Charles Dodgson
Rev. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832–1898) was an English conservative mathematician, clergyman and university professor who was critical of liberal inroads into mathematics and, as Lewis Carroll, wrote Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel, Through the Looking-Glass (which contains the poem Jabberwocky), in protest of them.[1] Carroll also wrote the long nonsense poem, The Hunting of the Snark. In addition to writing these stories and poems, Charles Dodgson also was a photographer.
Dodgson wrote a play about geometry called Euclid and His Modern Rivals.
Dodgson's literary works are full of puns and jokes based on logic. Computer programmers are fond of quoting the King's directions to the White Rabbit, who asks "Where shall I begin, your Majesty" and is told "Begin at the beginning, and go on until you come to the end: then stop."
Many of the poems in the Alice books are sly parodies of overly-solemn poems that were popular in Victorian times, but almost forgotten now. Dodgson's parodies have, in fact, survived better than the poems they were parodying. Isaac Watts'
How doth the little busy Bee
Improve each shining Hour,
And gather Honey all the day
From every opening Flower!
How skilfully she builds her Cell!
How neat she spreads the Wax!
And labours hard to store it well
With the sweet Food she makes.
becomes, in Dodgson's hands,
How doth the little crocodile
Improve his shining tail,
And pour the waters of the Nile
On every golden scale!
How cheerfully he seems to grin,
How neatly spread his claws,
And welcome little fishes in
With gently smiling jaws!'
Charles Dodgson came from a long line of Church of England ministers. His father was a gifted mathematician who gave up an intellectual career to become a country parson and eventually became an archdeacon. His great-grandfather had been a bishop. Although he achieved fame and wealth from his Alice books, he hated to be called Lewis Carroll and would respond to fan mail with a circular repudiating any relationship to that persona.
