Lewis Carroll

Hello! You might know me by my pen name, Lewis Carroll, but I was born Charles Lutwidge Dodgson on January 27th, 1832, in a little village in England called Daresbury. I was the oldest boy of eleven children, so our house was always buzzing with activity! Being surrounded by so many brothers and sisters was wonderful, but I was a shy boy and had a bit of a stammer, which sometimes made it hard for me to speak clearly. But when I was telling stories, the words just flowed. To entertain my siblings, I loved inventing amazing games, writing silly poems, and putting on puppet shows in our home.

When I grew up, I went to a famous university called Christ Church, at Oxford, in 1851. I absolutely loved mathematics and logic puzzles. To me, numbers and problems were like a thrilling game waiting to be solved. My studies went so well that in 1855, I became a mathematics lecturer right there at Christ Church. My days were filled with teaching students, but my mind was always buzzing with playful ideas and stories. During this time, I also discovered a new hobby: photography! It was a brand-new invention back then, and I found great joy in taking pictures, especially of my friends. I even invented my own puzzles and games to challenge my mind and entertain others, like a word-ladder game I called 'Doublets'.

One of my friends at Oxford was the dean, Henry Liddell, and I loved spending time with his wonderful daughters. On one sunny afternoon, July 4th, 1862, I took three of the sisters—Lorina, Edith, and Alice—on a boat trip along the river. To keep them from getting bored on the long ride, I started telling them a silly, wonderful story about a curious girl named Alice who falls down a rabbit-hole into a magical world full of peculiar creatures. The real Alice Liddell loved the story so much that she begged me to write it down for her. I spent the next two years carefully writing and even drawing my own pictures for the story, which I first called 'Alice's Adventures Under Ground.' A friend encouraged me to share it with the world, so in 1865, the book was released as 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' under my new pen name, Lewis Carroll.

People all over the world loved my story about Alice. It was so exciting to know that my nonsensical characters, like the Mad Hatter and the grinning Cheshire Cat, were making people smile and laugh. The book was a great success, and I decided to write another adventure for Alice. In 1871, I published the sequel, 'Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There.' In this book, Alice steps through a mirror into a world that is like a giant chessboard, with even more strange and delightful characters. I continued to write poems and stories throughout my life, including a long, silly poem called 'The Hunting of the Snark,' which was full of imagination and nonsense.

I spent the rest of my life teaching mathematics, writing stories, and creating puzzles. I lived to be 65 years old. Even though I was a serious mathematician who loved logic and numbers, I am most remembered for the fantastical worlds I built with words. My stories about Wonderland have been shared in countless languages and have inspired plays, movies, and the imaginations of children and adults for over 150 years. I hope my tales continue to show everyone that a little bit of nonsense can make the world a much more interesting place.