Lewis Carroll, an English mathematician, photographer and novelist, is best remembered for his masterpieces, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, published first in 1865, and its sequel Through the Looking Glass, published in 1871. Born Charles Lutwidge Dodgson in 1832, he was the eldest son and third child in a family of seven girls and four boys.
He grew up in an isolated country village far from the burgeoning industrial development that was transforming Britain. After being ordained a deacon in 1861, he chose never to marry. His stories about Alice were invented to amuse Alice Liddel and her sisters, the daughters of a close associate. These timeless classics are enjoyed as much by adults as by children. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was an immediate and enduring success and has been translated into more than eighty languages.