The title of our assignment and my essay is “Lewis Carroll-man or monster, but the title of our assignment makes no sense. Lewis Carroll is neither man nor monster; he’s a pseudonym! Lewis Carroll has never existed, but his creator Charles Lutwidge Dodgson did.
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson was born January 27, 1832. While he was he oldest son, he was only the third of eleven. It was assumed that here, while inventing game to entertain his siblings, he developed his ability to create children’s stories. He was a very smart student, earning first-class honors in mathematics and second-class in classics at Oxford University. In 1861 he was ordained a Deacon of the Church of England. As a Deacon of the Church of England he had to remain celibate, which probably helped shed a false image of him.
In 1855 his life was completely changed, he found his two passions in life: photography and writing (though some say little girls was his third passion). He excelled at photography and was considered a premier photographer of his time. He took pictures of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and other famous people.
In 1855 he also met the Liddell’s. It started with the oldest son Harry and later Dodgson went on picnics with Harry and his younger sister Ina. After Harry went to school, Alice, the middle daughter, and Edith, the youngest Liddell, joined Dodgson on his picnics. It was here on a boating trip that Alice asked Dodgson to write down a story detailing the adventures of the “Alice” in Dodgson’s stories. It took a few years, but he did publish the manuscript in 1864 titled “Alice’s Adventures Underground”. Eventually that manuscript became “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” Dodgson or Carroll, if you prefer, dedicated the book and its sequel to Alice Liddell.
Then in 1863 something else happened to Dodgson, Mrs. Liddell asked him to stop coming or he just decided not to come around the Liddells any more. There are many speculations on the reasons. One is that Mrs. Liddell heard gossip about Dodgson and the Liddell governess, and or Ina. Ina was the name of both Mrs. Liddell and the oldest Liddell daughter. Another was that Dodgson wanted the sexual attractions of Alice. And yet a third was that nothing wrong happened, but that Mrs. Liddell just felt it awkward having her daughter(s) hanging around with a grown man.
In any case this “break” with the Liddell family was heavily speculated on by biographers after Dodgson’s death. This was used as “evidence” against Dodgson along with his few remaining photograph and a lot of jumping to conclusions (guesses). One man, Morton N. Cohen, was a biographer that strongly stated that Dodgson loved little girls in a sexual manner, but was repressed sexually and the he remained celibate. Others, like Langford Reed said that he stopped paying attention to the girls when the turned fourteen, but completely for pure reasons, untainted by sexual desires. Either way no one will know for sure about Dodgson’s life because his journal has had pages of it torn out and only one thousand of his original three thousand photographs have survived due to time and intentional destruction.



Since no one knows exactly the details of Dodgson’s, it will always be a matter of speculation but never really proven how he really lived. Though to support the pedophilia charges he was thought to have taken nude and semi-nude photos of girls. Keep in mind that a lot of people did that back then. He also wrote in his journal of having some heavy guilt and being a sinner, but hey everyone has guilt. He was also, by some accounts, very reserved and cold towards women. By other accounts however, it was speculated that not only was he social able toward women, but that he possibly had quite a few affairs with adult women, some of whom were married. Like I said before, no one will ever really know the truth of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson.
Regardless of his sexual life, Charles Dodgson wrote quite a few books, most of which were not popular, but three were: “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”, “Through the looking glass and what Alice found there”, and unrelated to Alice, “The hunting of the Snark: an agony of eight fits”. With the proceeds of all his books he supported his six unmarried sisters and paid for various relative’s education.
In the 1880’s Dodgson had retired from social life. In 1880 Dodgson abandoned photography and in 1881 he resigned his lectureship in math. His books during this time period were alright but they never achieved anywhere near the success of his top three. Dodgson died at one of his sisters’ house January 14, 1848 of a bronchial infection. The same year that he died, Alice Liddell, now Alice Liddell Hargreaves, sold the manuscript “Alice’s Adventures Underground” for 15,400 pounds (about 77,000 pounds today). I guess that she really just didn’t care about the old guy after he died.


My sources:

http://www.bookrags.com/biography/lewis-carroll-dlb3/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Carroll

http://www.online-literature.com/carroll/

http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/carroll/bio1.html

http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/carroll/dreamchild/dreamchild1.html