Who Was Lewis Carrol?

Lewis Carroll is the pen name used by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (January 27, 1832-January 14, 1898). In addition to concocting the wacky world of wonderland, he was also an accomplished mathematician, poet, and photographer. 

Speaking of being a mathematician—in addition to his 12 works of literary fiction, Dodgson also wrote 11 books on mathematics. According to mentalfloss.com, a small selection of titles includes An Elementary Treatise on Determinants, With Their Application to Simultaneous Linear Equations, and Algebraic Equations to The Game of Logic to The Theory of Committees and Elections. Not what you’d expect from the man who imagined wacky tea parties and talking caterpillars! 

The author suffered from a stutter for most of his life. According to legend, the Dodo bird in Alice in Wonderland was inspired by Dodgson himself due to the way he would pronounce his last name with said stammer: “Do-do-Dodgson,” according to mymodernmet.com. 

The author suffered from a stutter for most of his life. According to legend, the Dodo bird in Alice in Wonderland was inspired by Dodgson himself due to the way he would pronounce his last name with said stammer: “Do-do-Dodgson,” according to mymodernmet.com. 

The Cheshire Cat was named after Dodgson’s birthplace, Daresbusy, Cheshire, England. An area with an abundance of dairy farms, the popular phrase “grinning like a Cheshire cat” referred to how happy a cat might be living in such close proximity to all that milk and cream. Other sources say they made cheese molds shaped like a grinning cat and would cut cheese from the tail first, leaving the grin to be the last thing to disappear. 

The inspiration for Alice came from a little girl named Alice Liddell. She was the daughter of one of Dodgson’s close friends. He first told Alice Liddell and her sisters the story of Alice in Wonderland while boating across a pond on the 4th of July in 1862.

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