with the Liddell family during the 1850s. He would often take the kids on rowing trips. It was on one of these trips, on July 4, 1862, that Dodgson came up with the “outline” of the story for Alice In Wonderland. And the rest is history.
You have to wonder about the Wonderland, I think. For instance, many of the characters personify mental conditions. I mean, even one of the most famous lines — “we’re all mad here,” is telling.
But back then, mental health was not understood in full. Several conditions were referenced in the book. For instance, eating disorders are shown with Alice’s constant eating and drinking, which she always regrets later.
Then there is the illustration of borderline personality disorder with the Mad Hatter’s rapid and unsettling shifts in mood. Another example, one I recognize, is the general anxiety disorder of the White Rabbit. He frantically obsesses over his watch he is absolutely terrified of being late.
Charles Dodgson may have had demons of his own. He never married. And some speculate that he may have been a pedophile, for he often photographed young girls, including Alice Liddell, and many of those depictions are nudes.
There’s no way to know if he was a pedophile or not. But one thing is for certain. Help was not available back then. Yet, despite this possibility, he brought much goodness to this world.
Another reminder of just how deep that rabbit hole can be.
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“Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
— Alice, Alice In Wonderland
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“It’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.”
— Alice, Alice In Wonderland
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“Curiouser and curiouser!”
— Alice, Alice In Wonderland
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The rabbit hole is deep.
