It was on July 4, 1862, that the Reverend Dodgson, his friend Robinson Duckworth, and the Liddell sisters took to a boat on the river Isis at Oxford and rowed past the scented rushes to the town of Guildford. As they picnicked beneath the shade of a tree on the banks of the river, Dodgson began telling the story of “Alice’s Adventures Underground,” which three years later would be published as Alice in Wonderland.
The book remains among the most widely translated and profitable works of children’s literature, with sales so strong that Dodgson began the sequel, Alice Through the Looking-Glass (1872), several months later. It was the beginning of an unexpected career, and Dodgson went on to publish other highly successful stories under the name Lewis Carroll, including The Hunting of the Snark, Phantasmagoria, Sylvie and Bruno, and numerous poems, riddles, and puns.
Because he was a respected mathematician and Oxford don who wrote other, far more serious books, Dodgson created a pen-name, Lewis Carroll, to mask the identity of these whimsical works. Dodgson invented a name for Most writers agree, and it recorded in Dodgson’s letters and diaries, that he chose the name by latinizing his mother’s maiden name, Lutwidge and his own first name, then retranslating the words back into English. So far, scholars and writers have stopped at that, seeing no more in the name other than the explanation provided by Dodgson himself. But Dodgson’s love of riddles, tricks, and code, the name warrants fresh consideration. Studying it as an anagram, one can puzzle out the letters; from Lewis Carroll, hidden are the words “Alice Rows R. L”.
Whether or not Dodgson intended this, or even that he was aware of the words hidden within the name we can never know with certainty. That said, what is known is that he enjoyed rowing with Alice and that several times she and her sisters tried their own hands at the oar. The “R.L.” would stand for Reverend Lutwidge, and Dodgson, who lost his mother during his first term at Oxford, would perhaps honor his mother by using her maiden name. In fact, The Reverend Charles L. Dodgson rarely signed his name without his middle initial, the name, Lutwidge. Perhaps “Lewis Carroll” is more than a simple latinization, but also a riddle, an anagram that he hoped we would one day stumble upon. One can never know with certainty, but the fact that the words are there would surely have delighted him.
As for Alice Liddell herself, she is known to generations of readers as the heroine of Wonderland, to those interested in photography, and has been used repeatedly as evidence of Dodgson’s “unnatural” interest in little girls, a subject of endless speculation and analysis that continues even today. Adding to the mystery is the fact that there are gaps in Dodgson’s diaries, entire years destroyed by his family upon his death. It is known that for about five months shortly after the Guildford trip, relations between the Liddells and Dodgson cooled considerably, and when relations resumed, Dodgson held himself “aloof.”
Article comments
1 - Lono
Charles Dodgeson is a phenomenal genius. I regard the Alice books as my favorite ever written, and I have a literature degree to back that up. It's unfortunate that history will probably judge him as a creepy pedophile. He was a mathmatic genius, and several of the passages in the second book (through the looking glass) are actually working puzzles.
The first piece of music I wrote I put to Charles Dodgeson words (I think it was Shadowland).
take care,
lono
2 - srp
agreed. it is sad. I don't judge him that way myself, and i hope that is clear in the piece. It would indeed be sad if he were judged so. I'd like to think that as biographers, we really do our research before condemning anyone to something as serious as that... Let's hope so.
Be well
s.r.p.
3 - Eric Olsen
exceptional and infomative - I love your theory on stopping time
4 - Purple Tigress
I also have found Lewis Carroll's writings exceptional.
I wasn't aware of his suffering from epilepsy and stuttered. I think this goes a long way to explaining his love of photography and his preference for the company of children.
I also prefer not to think of him as a creepy pedophile although there are some more modern "art photographers" that I would consider coming under that category.
Thanks for the book reviews.
5 - Robert Nagle
This is a fascinating essay, especially the part about the epilepsy (which I'd never heard of).
It's interesting to contemplate how our view of photographs differ from other generations. The generational difference is seen today by how nonchalantly teenagers take photos of themselves and friends without inhibition (and how in contrast, a middle aged man or woman grumpily declines).
The novelty of the device in Dodgson's time probably ensured that neither parents nor children thought too hard about issues of exploitation. It also ensured that poses were more spontaneous (contrast this with Americans who see glamour shots of all kinds of models everyday and everywhere).
Aside from the pseudo-prurience of these photos, it would be interesting to view these photos as indicating what people of that time period considered as tableux. In that time, the cliches were cherubs; in the time of playboy pinups, the cliches were water hoses and horses and automobiles. Future historians will find the setups more fascinating that the models themselves.
6 - m
a pity there is no posting of his pictures
7 - sadi
i can organize some pics online for you to look at. give me a few days and i'll post the link and you can go to it. be sure to check back. i'll try and get it done before the end of the day on monday and will post the link back here.
be well,
sadi
8 - sadi
here is the link on my site to Dodgson's photographs. i've uploaded quite a good sample, but no doubt, this will increase over time....
http://www.tantmieux.squarespace.com/display/ShowGallery?moduleId=68673&galleryId=8877
cut and paste that into your browser, OR,
go to
www.tantmieux.squarespace.com and go to IMAGES and then select the gallery marked Lewis Carroll nee Charles Dodgson.
Hope this helps and good luck...
Cheers,
Sadi
9 - Melisande
Excellent work, enjoyed exploring the essay.
Interestingly, Dodgson's epilepsy is, of course, a matter of some dispute. The fact that he tended towards neologisms, clang assosications and listmaking, indicates bipolar disorder rather than/in addition to temporal absence epilepsy.
While looking up Dodgson's epilepsy, I happened across this interesting medical diagnosis, termed Alice In Wonderland Syndrome.
10 - sadi
yes, i've heard of alice in wonderland syndrome. i believe it's called that becaus eof the macropsia and micropsia, that are common to many temporal lobe seizures. the sense of time, things growing and shrinking, even the headaches, as you noted, the listmaking, the compulsive hypergraphia, etc etc. are all signs.
Dodgson WAS officially diagnosed in his life several times as someone with temporal lobe epilepsy and had several grand mal seizures that are well-documented, themost famous of them being the one at the chapel at Christ Church where he was teaching. He was on several medications for seizures though none of them agreeable. He also had the classic migraine symptoms that often accompany TLE and took Dilaudid and other opiates for this.
His friend Tennyson was also diagnosed with epilepsy and took treatment for it, though he was very private about it.
this is understandable; at the time, epileptics were considered 'insane' or 'mad' and were often confined to asylums. sad, when i know that in other cultures, epileptics are often revered as shamans and medicine men (inuit and native american cultures often do this).
What would be best would be for those with epilepsy to be treated just like everyone else, or for society to recognize the many good qualities that often accompany TLE and the many great men and women who have been the best leaders, artists, writers, etc. who all had well-documented cases - a few, Flaubert, Dostoevsky, Van Gogh, Napoleon, Julius Ceasar, Alexander the Great, Alfred Nobel, Socrates, Aristotle, Pythagorus, Lewis Carroll (of course), Tennyson, as noted, and on and on... i'm compiling a master list of document cases only that i hope to soon have on my site.
Be well, and thanks for reading...
Sadi