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Charles Lutwidge Dodgson/Lewis Carroll Biography

By Daniel Smith, Dramaturg for Boojum! and Caffeine Theatre Associate Artistic Director

One major aspect of Boojum! is the relationship between the mild-mannered historical person Charles Lutwidge Dodgson and his larger than life alter-ego, Lewis Carroll.  In some situations, particularly with his child-friends, Dodgson seems to have enjoyed using the name Lewis Carroll.  But he was not interested in Carroll’s fame, and redirected all correspondence for Carroll to his publishers. 

Lewis Carroll was born Charles Lutwidge Dodgson on January 27, 1832.  His parents were first cousins: Charles Dodgson, a conservative Anglican clergyman, and Frances Lutwidge.  Dodgson was deaf in one ear as a result of a childhood fever.  He also had a stammer or stutter. In later life he suffered from migraines.  There has also been speculation that he was epileptic. 

Dodgson moved to Oxford in 1851, where he studied at Christ Church (his father’s former college).  His knack for mathematics eventually earned him a Lectureship.  His publications on mathematics focused primarily on Geometry and Formal Logic.  There is an amusing anecdote about Queen Victoria asking him to send her a signed copy of his next book after she read Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.  Dodgson is said to have obliged by sending her a copy of his next scholarly work: An Elementary Treatise on Determinants. 

After publishing numerous poems and short stories, Dodgson first used the pseudonym Lewis Carroll in 1856.  Dodgson met the Liddell family that same year, when Henry Liddell became the new Dean of Christ Church, and struck up a friendship with three of the girls: Lorina, Alice, and Edith.  (Eight of the Liddell children survived childhood.  2 boys died as infants.  Edith died at 22.)

Dodgson’s family expected him to take orders in the Anglican Church, which he finally did in 1861, as a deacon.  He was supposed to progress from deacon to priest, but chose not to take priestly orders.  Taking holy orders was also a condition of his continued employment at Christ Church.  After initial resistance to the idea, Henry Liddell protected Dodgson’s position there and did not require him to become a priest. 

In 1863, there was a break with the Liddell family.  Most people think this was because of Dodgson’s inappropriate relationship with Alice, but there were also rumors linking Dodgson with the Liddell family’s governess and Alice’s older sister Lorina. 

Dodgson’s fascination with photography produced some 3000 pictures in his lifetime, 2/3 of which are now lost.  He had a particular interest in nude studies of children.  Only six of those survive. 

Lewis Carroll is best known for publishing Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass.  Many of his poems and stories are published with acrostics on the names of young girls to whom they are dedicated, notably Alice Liddell.  “The Hunting of the Snark” is dedicated to another of his child-friends, Gertrude Chataway.  His last novel, Sylvie and Bruno was published with an acrostic on the name of another child-friend, Isa Bowman. 

Carroll traveled to Russia in 1867, documenting his journey in a “Russian Journal” published posthumously in 1935.  He retired from teaching in 1881, but remained in residence at Christ Church.  He died of pneumonia in 1898 at his sister’s home in Guildford, shortly before his 66th birthday.