Helen Soteriou: Who was Lewis Carroll?

Jenny Woolf: Lewis Carroll, real name Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, was a Victorian mathematician and clergyman who taught at the college of Christ Church, Oxford. He also wrote "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass" thereby creating "Alice," one of the most famous literary characters in history. He also wrote other fictional works, such as the mysterious and rather creepy story poem "The Hunting of the Snark." He was also an accomplished comic poet, and his poems appear widely in anthologies of comic poetry.

Can you tell me the story behind the Alice in Wonderland tale?

Lewis Carroll came from a large family and had loved entertaining his ten brothers and sisters. He also liked entertaining the children of Christ Church's Dean, Henry Liddell. He often took three of the Liddells (Alice, her older sister Lorina and her younger sister Edith), out rowing on the river near Oxford, together with another friend or relative (an adult, to to share the rowing.) On these fairly long trips he liked to tell stories

to entertain the children, and it was a characteristic of his storytelling that he often wove in events and names from his listeners' lives to his tale. "Alice in Wonderland" was one of those stories, told during two or three trips during summer 1862, as a kind of serial. The main character was 10-year-old Alice Liddell, but her two sisters did appear in disguise in the book as the Lory and the Eaglet.

Alice's Shop is opposite Christ Church.

Alice Liddell used to buy her sweets here - now it is a treasure trove for all things Alice.

Why did he use a pen name?

It was more usual in those days to use a pen name. As a clergyman and math lecturer, Carroll may have felt that his children's stories should be written by a different "person" from the one who did all the serious work!

There are many places in Oxford that are referenced in the book, like the chestnut tree where Alice Liddell's cat 'Dinah' used to sit - can you tell me about these?

I don't know about the chestnut tree but there are a number of Oxford places that he seems to have woven into the story. In the Mad Tea Party the Dormouse tells about three little girls who lived in a treacle well. There really is a "treacle well" at Binsey, near Oxford. It is an old holy well dedicated to St Frideswide. It's called the Treacle Well, because an old word pronounced like "treacle" meant an antidote to poison. The three girls would certainly have visited the treacle well.

Carroll mentions the way that Alice's neck grows and grows. This relates to the "firedogs" in the fireplace at Christ Church dining hall, which have very long necks.

Long-necked Firedogs

Stained glass panel from inside the cathedral

'Exit through the gift shop' - a nod to Mr Banksy

Some scenes from the first two Harry Potter films were filmed at Christ Church and the gift shop is filled to the rafters with goodies

Christ Church Cathedral - this twelfth century church is amongst the oldest buildings in Oxford.

He would have seen them every day and of course children would be interested in them.

In this same dining hall there is a big portrait of King Henry VIII who was famous for chopping off heads. This is thought to have given Carroll the idea of having a queen who chops peoples' heads off.

There's a door in the story, which leads through to a beautiful garden. A high wall divides the children's own real garden at Christ Church from the Cathedral garden. The two gardens are kept very separate and the door is kept locked. This door looks very mysterious.

Alice visits a Sheep's shop in "Through the Looking Glass" . The illustrator John Tenniel based this picture on the old shop just opposite Christ Church where the children used to go and buy sweets. That shop is still there today.

There's also a Jabberwocky Tree in the grounds of Christ Church. It is a very old, rare tree. There is no evidence Carroll was inspired by it, but from some angles it definitely looks like John Tenniel's picture of the Jabberwock monster ... so perhaps it did inspire him!

How can we be sure he was referring to Alice Liddell?

I do not believe the Alice of the books was Alice Liddell. The books’ "Alice" has long fair hair but Alice Liddell had short dark hair. He wrote the story FOR her though. In the original hand drawn manuscript, he put a photograph of Alice LIddell at the end.

There are references to drug induced states in the book – such as the Cheshire cat grinning, did Lewis Carroll take drugs?

Carroll didn’t take drugs, as far as we know. In fact, he appears to have been less keen on taking drugs than most people in his era, where all kinds of scary sounding opiates were perfectly legal. Lewis Carroll was a homeopathic practitioner, and sometimes even used homeopathic remedies himself when ill.

In addition to being an author, Lewis Carroll later became known as a photographer. He took many pictures of nude and semi-nude girls and there has been much controversy surrounding this, what is your view?

He did not take many of these pictures, his nudes and semi nudes (both boys and girls) are estimated at no more than about 1 percent of his entire output. In Victorian days pictures of nude adults were considered sexual, and pictures of nude children were considered non-sexual.

Many respected Victorian photographers, like Julia Margaret Cameron, openly took child nudes. There is no record that Carroll ever upset any children and no suggestion that anyone who knew him found him creepy. The families of some of the children got the nude photos professionally coloured, put in fancy display frames or put in family albums, and Carroll discussed them openly. None of the children remembered him badly, and some became lifelong friends as adults, remembering him with respect and affection long after they had grown up.

Lewis Carroll was also an inventor. What were some of his inventions?

He invented a device for writing in the dark - in those days if you wished to write something down at night you had to light a candle - not an easy or comfortable business if the night was cold! He invented a postage stamp case with an Alice theme, and loved making up games, tricks and puzzles. He also invented mental tricks, such as a scheme for remembering dates. He invented a Game of Logic, which teaches the elements of symbolic logic to young people, and created a reading stand designed to help invalids read in bed. He also very much enjoyed tinkering with machinery, and was good with his hands.

Was he a happy man? Did he have any love interests?

On the whole he seems to have been a happy man. He apparently felt that the way to be happy was to be as good as possible. His religious faith, though gentle and non-fanatical, was very important to him. He believed that you should always remember God was watching what ever you did and got satisfaction from trying to live a good life. He had bouts of depression, occasionally, and would get very unhappy if he felt he was drifting away from God. He was also pretty good at getting life the way he wanted it, and was quite determined and had a generally positive attitude towards life.

His personal life is mysterious; he and his family did not want anyone to know about it. He is not known to have had any romances but there are nonetheless some hints that he did. These have been covered up. He seemed not to like the Victorian idea of marriage, which was a businesslike system designed for joining families and rearing children. As he was the oldest son, he was responsible for very many family members, including 6 unsupported sisters, and so he may have wished to keep an area of his life free of family responsibility.

His job as a clergyman fellow of Christ Church required him to be celibate, but later in life he showed a facility for attracting women which created gossip. Many of his close woman friendships were in fact considered potentially scandalous by some of his contemporaries, since he was an unmarried clergyman and women lived very protected lives. There is no evidence that he did anything wrong, but this closeness with women is perhaps why he and his friends and family also emphasised his fondness for young girls, who were believed at the time to be entirely non sexual. How things have changed!

A page is missing from his diary for the 27 June 1863, one theory for this is that it was the day Lewis proposed to Alice - do you think this theory has any substance?

It has no substance at all. A note of what was on the page says that there was gossip about Carroll, who was then 31 years old, and the Liddell children’s governess, and also gossip about him and their oldest daughter Lorina. He probably decided to stay away from the family to let the gossip die down, since Lorina's family wanted to marry her off to a rich man.

What do you think of the latest interpretations of Alice - Camille Rose Garcia's book cover and Tim Burton's film?

I haven't yet seen the film - I'm going next Sunday. I'm sure it will be an amazingly spectacular in typical Tim Burton and Johnny Depp style and I am looking forward to it.

Camille Rose Garcia's book cover is quite studied and careful, despite its wildness. To me, it doesn't have too much atmosphere, but her many fans will absolutely love it!

Is there anything else you would to add?

I'm glad to have had the excuse to strip away all the stories and weird stuff and go back to the raw material about Lewis Carroll - letters, diaries and contemporary descriptions. I was glad to find that he seemed like fun, intelligent and kind, really unusual and interesting, and someone I'd have liked to know - although he could be mischievous and awkward and annoying at times.

The Mystery of Lewis Carroll, Discovering the Whimsical, Thoughtful, and Sometimes Lonely Man Who Created Alice in Wonderland, by Jenny Woolf is available here.

First image of Alice by Dan from Bristol - taken by Helen Soteriou at the Cans Festival reception

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