Lewis Carroll/Introduction

< Lewis Carroll

Lewis Carroll was one of the most successful, original and influential children's writers of all time. He had many other talents. He was a pioneer of photography and possibly the finest children's photographer of the 19th century. He made significant contributions to the theory of logic, and devised a useful method of evaluating determinants. Among his inventions, travelling chess sets (where the pieces are held to the board by pegs) are still produced.

Lewis Carroll was in "real life" the Rev. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, a lecturer in mathematics at Oxford University. It has been claimed that he was a "Jekyll and Hyde" type person, keeping these two sides of his life completely separate. This is not true. Much else that has been said about him is also not true. It has been claimed that he had no interest in adult women, but that he obsessed about young girls to the point of paedophilia. This is an unwarranted slur on his memory.

This Wikibook will lay out the facts of his life using unimpeachable sources, and let people come to their own conclusions. The intention is that people should read the whole book and then return here.

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