The Odd, Interesting and Disturbing, Lewis Carroll: A Conservative, Creative

Lewis Carroll was the pen name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. He was a mathematician and the author of Alice in Wonderland and other interesting and wonderful works.

Lewis Carroll

Described as being somewhat awkward and stiff in his movements, Lewis Carroll was also deaf in one ear and suffered from a stammer when he spoke. As you may imagine, Carroll was often teased about these things, while he was growing up, which was, of course, pretty mean behaviour! But luckily for Carroll, he was also clever and entertaining. He was a sharp-witted player of games like chess and billiards and an inventor of his own magic tricks and games of logic.  

As a collector of oddities and gadgets, Carroll possessed a mechanical toy which flew about called Bob the Bat, which was a mechanical walking, furry bear toy. He also opened exploding paper pistols and collected pencil sharpeners and fountain pens. When he travelled, Carroll always took a bag with him, filled with puzzles and games and medicines and even music boxes.  

Drumming Bear automaton

Seeming to relate better to children than adults, Carroll would lose his stammer when in the presence of his young friends. Although Carroll denied that the Alice, of his Alice in Wonderland book, was based on a "real" child, his literary career did begin after one boating trip, when he told a story to a young girl named, Alice Liddell, and she begged him to write it down. This story, was, of course, Alice in Wonderland. 

Lewis Carroll was an eccentric, shy and yet, an interesting man. He was sociable, he was also precise, conservative, hardworking, and yet, rigid and highly creative. A man of contradiction and contrasts. He was ordained as a deacon but he rejected ever became an ordained minister. He seemed to view himself as being a "sinner" and he saw mathematics as a way to block "unholy thoughts, which torture with their hateful presence, the fancy that would fain be pure". Carroll once wrote, "I am fond of children (except boys)." His photography of various young girls, however, raises eyebrows today. Carroll never married but left us his wonderful works of literature to pore over and enjoy. And yet to wonder.

"Alice Pleasance Liddell as a beggar girl."

Beatrice Sheward Hatch was one of a few children that Lewis Carroll photographed nude. These paintings are based on those photographs.