Where was Lewis Carroll born in what country? Biography of Lewis Carroll, the writer’s work, interesting facts

Lewis Carroll (Great Britain, 27.1.1832 - 14.1.1898) - English children's writer, mathematician, logician.

Real name: Charles Lutwidge Dodgson.

Under the name Lewis Carroll, English mathematician Charles Lutwidge Dodgson became known throughout the world as the creator of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, one of the most popular books for children.

Born January 27, 1832 in Daresbury near Warrington (Cheshire) in the family of a parish priest. He was the third child and eldest son in a family of four boys and seven girls. As a boy, Dodgson invented games, composed stories and rhymes, and drew pictures for his younger brothers and sisters.

Dodgson's education until the age of twelve is handled by his father.

1844-1846 – studies at Richmond Grammar School.

1846-1850 - studies at Rugby School, a privileged closed educational institution that causes hostility in Dodgson. However, here he shows outstanding abilities in mathematics and classical languages.

1850 – enrolled at Christ Church College, Oxford University and moves to Oxford.

1851 – wins the Boulter Scholarship competition.

1852 – awarded first class honors in mathematics and second class in classical languages ​​and ancient literatures. Thanks to his achievements, he is allowed to do scientific work.

1855 - Dodgson was offered a professorship at his college, the traditional condition of which in those years was taking holy orders and a vow of celibacy. Dodgson fears that due to his ordination he will have to give up his favorite activities - photography and going to the theater.

1856, among other things, was also the year Mr. Dodgson began his studies in photography. During his passion for this art form (he stopped filming in 1880 for unknown reasons), he created about 3,000 photographs, of which less than 1,000 have survived.

1858 – “The Fifth Book of Euclid Treated Algebraically”, 2nd ed. 1868.

1860 – “Notes on algebraic planimetry” (A Syllabus of Plane Algebraical Geometry).

1861 – Dodgson is ordained deacon, the first intermediate step towards becoming a priest. However, changes in university status eliminate the need for further steps in this direction.

July 1, 1862 - on a walk near Godstow, on the upper Thames, with the children of Liddell, the Dean of Christ Church College, Lorina, Alice (Alice), Edith and Canon Duckworth, Dodgson tells a story that Alice - a favorite who has become the heroine of improvisations - asks to be written down. He does this over the next few months. Then, on the advice of Henry Kingsley and J. MacDonald, he rewrote the book for a wider range of readers, adding several more stories previously told to the Liddell children.

1865 - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is published under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll (first the English name Charles Lutwidge was Latinized into Carolus Ludovicus, and then both names were swapped and were again anglicized).

1867 – scientific work “An Elementary Treatise on Determinants”.

In the same year, Dodgson left England for the first and last time and made a very unusual trip to Russia for those times. Visits Calais, Brussels, Potsdam, Danzig, Koenigsberg along the way, spends a month in Russia, returns to England via Vilna, Warsaw, Ems, Paris. In Russia, Dodgson visits St. Petersburg and its environs, Moscow, Sergiev Posad, and a fair in Nizhny Novgorod.

1871 - A sequel to Alice (also based on earlier stories and later stories told to the young Liddells at Charlton Kings, near Cheltenham, in April 1863) is published, entitled Through the Looking-Glass. Glass and What Alice Found There, year given 1872). Both books are illustrated by D. Tenniel (1820-1914), who followed Dodgson's exact instructions.

1876 ​​– poetic epic in the genre of nonsense “The Hunting of the Snark”.

1879 – scientific work “Euclid and His Modern Rivals”.

1883 – collection of poems “Poems? Meaning?" (Rhyme? And Reason?).

1888 – scientific work “Mathematical Curiosities” (Curiosa Mathematica, 2nd ed. 1893).

1889 – novel “Sylvie and Bruno” (Sylvie and Bruno).

1893 - the second volume of the novel “Sylvia and Bruno” - “The Conclusion of Sylvie and Bruno” (Sylvie and Bruno Concluded). Both volumes are distinguished by the complexity of their composition and the mixture of elements of realistic storytelling and fairy tales.

1896 – scientific work “Symbolic Logic”.

1898 – collection of poems “Three Sunsets”.

January 14, 1898 - Charles Lutwidge Dodgson died at his sister's house in Guildford of pneumonia, two weeks shy of 66 years of age. Buried in Guilford Cemetery.

Mathematician Dodgson

Dodgson's mathematical works did not leave any noticeable mark on the history of mathematics. His mathematical education was limited to knowledge of several books of the “Elements” of the ancient Greek mathematician Euclid, the foundations of linear algebra, mathematical analysis and probability theory; this was clearly not enough to work at the “cutting edge” of mathematical science of the 19th century, which was experiencing a period of rapid development (the theory of the French mathematician Galois, non-Euclidean geometry of the Russian mathematician Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky and the Hungarian mathematician Janusz Bolyai, mathematical physics, qualitative theory of differential equations, etc.) . Dodgson’s essentially complete isolation from the scientific world also had its effect: apart from short visits to London, Bath and to his sisters, Dodgson spent all his time in Oxford, and only in 1867 was his usual way of life disrupted by a trip to distant Russia (impressions from this trip Dodgson outlined it in the famous “Russian Diary”). Recently, Dodgson's mathematical legacy has attracted increasing attention from researchers who have discovered his unexpected mathematical discoveries that have remained unclaimed.

Dodgson's achievements in the field of mathematical logic were far ahead of their time. He developed a graphical technique for solving logical problems, more convenient than the diagrams of the mathematician, mechanic, physicist and astronomer Leonhard Euler or the English logician John Venn. Dodgson achieved particular skill in solving the so-called “sorites”. Sorites is a logical problem, which is a chain of syllogisms in which the removed conclusion of one syllogism serves as the premise of another (in addition, the remaining premises are mixed; “sorites” in Greek means “heap”). C. L. Dodgson outlined his achievements in the field of mathematical logic in the two-volume “Symbolic Logic” (the second volume was recently found in the form of galleys in the archive of Dodgson’s scientific opponent) and, in a simplified version for children, in the “Logic Game”.

Writer Lewis Carroll

The unique originality of Carroll's style is due to the trinity of his literary gift of thinking as a mathematician and sophisticated logic. Contrary to the popular belief that Carroll, along with Edward Lear, can be considered the founder of “nonsense poetry,” Lewis Carroll actually created a different genre of “paradoxical literature”: his characters do not violate logic, but, on the contrary, follow it, taking logic to the point of absurdity.

Carroll Lewis's most significant literary works are rightfully considered to be two fairy tales about Alice - "Alice in Wonderland" (1865) and "Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Saw There" (1871), usually called "Alice Through the Looking Glass" for brevity. Bold experiments with language, the many subtle logical and philosophical questions raised in the tales of Alice, the polysemy (“polysemanticism”) of the statements of characters and situations make Carroll’s “children’s” works a favorite reading of the “gray-haired sages.”

Features of Carroll's unique style are clearly noticeable in other works of Carroll: “Sylvie and Bruno”, “The Hunting of the Snark”, “Midnight Problems”, “The Knot Story”, “What the Turtle Said to Achilles”, “Allen Brown and Carr”, “ Euclid and his modern rivals,” letters to children.

L. Carroll was one of the first English photographers. His works are distinguished by naturalness and poetry, especially photographs of children. At the famous international photography exhibition “The Human Race” (1956), English photographers of the 19th century were represented by a single photograph by Lewis Carroll.

In Russia, Carroll has been widely known since the end of the last century. Fairy tales about Alice have been repeatedly (and with varying degrees of success) translated and retold into Russian, in particular by Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov. But one of the best translations was carried out by Boris Vladimirovich Zakhoder. The stories invented by Carroll are loved not only by children, but also by adults.

Birth of the pseudonym "Carroll Lewis"

Magazine publisher and writer Edmund Yates advised Dodgson to come up with a pseudonym, and in Dodgson's Diaries an entry appears dated February 11, 1865: “Wrote to Mr. Yates, offering him a choice of pseudonyms:

1) Edgar Cutwellis [the name Edgar Cutwellis is obtained by rearranging the letters from Charles Lutwidge].

2) Edgard W. C. Westhill [the method of obtaining a pseudonym is the same as in the previous case].

3) Louis Carroll [Louis from Lutwidge - Ludwick - Louis, Carroll from Charles].

4) Lewis Carroll [by the same principle of “translation” of the names Charles Lutwidge into Latin and the reverse “translation” from Latin into English].”

The choice fell on Lewis Carroll. Since then, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson signed all his “serious” mathematical and logical works with his real name, and all his literary works with a pseudonym, stubbornly refusing to recognize the identity of Dodgson and Carroll.

In the indissoluble union of the modest and somewhat prim Dodgson and the flamboyant Carroll, the former clearly lost to the latter: the writer Lewis Carroll was a better mathematician and logician than the Oxford “don” Charles Lutwidge Dodgson

The works of Lewis Carroll

A significant number of books and pamphlets on mathematics and logic indicate that Dodgson was a conscientious member of the learned community. Among them are Algebraic Analysis of the Fifth Book of Euclid (The Fifth Book of Euclid Treated Algebraically, 1858 and 1868), Notes on Algebraic Planimetry (A Syllabus of Plane Algebraical Geometry, 1860), An Elementary Treatise on Determinants, 1867 ) and Euclid and His Modern Rivals (1879), Mathematical Curiosities (Curiosa Mathematica, 1888 and 1893), Symbolic Logic (1896).

Children interested Dodgson from a young age; As a boy, he invented games, composed stories and poems, and drew pictures for his younger brothers and sisters. Dodgson’s unusually strong attachment to children (and girls almost ousted boys from his circle of friends) puzzled his contemporaries, while the latest critics and biographers do not cease to multiply the number of psychological investigations of the writer’s personality.

Of Dodgson's childhood friends, the most famous were those with whom he became friends earlier than anyone else - the children of Liddell, the dean of his college: Harry, Lorina, Alice (Alice), Edith, Rhoda and Violet. Alice was a favorite, and soon became the heroine of the improvisations with which Dodgson entertained his young friends on river walks or at home, in front of the camera. He told the most extraordinary story to Lorina, Alice and Edith Liddell and Canon Duckworth on July 4, 1862 near Godstow, on the upper Thames. Alice asked Dodgson to write down this story on paper, which he did over the next few months. Then, on the advice of Henry Kingsley and J. MacDonald, he rewrote the book for a wider range of readers, adding several more stories previously told to the Liddell children, and in July 1865 he published Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. A sequel, also from earlier stories and later stories told to the young Liddells at Charlton Kings, near Cheltenham, in April 1863, appeared at Christmas 1871 (1872) under the title Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Seen There. What Alice Found There). Both books were illustrated by D. Tenniel (1820–1914), who followed Dodgson's exact instructions.

Both Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass talk about events that happen as if in a dream. Breaking down the narrative into episodes allows the writer to include stories that play on common sayings and proverbs, such as “the smile of the Cheshire Cat” or “the mad hatter,” or play on situations in games such as croquet or cards. Through the Looking Glass has a greater unity of plot compared to Wonderland. Here Alice finds herself in a mirrored world and becomes a participant in a chess game, where the White Queen's pawn (this is Alice) reaches the eighth square and turns into a queen. This book also features popular nursery rhyme characters, notably Humpty Dumpty, who interprets “made-up” words in “Jabberwocky” with a comically professorial air.

Dodgson was good at humorous poetry, and he published some of the poems from the Alice books in the Comic Times (a supplement to the Times newspaper) in 1855 and in Train magazine in 1856. He published many more poetry collections in these and other periodicals, such as College Rhimes and Punch, anonymously or under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll (the English name Charles Lutwidge was first Latinized to become Carolus Ludovicus, and then the two names were reversed and were again anglicized). This pseudonym was used to sign both books about Alice and the collections of poems Phantasmagoria (Phantasmagoria, 1869), Poems? Meaning? (Rhyme? And Reason?, 1883) and Three Sunsets (1898). The poetic epic in the genre of nonsense, The Hunting of the Snark (1876), also became famous. The novel Sylvie and Bruno (Sylvie and Bruno, 1889) and its second volume, The Conclusion of Sylvie and Bruno (Sylvie and Bruno Concluded, 1893) are distinguished by the complexity of their composition and the mixing of elements of a realistic narrative and a fairy tale.

The wonderful world of Lewis Carroll has captivated both adults and children for almost one hundred and fifty years. Books about Alice are read all over the world. And even more surprising is their creator, a serious mathematician and pedant on the one hand and a dreamer, the best friend of children, on the other.

Carroll's books are a fairy tale intertwined with reality, a world of fiction and the grotesque. Alice's journey is a path along which the imagination of a person freely glides, free from the burdens of “adult” life, which is why the characters encountered along the way and the adventures experienced by Alice are so close to children. Alice's universe, created in a momentary impulse, shocked the whole world. Probably no work of art in the world has as many readers, imitators and haters as the works of Lewis Carroll. Sending Alice down the rabbit hole, the author did not even imagine where his imagination would lead the little heroine, and certainly did not know how his fairy tale would resonate in the hearts of millions of people.

Alice's journey to Wonderland and the mysterious Through the Looking Glass takes place as if in a dream. The travels themselves can hardly be called a logically complete narrative. It is rather a series of bright, sometimes absurd, sometimes funny and touching events and memorable meetings with characters. A new literary technique - breaking up the narrative into episodes - made it possible to reflect the flavor of British life, take a fresh look at traditional English hobbies such as croquet and card games, and play on popular sayings and proverbs. Both books contain many nursery rhymes, the characters of which later became very popular.

According to critics, Lewis Carroll was especially good at humorous poems. He published his poetry separately in popular periodicals such as The Times, Train, and College Rhimes. A luminary of mathematical science, the author of serious scientific works, he did not dare to publish his “frivolous” works under his own name. Then Charles Latwidge Dodgson turned into Lewis Carroll. This pseudonym appeared on both books about Alice’s adventures and on numerous collections of poems. Lewis Carroll is also the author of The Hunting of the Snark, a poem in the heat of the absurd, and the novels Sylvia and Bruno and The Conclusion of Sylvia and Bruno.

Carroll's creations are a mixture of parody and fairy tale. Traveling through the pages of his works, we find ourselves in an incredible world of fantasy, so close to both our dreams and the realities of our everyday life.

This is an amazing story of an English writer and scientist. At the same time, the whole world knows him as a storyteller who wrote one of the most famous stories about the adventures of the girl Alice. His career was not limited to writing: Carroll studied photography, mathematics, logic, and taught. He holds the title of Professor at Oxford University.

The writer's childhood

Lewis Carroll's biography originates in Cheshire. It was here that he was born in 1832. His father was a parish priest in the small village of Daresbury. The family was large. Lewis's parents raised 7 more girls and three boys.

Carroll received his initial education at home. Already there he showed himself to be a quick-witted and intelligent student. His first teacher was his father. Like many creative and talented people, Carroll was left-handed. According to some biographers, Carroll was not allowed to write with his left hand as a child. Because of this, his childhood psyche was disrupted.

Education

Lewis Carroll received his initial education at a private school near Richmond. In it he found language with teachers and students, but in 1845 he was forced to transfer to Rugby School, where conditions were worse. During his studies, he demonstrated excellent results in theology and mathematics. Since 1850, Lewis Carroll's biography has been closely connected with the aristocratic college in Christ Church. This is one of the most prestigious educational institutions at the University of Oxford. Over time, he transferred to study at Oxford.

Carroll was not particularly successful in his studies, excelling only in mathematics. For example, he won a competition for giving mathematical lectures in Christ Church. He did this work for 26 years. Although she was boring for a mathematics professor, she brought in a decent income.

According to the college charter, another amazing event occurs. Writer Lewis Carroll, whose biography many associate with the exact sciences, takes holy orders. These were the requirements of the college in which he studied. He is awarded the rank of deacon, which allows him to preach sermons without working in the parish.

Lewis Carroll begins writing stories in college. A short biography of an English mathematician proves that talented people have abilities in both the exact sciences and the humanities. He sent them to magazines under a pseudonym, which later became world famous. His real name is Charles Dodgson. The fact is that at that time in England, writing was not considered a very prestigious occupation, so scientists and professors tried to hide their passion for prose or poetry.

First success

Lewis Carroll's biography is a success story. Fame came to him in 1854; authoritative literary magazines began publishing his works. These were the stories "Train" and "Space Times".

Around the same years, Carroll met Alice, who later became the prototype for the heroines of his most famous works. A new dean arrived at the college - Henry Liddell. His wife and five children came with him. One of them was 4-year-old Alice.

"Alice in Wonderland"

The author's most famous work, the novel "Alice in Wonderland", appears in 1864. The biography of Lewis Carroll in English details the history of the creation of this work. This is an amazing story about a girl Alice who falls through a rabbit hole into an imaginary world. It is inhabited by various anthropomorphic creatures. The fairy tale is extremely popular among both children and adults. This is one of the best works in the world written in the absurdist genre. It contains a lot of philosophical jokes, mathematical and linguistic allusions. This work had a huge influence on the formation of an entire genre - fantasy. A few years later, Carroll wrote a continuation of this story - "Alice Through the Looking Glass."

In the 20th century, many brilliant film adaptations of this work appeared. One of the most famous was directed by Tim Burton in 2010. The main roles were played by Mia Wasikowska, Johnny Depp and Anne Hathaway. According to the plot of this picture, Alice is already 19 years old. She returns to Wonderland, where she was in her distant childhood, when she was only 6. Alice has to save the Jabberwocky. She is assured that she is the only one who is capable of this. Meanwhile, the dragon Jabberwocky is at the mercy of the Red Queen. The film seamlessly combines live action with beautiful animation. That is why the film became one of the highest-grossing films in the world in the history of cinema.

Travel to Russia

The writer was predominantly a homebody; he only went abroad once. In 1867, Lewis Carroll came to Russia. The biography in English of the mathematician tells in detail about this trip. Carroll went to Russia with the Rev. Henry Liddon. Both were representatives of theology. At that time, the Orthodox and Anglican churches were actively in contact with each other. Together with his friend, Carroll visited Moscow, Sergiev Posad, many other holy places, as well as the largest cities of the country - Nizhny Novgorod, St. Petersburg.

A diary kept by Lewis Carroll in Russia has reached us. A short biography for children describes this journey in detail. Although it was not originally intended for publication, it was published posthumously. This includes impressions of cities visited, observations from meetings with Russians and recordings of individual phrases. On the way to Russia and on the way back, Carroll and his friend visited many European countries and cities. Their path lay through France, Germany and Poland.

Scientific publications

Under his own name, Dodgson (Carroll) published many works on mathematics. He specialized in Euclidean geometry, matrix algebra, and studied mathematical analysis. Carroll also loved entertaining mathematics and constantly developed games and puzzles. For example, he owns a method for calculating determinants, which bears his name - Dodgson condensation. True, in general his mathematical achievements did not leave any noticeable mark. But work on mathematical logic was significantly ahead of the time in which Lewis Carroll lived. The biography in English details these successes. Carroll died in 1898 in Guildford. He was 65 years old.

Carroll the photographer

There is another area in which Lewis Carroll was successful. A biography for children details his passion for photography. He is considered one of the founders of pictorialism. This trend in the art of photography is characterized by the staged nature of filming and editing of negatives.

Carroll communicated a lot with the famous 19th century photographer Reilander and took lessons from him. The writer kept his collection of staged photographs at home. Carroll himself took Reilander's photograph, which is considered a classic of mid-19th century photographic portraiture.

Personal life

Despite his popularity among children, Carroll never married and did not have children of his own. His contemporaries note that the main joy in his life was his friendship with little girls. He often painted them, even naked and half-naked, naturally, with the permission of their mothers. An interesting fact to note: at that time in England, girls under 14 were considered asexual, so Carroll’s hobby did not seem suspicious to anyone. Back then it was considered innocent fun. Carroll himself wrote about the innocent nature of friendship with girls. No one doubted this, that in the numerous memories of children about friendship with the writer there is not a single hint of a violation of the norms of decency.

Suspicions of pedophilia

Despite this, serious suspicions have already emerged in our time that Carroll was a pedophile. They are mainly associated with free interpretations of his biography. For example, the film “Happy Child” is dedicated to this.

True, modern researchers of his biography come to the conclusion that most of the girls with whom Carroll communicated were over 14 years old. Mostly they were 16-18 years old. Firstly, the writer’s girlfriends often underestimated their age in their memoirs. For example, Ruth Gamlen writes in her memoirs that she dined with Carroll when she was a shy child of twelve. However, researchers were able to establish that at that time she had already turned 18. Secondly, Carroll himself used to use the word “child” to refer to young girls up to 30 years old.

So today it is worth admitting with a high degree of confidence that all suspicions about the unhealthy attraction of the writer and mathematician to children are not based on facts. Lewis Carroll's friendship with his dean's daughter, from which the amazing "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" was born, is absolutely innocent.

Lewis Carroll is one of the most mysterious personalities in the history of world literature. Widely known as a storyteller, the author of the famous “Alice in Wonderland,” he was also a wonderful, and according to experts, the best photographer of his time. Some scandalousness of his personality was given by the fact that his weakness was to photograph little girls naked. “I adore all children,” Carroll once said, “except boys.” At the same time, there were researchers who claimed that he had a morbid sexual interest in his models and even drew an analogy between him and the murderous maniac Jack the Ripper. At the same time, it is known that his colleagues who studied at Oxford, clergy, and artists trusted him infinitely, otherwise how can one explain that the children of acquaintances most often posed for the artist?

However, first things first...

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (later he would take the pseudonym Lewis Carroll) was born on January 27, 1832 in Cheshire, England, into a large family of a parish priest. He was the third child and eldest son in a family of four boys and seven girls. Charles began to receive his education at home and was already distinguished by his exceptional intelligence as a child. When he was little, he was left-handed, and they tried very hard to retrain him, prohibiting him from writing with his left hand, which later led to stuttering. At first, the boy's father was involved in the boy's education, but at the age of 12 the child entered a grammar private school near Richmond, where he really liked it, but after 2 years the parents sent the child to a privileged closed educational institution, Rugby School, where he liked it much less, but it was At this school his outstanding abilities in mathematics and classical languages ​​were revealed. Having received an excellent education and possessing a number of talents, the young man entered Oxford, where he was admitted to scientific work and lecturing, which, however, was rather boring for him. Around this time, he became passionate about photography. In 1855, Dodgson was offered a professorship at his college, which in those days meant taking holy orders and a vow of celibacy. However, the latter was easy for him; it was rumored that Carroll experienced absolute indifference to sexual life and died a virgin. What worried Dodgson himself most about these changes was that this circumstance could become a serious obstacle to further photography and his beloved visits to the theater. However, in 1861 Dodgson was ordained deacon, the first intermediate step towards becoming a priest. However, changes in university status subsequently relieved him of the need for further steps in this direction.

For a more complete understanding of the writer’s personality and those facts from his life that have survived to this day, it should be noted that he was very shy from childhood and, as we know, noticeably stuttered. He led an orderly life: he gave lectures, took obligatory walks, ate only at certain hours, and was known as a pathological pedant. But what amazed those around him: his shyness and stuttering immediately disappeared as soon as he found himself in the company of little girls. This circumstance was noted by all his acquaintances, and his friendship with little girls was thoroughly discussed in 1856, when a new dean, Henry Lidell, appeared at the college where Lewis worked. He arrived at his new job accompanied by his wife and four small children: Harry, Lorina, Alicia and Edith. Dodgson, who was very fond of small children, very soon became friends with the girls and became a frequent guest in the Liddell house. The restraint with which Carroll described his meetings with Alice is extremely surprising, and yet on April 25, 1856, a record appeared that the writer went for a walk with his three sisters. By that time, Carroll was already acquainted with the eldest of the Liddell sisters, the youngest at that time was only two years old, and therefore it is logical to assume that the writer was amazed precisely by the meeting with four-year-old Alice, whom he had never seen before. But the name of this girl did not appear in Carroll's diary entries until May 1857, when the writer gave Alice a small present for her fifth birthday. Carroll often went to the dean's house to play with Alice and her two sisters (of course, having previously received an invitation from Mrs. Liddell); the girls came to visit him (with their mother’s permission, of course); they walked together, went boating, went out of town (of course, in the presence of the governess Miss Prickett - and it turned out that most often the five of them). Carroll spent so much time in the Liddell house that rumors spread around the college where he taught about his affair with the Liddell children's governess, after which the writer noted in his diary that “from now on, when in society, I will avoid any mention of girls, except in cases where it will not cause any suspicion.”

Beginning in November 1856, Carroll began to feel hostile towards himself on the part of Mrs. Liddell. From the writer’s diary, apparently, the entries devoted to the period from April 18, 1858 to May 8, 1862, disappeared forever, namely, it formed the basis for the masterpiece created somewhat later - “Alice in Wonderland.” The famous summer boat ride took place on July 4, 1862. On this day, Lewis, his priest friend and the dean's three daughters took a boat up one of the tributaries of the Thames. The day turned out to be very hot, and the tired girls asked their older friend to tell them a fairy tale. And Carroll began to come up with an intricate plot on the fly about Alice’s adventures underground, where the girl fell asleep in a meadow. And she has an extraordinary dream about how she falls down a rabbit hole, meets strange characters and takes part in amazing adventures. What was unusual about this fairy tale was that in it, seven-year-old Alice tries to reason and participate in various discussions with fantastic characters, but her thoughts and conclusions defy ordinary logic.

Subsequently, Carroll wrote down this fairy tale (at the girl’s request), which was published 2 years later under the title “Alice’s Adventures Underground,” and after a triumphant march around the world it began to be called “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.” He gave his own handwritten copy to the “customer”, pasting at the end of the manuscript a photograph of the main character he personally took.

In 1928, Mrs. R. G. Hargreaves (Alice Liddell) auctioned the manuscript at Sotheby's and received £15,400 for it, which was then donated to Great Britain. The manuscript is currently in the British Museum in London.

Mrs. Liddell's dissatisfaction with the relationship between Carroll and her daughters grew more and more. In 1864, she completely banned any walks and meetings between the writer and the girls and destroyed all the letters Alice received from Carroll. And the writer himself, apparently, tore out from his diaries that have reached us, pages that mention precisely this period of the break in relations with the Liddells.

Despite the fact that Lewis Carroll is the author of outstanding scientific books, articles on mathematics and logic, it was his fairy tales that brought him worldwide fame and were most discussed by critics and readers. Moreover, the subject of the study was also the personal life of the writer-scientist, which also “did not fit into any framework.”

Especially a lot of controversy and discussion arose around his strange long-term friendship with Alice Liddell, for whom he wrote his fairy tale, whom he constantly photographed and drew, including nude.

Alice is often present in his photographs; in one of the most famous, she depicts a beggar. A seven-year-old girl is looking at us from this photo. In a free pose, with a bare shoulder, she looks defiantly sexy.

It was not only young Alice that occupied Carroll's attention. He approached girls when he saw them in stores and on beaches. And he even specially carried puzzle toys with him to lure youngsters. And having become friends, he wrote them tender letters, reminding them that “we remember each other and feel tender affection for each other.”

There is a lot of similar evidence of such strange behavior of the writer. Indeed, he gave reason to suspect him of hidden pedophilia. After all, evidence that Carroll had sexual relations with his young girlfriends (and researchers counted that he was friends with almost a hundred girls) was never found.

But, according to biographer N.M. Demurova, this well-known version of Carroll’s “pedophilism” is a gross exaggeration. She is convinced that relatives deliberately fabricated a lot of evidence about Carroll’s supposedly great pure love for children, because they wanted to hide his overly active social life, unforgivable either for a deacon (he had a holy rank) or for a professor. According to this evidence, Carroll was not at all modest: he loved to go to the theater, appreciated painting, dined with young girls in cafes, stayed overnight in the houses of widows and married women - in general, he was a lover of life. And such a way of life was in no way consistent with his sacred rank. Such a truth about a relative seemed murderous to the nieces; most of all, they were afraid that their uncle would be spoken of as an adulterer. And then they decided to focus on his crazy love for little misses. Concerned about Lewis Carroll's reputation after his death, his relatives apparently went overboard and destroyed most of his diaries, drawings of little girls, photographs and negatives of "a'naturel", his sketches of fancy dresses, trying to create a heavily "powdered" biography. Most of the photographs Carroll took were destroyed, and none of the nude photographs survived. In fact, Carroll gradually exposed his models, and only in 1879 he began to take photographs of girls “in the costume of Eve,” as he himself wrote about it in his diary: “the naked girls are absolutely pure and delightful,” he writes to one of his friends, “But the nakedness of boys must be covered.” Meanwhile, he wrote in his diary: “If I found the most beautiful girl in the world for my photographs and discovered that she was embarrassed by the idea of ​​posing naked, I would consider it my sacred duty before God, no matter how fleeting her timidity and no matter how easy was to overcome it, immediately abandon this idea once and for all...” – the author of “Alice in Wonderland” wrote in his diaries.

Thus, the writer’s relatives and friends deliberately wanted to present him as a person who “really, really loved children.” From the point of view of a modern person, attention to girls is perceived as unhealthy. In the era when the author of “Alice” lived, they looked at it completely differently. The Victorians viewed the naked body differently and distinguished sexual desire from aesthetic desire. On postcards of the era, naked children as angels are the norm. In Victorian England, photographing and drawing little girls, including in the nude, was in fashion and symbolized purity and purity), and children under 12 were generally considered asexual, unable to evoke thoughts of fornication. In addition, Carroll took portraits of famous people, not just girls. However, as soon as suspicious townsfolk began to whisper behind his back, he immediately stopped drawing and photographing children.

From the point of view of that morality, the writer’s nieces, emphasizing his relationship with children, did not imagine that, by protecting Victorian virtues, they would condemn their famous relative to more serious accusations of pedophilia and other “oddities.” Even a whole direction has emerged that analyzes Carroll’s pathological tendencies through the study of his work. According to one of the “Freudian” versions, Carroll developed his own reproductive organ in the image of Alice. There were “critics” who discovered “elements of sadism” and “oral aggression” of the writer. Proof: in “Wonderland,” Alice drinks or eats something all the time to change her height, but the Queen of Hearts screams at the top of her lungs: “Cut off your head!”

Concluding this topic, it should be noted that a careful reading of Carroll’s correspondence with the girls revealed that many of them had long since left childhood. Some people were even over 30, although the writer treated them like little ones, but at the same time he paid for music lessons for one, and visits to the dentist for another.

At the same time, it cannot be denied that Carroll was really very very an unusual man who hid his many-sided aspirations under the mask of Victorian respectability. For example, he ate exclusively in the college cafeteria, but several shelves of his bookcases were occupied by cookbooks. He hardly drank alcohol, but the books “Deadly Alcohol” and “Uncontrollable Drunkenness” were prominently displayed in his library. He did not have children, but a place of honor in his library was occupied by works on the upbringing, nutrition, and training of children from the cradle until they enter into “full intelligence.”

The writer’s relationship with the already matured Alice is interesting, which over time became extremely rare and unnatural. After one of them, in April 1865, he wrote: “Alice has changed a lot, although I strongly doubt that for the better. She may be entering puberty." The girl was twelve years old at that time. In 1870, Carroll took the last photograph of Alice, then a young woman, who came to meet the writer, accompanied by her mother.

Two meager notes, made by Carroll in old age, tell about the writer’s sad meetings with the one who was once his muse.
One of them took place in 1888, and Alice was accompanied by her husband, Mr. Hargreaves, who was once a student of Dodgson himself. Carroll makes the following entry: “It was not easy to put together in my head her new face and my old memories of her: her strange appearance today with the one who was once so close and beloved “Alice.”

Another passage tells of a meeting of the almost seventy-year-old Carroll, who could not walk due to problems with his joints, with Alice Liddell: “Like Mrs. Hargreaves, the real “Alice” was now sitting in the dean’s office, I invited her to tea. She could not accept my invitation, but was kind enough to come to see me for a few minutes in the evening along with her sister Rhoda. "[In Carroll's memoirs, these two scenes are presented in the form of a peculiar triangle of images - the awkward presence of the husband, the imprint of time on the woman's face and the ideal girl from the memories. Nabokov in his “Lolita” combines these two scenes into one, when the desperate Humbert meets for the last time with the matured Lolita, living with some vulgar type].

Rhoda was the youngest of the Liddell daughters; Carroll brought her to the role of Rose in the Garden of Fresh Flowers in Alice Through the Looking Glass.

One of the last letters dates back to the period when Alice came to Oxford in connection with her father's retirement.
Carroll's invitation letter to an old acquaintance contains a professional reference to the linguistic concept of the dual meaning of words:
“You may prefer to come accompanied by someone; I leave the decision up to you, only noting that if your spouse is with you, I will accept it with great (crossed out) great pleasure (I crossed out the word “great” because it is ambiguous, I’m afraid, like most words). I met him not long ago in our break room. It was hard for me to come to terms with the fact that he was the husband of the one whom I still, even now, imagine as a seven-year-old girl.”

Dodgson suffered from insomnia: he spent nights trying to find solutions to complex mathematical problems. He worried that no one remembered his scientific works, and at the end of his days, tired of Carroll’s fame, he even said that “he had nothing to do with any pseudonym or book published under my real name.”

Nabokov's novel gave names to this brand of eroticism. Only here we can probably talk about eroticism, perhaps platonic. Apparently, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson could only possess a woman - or more precisely, a little girl - only in his imagination. And even then only in those moments while the photography lasted (the words “forty-two seconds” run through the book about Alice in Oxford like an obsessive motif). As young Chukovsky wrote in his Diary, old maids and old virgins are the most unhappy people in the world.

It's amazing that much of Alice's time has survived to this day. The elm planted by Alice on the wedding day of the Prince of Wales lived until 1977 (then, like many of his neighbors in the alley, he fell ill with fungal elm disease, and the trees had to be cut down). The famous Punch magazine (where Teniel, the first Alice illustrator, worked) closed quite recently. But the devils, rabbits and gargoyles that decorate the windows of the Oxford University Museum are there forever.
In Lewis Carroll's book The Logic Game, where he teaches the art of reasoning logically, drawing correct conclusions from not exactly incorrect but unusual premises, there is the following problem: “No fossil animal can be unhappy in love. The oyster is unhappy in love." The answer is also the conclusion: “The oyster is not a fossil animal.”

Lewis Carroll, professor of mathematics at Oxford, deacon, amateur photographer, amateur artist, amateur writer died in 1898. Many of those around him had no idea that this shy, stuttering man lived such a bizarre secret existence. Some psychiatrists argued that Carroll had schizoid disorders, and his literary work is confirmation of this.

However, if there were such disorders, they led to the fact that scientific works were written by the “sick”, which contributed to science, and immortal works of art were created, published all over the world. He dreamed of returning to childhood, turning back time and, indeed, became immortal thanks to his amazing fairy tales!

Carroll lived to be 66 years old and looked very youthful until the end of his life, but was not in good health, as he suffered from severe migraines. Many believed that he took laudanum (opium), but in those days many people did this even with minor ailments, since it was considered a simple medicine. The drug helped Carroll cope with his stuttering - after taking opium he felt more confident. It is likely that the “treatment” had an impact on his creative fantasies, because, for example, in “Alice in Wonderland” incredible events and amazing transformations take place.

The writer’s originality was manifested in the fact that he managed to organically weave into his fantasies not only real characters such as Alice Liddell, but also everyday suffering associated with his illness, which later received its name in honor of the work in which Alice in Wonderland syndrome was mentioned .

Alice in Wonderland syndrome is one of the rare forms migraine auras, a complex of brief (no more than an hour) neurological disorders that precede the onset of a migraine attack. An aura does not always accompany a headache, and doctors make a separate diagnosis in such cases – migraine with aura. Typically, an aura is a set of visual or sensory disturbances, manifested as bright or iridescent spots, loss of part of the visual field, or numbness, a crawling sensation in the hand, arm or face. Sometimes the aura may be present in the form of motor disturbances or olfactory phenomena. Perhaps the most famous literary description of an aura in the form of a violation of the sense of smell is found in Mikhail Bulgakov’s novel “The Master and Margarita”:

“More than anything else in the world, the procurator hated the smell of rose oil, and everything now foreshadowed a bad day, since this smell began to haunt the procurator since dawn...” Yes, there is no doubt! It’s her, her again, the invincible, terrible disease of hemicrania, which makes half your head hurt. There is no remedy for it, there is no salvation. I’ll try not to move my head.”

Alice in Wonderland syndrome is a rare form of migraine aura and occurs primarily in children. Manifestations of the syndrome can be different: from perversion of smell or taste to complex, detailed disturbances of perception, reminiscent of hallucinations. Visual phenomena usually appear as images of people or animals that swim from one side of the visual field and disappear on the other, or materialize from air currents, like the Cheshire cat.

“Okay,” said the Cat and disappeared – very slowly this time. The tip of his tail disappeared first, and his smile last. She hovered in the air for a long time, when everything else had already disappeared.”

Sufferers of Alice in Wonderland syndrome realize that these images are just visions, since the images are usually stereotypical and located at a specific point in space.

There are studies that prove that the headaches of many artists were reflected in their works. The fact can be traced by studying, for example, the works of outstanding artists: for example, elements that in all respects resemble manifestations of the visual aura of a migraine can be found in the paintings of Picasso and Matisse.

Another fragment of the book, which describes how Alice became smaller and larger after drinking from a bottle and eating a piece of mushroom, also has a very real origin. Lewis Carroll so effectively described the manifestations of macropsia and micropsia, which are also considered features of Alice in Wonderland syndrome. These are temporary changes in perception in which surrounding objects appear larger in size than they actually are, or, accordingly, smaller.

In addition to the above, those who suffer from Alice in Wonderland syndrome may experience a sensation of distorted body diagram. Derealization (a feeling of the unreality of what is happening), depersonalization (the feeling of “I am not me”), deja vue occur, the sense of the passage of time is disturbed, or palinopsia appears (a disturbance of visual perception in which an object that is no longer in the field of vision remains in it or appears again ). If you carefully re-read Alice in Wonderland, descriptions of many of these phenomena can be easily found.

Apparently, Carroll, who suffered from migraines, transferred his experiences of the aura of the attack to the characters of his works. By the way, the author also experienced the usual visual aura of migraine, which can be seen in his drawings. For example, the famous writer correctly and clearly reflected all the smallest details, but in the figure of the dwarf he missed part of the face, shoulder and left hand. This is very similar to a scotoma (loss of vision), which is a common element of the visual aura in migraines.

Fortunately, there is little chance of encountering Alice in Wonderland syndrome outside of a book: the syndrome is very rare, usually occurs in childhood, can be treated and, as a rule, its manifestations decrease with age.

PS:Richard Wallis's book "Jack the Ripper, Fickle Friend" was published in 1996. In it, the author claimed that the mysterious killer who brutally murdered London prostitutes in 1888 was... Lewis Carroll. He made his conclusions after discovering... anagrams in Carroll's books. He took several sentences from the storyteller's works and composed new sentences from the letters in them that told about Dodgson's atrocities as Jack the Ripper. True, Wallis chose long sentences. There were so many letters in them that, if desired, anyone could compose a text with any meaning.

Introduction

Translated literature has always occupied a large place in children's reading. It, just like native literature, has a serious influence on the moral and aesthetic education of children. The best works of progressive foreign writers instill in young citizens humanism, devotion to moral ideas, love of knowledge, and hard work. This is the most important means of exchanging cultural values, helping to bring people closer together and interact. It contributes to the study of social conditions and the culture of the peoples of different countries, since without sociocultural knowledge real communication and understanding cannot take place. “Art has the magical ability to overcome barriers of nationality and tradition, making people aware of their universal wealth. The scientific and technical achievements of a nation win it respect and admiration, but the creations of art make everyone fall in love with this nation,” wrote S.Ya. Marshak.

Of particular importance in translated children's literature are the works of British writers such as: Edward Lear, Lewis Carroll, Kenneth Grahame, Joseph Rudyard Kipling, Walter de la Mare, Eleanor Farjeon, Alan Alexander Milne, Hugh Lofting.

Lewis Carroll: biography and creativity

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, whom everyone knows under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll, was born on January 27, 1832 in the small village of Daresbury, located in Cheshire. He was the first child of the parish priest Charles Dodgson. The future writer's mother's name was Frances Jane Lutwidge. At baptism, the child received two names: the first, Charles, in honor of his father, the second, Lutwidge, in honor of his mother. Later, Charles had seven more sisters and three brothers - at that time large families were common. Lewis Carroll was British to the core. He had a special appearance: asymmetrical eyes, the corners of his lips were turned up, he was deaf in his right ear; stuttered.

All children in the Dodgson family received home education: the father himself taught them the law of God, literature and the basics of natural sciences, “biography” and “chronology”. The boy was then sent to Richmond Grammar School. After six months of study, young Charles managed to enter Rugby School, where he studied for four years. During his studies, teachers noted the boy's outstanding abilities in theology and mathematics. Carroll's entire subsequent life was connected with Oxford.

In May 1850, Dodgson was admitted to Christ Church College, Oxford University, and in January of the following year he moved permanently to Oxford. Charles graduated from college with honors in two departments: mathematics and classical languages, which was a rare case even at that time. Considering the young man’s outstanding abilities, he was offered to stay and work at Oxford, and in the fall of 1855 he was appointed professor of mathematics at one of the colleges. In those years, a prerequisite for scientific work was taking holy orders and a vow of celibacy. Dodgson hesitated for some time, fearing that taking holy orders would force him to give up his favorite pastimes - photography and going to the theater.

In 1861, Dodgson was ordained deacon, the first step in the priesthood process, but university rules soon changed and ordination became optional.

Dodgson wrote a large number of scientific books and brochures on logic and mathematics. The most famous books are The Fifth Book of Euclid Treated Algebraically (1858, 1868), A Syllabus of Plane Algebraical Geometry (1860), An Elementary Treatise on Determinants, 1867) and Euclid and His Modern Rivals (1879), Mathematical Curiosities (Curiosa Mathematica, 1888 and 1893), Symbolic Logic (1896).

In Oxford, Charles Dodgson lived in a small, cozy house with turrets. In his youth, he wanted to learn to be an artist, so he drew a lot, mainly with charcoal or pencil, and he himself illustrated his own handwritten magazines, which he published for his brothers and sisters. Once he sent several of his drawings to the humor supplement of the Time newspaper, but the editors did not publish them. Then Charles became acquainted with the art of photography, a passion for which he retained throughout his life. He bought a camera and took up photography seriously. In the era of the birth of photography, the process of photographing was unusually complex: photographs had to be taken with a long shutter speed, on glass plates coated with a colloidal solution. The plates then had to be developed very quickly after shooting. For a long time, Dodgson's photographs were not known to a wide circle, but in 1950, the book “Lewis Carroll - Photographer” was published, which revealed Dodgson as a talented photographer.

Lewis Carroll loved Alice Liddell, a seven-year-old beauty with wide eyes, the rector's daughter, who, thanks to Carroll, turned into fairy-tale Alice.

Carroll, indeed, was friends with her for many years, including after she successfully married. He took many wonderful photographs of little and big Alice Liddell.

Alice. Photo by Carroll

Dodgson was a rather strange person - he avoided making friends, had poor hearing in one ear and had diction defects. He delivered his lectures in a abrupt, lifeless tone. Carroll simply loved the theater. This was clearly visible from the outside when he, already a famous writer, was personally present at the rehearsals of his fairy tales on the theater stage, showing a deep understanding of the theater and the laws of the stage.

Dr. Dodgson often suffered from severe insomnia. At night, while trying to sleep, he would invent “midnight problems”—various mathematical puzzles—and solve them himself in the dark. Having collected these problems together, Carroll published them as a separate book, Mathematical Curiosities.

In 1867, Dodgson went on a very unusual trip to Russia. On the way, he visited Calais, Brussels, Potsdam, Danzig, and Koenigsberg. The journey was very exciting. In Russia, Dodgson visited St. Petersburg, Sergiev Posad, Moscow, and a fair in Nizhny Novgorod. After a month in Russia, he returned back to England. The return route passed through Vilna, Warsaw, Ems, and Paris. Dodgson loved children very much: as a young boy he wrote stories, small poems, came up with various games, and drew pictures for his younger brothers and sisters. Dodgson had such a strong attachment to children (mostly girls) that it even confused his contemporaries. It is difficult to say unequivocally what attracted Carroll to little girls, but in our time many biographers and critics, studying the psychology of the writer, never cease to accuse him of pedophilia.

Of Dodgson's childhood friends, the most famous were those with whom he had been friends since his youth - these were the children of the dean of his college, Liddell: Harry, Lorina, Alice (Alice), Rhoda, Edith and Violet.

Favorite Alice became the main character of Dodgson's improvisations, with which he entertained his young girlfriends on river walks or in his house, in front of the camera. Charles's photo models were his little girlfriends. He told the most unusual and fascinating story on July 4, 1862 to Lorina, Edith, Alice Liddell and Canon Duckworth near Godstow, walking in the upper reaches of the Thames. Young Alice persuaded Dodgson to write down his story on paper, which he did. Then, on the advice of J. MacDonald and Henry Kingsley, he rewrote his book so that it would be interesting not only for children, but also for adults. Charles added several more fascinating stories to the future book that he had previously told to Liddell's children. In July 1865, the book was published under the title Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Soon a continuation of Alice's adventures appeared, also collected from earlier and later stories. This continuation was published at Christmas 1871. The new book was called “ Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There. The illustrations for both books were created by D. Tenniel, who carried them out according to the exact instructions of Dodgson himself.

The fairy tales “Alice in Wonderland” and “Alice Through the Looking Glass” are loved by adults and children. They are quoted, philologists and physicists refer to it, they are studied by philosophers and linguists, psychologists and mathematicians. Many articles, scientific papers, and books have been written about them. Movies have been made based on Lewis Carroll's books and plays have been staged. Hundreds of artists drew illustrations for his books, including Salvador Dali himself. Alice's Adventures have been translated into more than a hundred languages.

Dodgson wrote wonderful and original humorous poetry. Carroll published some poems from the books about Alice in 1855 in the Comic Times and in 1856 in Train magazine. He published many more of his poetry collections in these and various other periodicals, anonymously or under his pseudonym Lewis Carroll. Carroll's most famous poetic work is the nonsense poem "The Hunting of the Snark."

In the winter of 1898, Lewis Carroll fell ill with influenza in Guildford. The flu caused a complication - pneumonia, from which Charles Dodgson died on January 14, 1898.

Carroll's ability to skillfully “juggle” words and invent various new words made it impossible to unambiguously translate his works. Despite the efforts of the translators, some of the subtext was still lost. Now there are dozens of different translations into Russian of Lewis Carroll's works. In the Soviet Union, the works of L. Carroll were first translated by A.P. Olenich-Gnenenko. From 1940 to 1961, the publication was published five times. The 1958 edition contained the first Soviet illustrations for "Alice", which were made by the artist V.S. Alfeevsky.

LEWIS CARROLL

Lewis Carroll inspired more musicians to create psychedelic rock than any other writer in the history of literature. Think, for example, of Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit," or the Beatles' "I Am the Walrus," or Donovan's entire album, "Hurdy Gurdy Man." (And no one is saying that it was all good psychedelic rock!) And all this thanks to a man who, most likely, has never tried drugs in his life, has never had a serious relationship with a woman, and spent most of his life lecturing in college mathematics Christ Church Oxford University.

Oh, yes, and, of course, he also created one of the world's most beloved children's book heroines.

Long before Alice, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Carroll's real name) was a shy, stuttering son of a vicar from the village of Daresbury, Cheshire. The third of eleven children in the family, he took his first steps in literature very early. Even after graduating from Christ Church College, Oxford, with a master's degree in mathematics, Charles continued to write humorous poems and sometimes published them in the Comic Times. Deciding not to mix his mathematical career with his literary one, Charles Lutwidge came up with the pseudonym “Lewis Carroll”, reversing his names and translating them into Latin and then back into English. This intricate and witty play on words soon became a signature feature of his writing style.

Tall, thin and rather handsome, Carroll lived as an ascetic scientist, alien to all worldly goods. Apart from science, his only hobbies were writing and photography. In 1861, Dodgson took the junior diaconate (a prerequisite for becoming a Fellow of the College), which meant he would become an Anglican priest, but something kept Charles Lutwidge from throwing himself entirely into the service of God. In his diaries, he wrote about the feeling of his own sinfulness and guilt that haunted him, but it is not clear whether this feeling prevented him from finally becoming a priest or something else. Despite all this, he remained a respectable son of the church. It is known that, having visited the Cologne Cathedral, Charles could not hold back his tears. Another remarkable fact from Carroll’s biography: he more than once left the theater during a performance if something on stage offended his religious feelings.

In 1862, Carroll went on a boat trip with friends. There was also Alice Liddell, a ten-year-old girl with whom the writer developed an unusually close friendship. For most of the trip, Carroll amused himself by telling a fairy tale in which Alice was the main character and which the girl demanded to be written down. The tale was originally called "Alice's Adventures Underground", but then Carroll renamed it "Alice in Wonderland". The book was published in 1865 and was a huge, downright stunning success, and in 1871 a sequel followed - “Alice through the Looking Glass”. Filled with crazy characters like the Hatter and nonsensical but hilarious poems like "Jabberwocky" and "The Walrus and the Carpenter," Alice's story immediately won a massive following among readers of all ages. The shy bookworm Charles Dodgson instantly became the world-famous children's writer Lewis Carroll (although he still found time to write mathematical treatises, which were all boring and dry, with the exception of the entertaining scientific pamphlet "Dynamics of the Particle", published in 1865 ).

In the last two decades of his life, Carroll continued to write, photograph, invent, and think about mathematical topics. The photographic portraits he took, according to modern estimates, were clearly ahead of their time, but his models (mainly little girls) pose a number of still unresolved questions for biographers. Carroll, without a doubt, was a great original. His lifestyle cannot be called standard.

Carroll never married and, according to the reviews of his contemporaries, did not start a long-term relationship with any adult woman. The writer died in 1898 from bronchitis, leaving behind a series of colorful characters, amazing stories and puzzling word games that continue to inspire writers, musicians and children around the globe.

MASTER OF ALL THINGS

Carroll was not only the author of one of the most popular works of children's literature, he was also a fan of technological progress, obsessed with invention. His inventions included the electric pen, a new form for money orders, a tricycle, a new method for right-justifying the typewriter, an early double-sided exhibition stand, and a mnemonic system for remembering names and dates.

Carroll was the first to come up with the idea of ​​printing the title of a book on the spine to make the desired edition easier to find on the shelf. The words Carroll coined by combining two other words are still widely used in the English language. Carroll, a big fan of riddles and puzzles, invented many card and logic games, improved the rules of backgammon and created a prototype of the game Scrabble.

MEDICAL MIRACLE

Rumors that Carroll took psychoactive drugs are greatly exaggerated, but even if this were true, who, knowing the writer's medical history, would blame him? You would also want to get rid of pain if you suffered from swamp fever, cystitis, lumbago, furunculosis, eczema, synovitis, arthritis, pleurisy, laryngitis, bronchitis, erythema, catarrh of the bladder, rheumatism, neuralgia, insomnia and toothaches - all these ailments were found in Carroll's possession at different times. In addition, he was tormented by severe chronic migraines, accompanied by hallucinations - he saw, for example, moving fortresses. Let's add to this stuttering, possibly hyperactivity and partial deafness. Isn't it a miracle that Carroll wasn't an avid opium smoker? Although who knows, maybe there was.

OH, MY POOR HEAD!

It is possible that Alice's Adventures was a side effect of severe headaches. This conclusion was reached by scientists who published an article in 1999 in the British medical journal Lancet, where hallucinations during migraine attacks described in Carroll's diaries were analyzed. Recurring images appear in his writings several years before the first edition of Alice in Wonderland, and this supports the assumption that "at least some of Alice's adventures were based on Carroll's visions during migraines."

EXCUSE ME, AM I ANNOYING YOU?

In addition to all his other health problems, Carroll apparently suffered from obsessive-compulsive disorder. He was terribly petty and meticulous. Before setting out on any journey, even a short one, he studied the route on a map and calculated how long each stage of the journey would take, leaving nothing to chance. He then calculated how much money he would need and put the required amount into different pockets: to pay for the passage, tip the porters, and buy food and drinks. When brewing tea, Carroll demanded that the tea leaves steep for exactly ten minutes, not a second more and not a second less.

His hypertrophied love for inventing and observing all kinds of rules extended to those around him. When hosting a holiday dinner, Carroll would draw a seating chart for the guests and then write down in his diary what each person ate, “so people wouldn’t have to eat the same thing too often.” Once, while visiting the library, he left a note in the suggestion box in which he outlined a more advanced system for arranging books. One day he reproached his own niece for leaving an open book on a chair. He even corrected other writers if he found minor mathematical errors in their works. Yet, like so many other originals, Carroll somehow managed to make his flaws seem like endearing quirks. And his constant nagging didn’t seem to irritate anyone.

LEWIS CARROLL'S FAVORITE VEHICLE WAS A TRICOLE. THE WRITER CONSTRUCTED ONE OF THE MODELS HIMSELF.

ASK ALICE

How many years have passed since the writer’s death, and he is still suspected of pedophilia. Was he really a pedophile? There is fierce debate on this matter. It is obvious that Carroll had a special affection for girls. He took hundreds of photographs of young ladies, sometimes in the nude (we are talking about the appearance of the young ladies, not Carroll himself). There is not a single photograph that would capture any explicitly sexual scene, however, there is a known case when the mother of one girl was seriously frightened when she learned that the shooting of a minor would take place without the participation of a companion, and refused Carroll a photographic session. Carroll had a particularly close relationship with Alice Liddell, the prototype of the main character of Alice in Wonderland. However, in 1863 their friendship ended abruptly. No one can say with certainty why. Pages from Carroll's diary from this period were later torn out and destroyed by the writer's family, perhaps to protect his reputation. Carroll’s interest in photography also dried up suddenly, in 1880, add to this the entries in his diary, where the writer talks about the consciousness of his own sinfulness and guilt that tormented him all his life. He does not specify what the fault is. Did anything happen during filming besides photography? Some of Carroll's biographers have recently argued that the writer was just a real-life embodiment of Willy Wonka - an innocent man-child who was fascinated by children, but did not harm them and was not sexually attracted to them. In fact, there remains no evidence that Carroll even touched any of his models with lewd intentions. Only the White Rabbit knows the truth...

CHARLES DODGSON? DODJACK THE RIPPER?

Or maybe the eccentric author of Alice was actually a misogynist and serial killer? In his book “Jack the Ripper, the Careless Friend,” published in 1996, a certain Richard Wallace suggests that the famous London maniac who killed prostitutes was none other than Lewis Carroll. As evidence, Wallace cites excerpts from Carroll's works, in which, in his opinion, detailed descriptions of the Ripper's crimes are hidden in the form of anagrams. For example, the beginning of the poem “Jabberwocky”:

It was boiling.

Squishy shoryky

They poked around,

And the zepyuks grunted,

Like mumziki in mov.

If you rearrange the letters (meaning, of course, the English original, and not the translation), you can read the following:

I swear I'll spank my balls

Until I destroy the evil floor with my sword hand.

Slippery business; lend me some gloves

It's a little unclear what pig jerking has to do with Jack the Ripper. Moreover, Wallace avoids the fact that Carroll was not in London at all at the time of the murders. And, as you know, anagrams were invented for this purpose, so that almost anything could be constructed from any written phrase. To support this, one writer, the author of a biography of Carroll, rearranged the letters in a phrase from Winnie the Pooh and “proved” that Christopher Robin was the true Bloody Jack. Otherwise, Wallace's theory is flawless.