“It's as large as life, and twice as natural!”

Lewis Carroll is best known for his stories of Alice. He sends a boring seven year old girl into a weird and unexplainable world to learn to grow up and face her real life problems. She follows the "white rabbit" down his rabbit hole as he talks about being late for a very important date. Once there she discovers that nothing makes much sense. She is confronted with a hookah smoking caterpillar who seems to have all the answers. Lewis Carroll's story has been re-told and adapted for years. Just recently Tim Burton created a 3-D version of Alice in Wonderland.
Lewis Carroll's vision will live on as long as someone still finds interest in him.


sources:
http://stellalee92.wordpress.com/2010/03/10/alice-in-wonderland-by-tim-burton-3d-movie-review/

'What is the use of a book', thought Alice, 'without pictures or conversations?'

Lewis Carrolls major works include:

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865)
Bruno's Revenge (1867)
Phantasmagoria: And Other Poems (1869)
Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There (1871)
The Hunting of the Snark (1876)
The Wasp in a Wig (1877)
A Tangled Tale (1885)
The Nursery Alice (1889)
Sylvie and Bruno (1889)
Sylvie and Bruno Concluded (1893)
Three Sunsets: and Other Poems (1898)
For the Train: Five Poems and a Tale (1932)
The Rectory Umbrella and Mischmasch (1932)
Alice's Adventures Under Ground (1965)

In Alice in Wonderland a seven year old girl named Alice follows a Rabbit down a hole. She is thrown into a backwards world where nothing makes sense. She must learn how to get through and get home without being caught by the Queen of Hearts. Along her journey she meets an interesting array of characters including the Mad Hatter, Cheshire Cat, a Caterpillar, and the White Queen.

Sylvie and Bruno is more of a collection of thoughts and ideas thrown together into a story of sorts. The narrator of the book is never named, but you get the sense that it is just Lewis Carroll himself. It's written in a sort of opiate dream state where neither the reader nor he knows whether he's asleep or awake. It concerns these two young sprites, Sylvie and Bruno, from fairyland and a mysterious, beautiful woman named Muriel he's not sure exists. It's very Victorian, dark and whimsical at the same time. There is a pretty great Carolinian passage where he basically predicts the theory of relativity by suggesting a falling tea party. The story continues in Sylvie and Bruno's Concluded.


Sources:
http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/c/lewis-carroll/
http://www.tower.com/sylvie-bruno-lewis-carroll-paperback/wapi/115013515

“When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.”

Lewis Carroll has a unique style that he created. His backgrounds in mathematics and logic have a lot to do with the style he chose. Other influences for his writing could have been his interest in photography, abnormal eating habits, dual personality, sleeping difficulties, Victorian lifestyle, and neglected childhood. Most of his stories center on ideas similar to these. Although well known for his Alice stories, Carroll didn't only write in prose, he wrote many poems and shorter pieces. Carroll had a negative association with eating. He would normally skip lunch and ate very little for dinner. In most of his stories food is associated somehow. In Alice in Wonderland, eating and drinking makes her change size rather drastically. Eating is associated with sin as far back as Adam and Eve. Alice is tempted to eat the Queens tarts while in Wonderland, which she knows to be wrong. Even the Chesire Cat is associated with eating as a sin. The last part of him to disappear and the first to reappear is his mouth. Split personality is present in his stories. Lewis Carroll himself has a split personality of sorts. In Alice in Wonderland, Tweedledee and Tweedledum are twins who are constantly contradicting each other's opinions. Also as Alice falls down the rabbit hole, the top becomes the bottom and the bottom becomes the top.
Lewis Carroll uses a lot of rhyming, alliteration, personification, and imagery in his stories. He creates these magical worlds that he then has to explain in a way children can understand. By using these techniques, he keeps the audience's attention and they are able to immerse themselves in the words. He also uses a lot of parentheses, Italics, and capital letters. This makes the text a little more exciting and doesn't tire ones eyes as fast. It gives it a somewhat unprofessional look to it, but he was writing for children, not scholars.

sources:
http://aliceproject5.wordpress.com/2009/10/29/the-peculiar-writing-style-of-lewis-carroll/
http://www.essayforum.com/essay-writing-feedback-3/lewis-carroll-biography-style-literary-devices-2342/
http://www.pazooter.com/carroll/lcbio.html

"We called him Tortoise because he taught us"

Lewis Carroll was writing stories of fantastical events his whole life. In 1856 Carroll met Alice Liddell, the daughter of his friend. It's said that in July of 1862 Carroll told Alice and her sisters a story of a girl who fell into a rabbit hole. Thus Alice's Adventures Underground, later to be changed to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was published in 1865. The book was so successful that he wrote a second volume, Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There, in 1872. Some of the more famous characters created were Humpty Dumpty, the White Knight, and Tweedledum and Tweedledee. They originally were in the "Jabberwocky", a piece written in 1855. Most children stories written during this time tried to influence morals. Carroll's stories were just feel good fun entertainment. Critics have tried to prove that there are political and religious tie-in's to the story, but non have ever been proven.
Although his Alice stories are the most famous, he did write other things. These include The Hunting of the Snark (1876), Sylvie and Bruno (1889), Pillow Problems, and A Tangled Tale (1885). He also wrote pamphlets about university affairs and mathematics books under different names. In 1881 Carroll devoted all of his time to writing.


Pictured: Alice Liddell photo taken by Carroll

Sources:
http://www.wakeling.demon.co.uk/page8-fact-sheet-1.htm
http://www.victorianstation.com/authorcarroll.htm
http://s3.hubimg.com/u/2491494_f260.jpg

Who in the world am I? Ah, that's the great puzzle.

Lewis Carroll is a pseudonym of the English writer and mathematician Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. The name Lewis Carroll came from taking his real name and using the Latin translation. Charles Dodgson was born on January 27th, 1832, becoming the third born of eleven children to a clergyman. In 1854 he graduated from Christ Church College in Oxford England. Dodgson remained at the school to teach math and writing, later to take the "deacon's orders". He was never made a priest though. This could have been due to the fact that he had a stammer and partially because he discovered he only did it because he wanted to be like his father. Dodgson instead became passionate about photography. He focused a lot of his time photographing children that he would later use as inspiration for his most famous character "Alice". He loved to photograph the Dean of Christ church college's children, and became very close with their family. Always an entertainer, he would tell stories, draw pictures, tell jokes, anything to get a laugh. He would later use these as starting points for his works. Dodgson was very private about his life when he was alive, and even in his death. Many of his personal papers and journals were destroyed when he passed away in January of 1898. Because of this, there are many rumors and myths about his life, some of these include: drug addict, socially inept, unhealthy interest in children. All we know of Dodgson we learn from " The Life Letters of Lewis Carroll" which was published posthumous by his nephew. Dodgson, better know as Lewis Carroll was never to be married. He has confused many historians and biographers. It is almost as if Lewis Carroll was the alter ego of Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson.



Sources:
http://www.notablebiographies.com/Ca-Ch/Carroll-Lewis.html
http://www.insite.com.br/rodrigo/text/lewis_carroll.html
http://www.online-literature.com/carroll/