The Mystery of Lewis Carroll Discovering the Whimsical, Thoughtful, and Sometimes Lonely Man Who Created "Alice in Wonderland"

by Woolf, Jenny; Wakeling, Edward

• ISBN13: 9780312673710
• ISBN10: 031267371X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-02-15
• Publisher: Griffin

Summary

In The Mystery of Lewis Carroll, Jenny Woolf brings to life the brilliant, secretive, and self-contradictory creator of Alice in Wonderland, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, a.k.a. Lewis Carroll. Reveling in double meanings and puzzles, in his fiction and his life, Carroll alwaysat least in partseemed hidden, unknowable. Woolf uses rarely-seen and recently discovered sources like Carroll's private bank account records, letters from the family of the "real" Alice Liddell and unpublished correspondence with Carroll's own relatives. In shining new light upon Carroll, Woolf sets this perennially fascinating man firmly in the context of the English Victorian age and tackles many of the questions that have persisted throughout the years. - Was it Alice or her older sister that caused a coolness between Carroll and the Liddell family? - How true is the gossip both about about pedophilia and certain adult women that became attached to him? - What could be the "romantic secret" which many think ruined Carroll's personal life? - Who caused Carroll major financial trouble, and why have this person's identity and actions remained unknown till now? Woolf discards the myths and lets us see Carroll as he truly was: a brilliant product of the Victorian Age, and a genius whose famous stories continue to fascinate readers almost 150 years after their initial publication.

Author Biography

Jenny Woolf is a London-based journalist. She has written for the BBC, The Sunday Times, Smithsonian, Reader's Digest, and Islands, and has reviewed children's literature for Punch. She is the editor of Lewis Carroll In His Own Account. She is married with two children.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	p. vi
Foreword	p. ix
A Personal Introduction	p. 1
'My Father and Mother were honest though poor...': Family	p. 11
'You can do arithmetic, I trust?': Oxford Life	p. 39
'Nose in the Middle, Mouth Under': The Human Body	p. 67
'This Strange Wild Man from Other Lands': Love and Sex	p. 95
'Children Are Three-Fourths of my Life': Children	p. 127
'Child of the Pure Unclouded Brow': Alice	p. 153
'That Awful Mystery': Religion and the Supernatural	p. 181
'And Would You Be a Poet?': Literature and Storytelling	p. 213
'...took the Camera of Rosewood': Photography	p. 239
'He Offered Large Discount, he Offered a Cheque': Money	p. 265
A Personal Conclusion	p. 289
Appendix: Report of Dr Yvonne Hart on Carroll's neurological symptoms	p. 298
Select Bibliography	p. 300
Notes	p. 303
Index	p. 318
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