Alice in Wonderland & Through the Lookung-Glass: The stories, important background information and a biography of Lewis Carroll

Lewis Carroll

Apr 2014 · BoD – Books on Demand

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320

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About this ebook

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (alias Lewis Carroll) was an interesting and idiosyncratic character, to say the least. He was a mathematics lecturer at Cambridge University and a deacon in the Anglican Church. Obviously a very bright man he suffered from physical impairments such as partial deafness and a stammer which, perhaps, made him reserved and slightly aloof from the society of the day. He also had a predilection for young female companionship, which would seem highly contentious to us today but was, perhaps, more acceptable (and possibly entirely innocent) in the latter part of the 19th century. The books can be read on a number of levels. They originally emerged from a boat trip that Dodgson took with a family he knew (the Liddells) including their three daughters and he told them a tale to while away the journey. The children were so taken with it that they asked him to write it down – and so the legend began. It is quite possible that, initially, Dodgson has simply intended the tale to be a children’s story for their amusement; but when he set about writing it down, expanding and structuring it he introduced some darker, perhaps even sinister elements to the tale. His penchant for logic, dry humour and nonsense pervades the stories but there is also a suggestion of themes running through the books. Inevitably the states of childhood and maturity feature strongly given Dodgson’s own situation and the nature of his relationships with both adults and children. The topsyturvy nature of Wonderland could be seen as a commentary on the outside world where the child, Alice, seems to be the only sane and sensible person around. Dodgson himself seemed to live more in a child’s world than adults. The nature of his occupations – in academia, the church and finally writing – would all serve to contain him in an unreal existence, somewhat separate from the harsh truths of the world around him. Perhaps it was all an acting out of his own fantasy – a world full of conundrums, logic puzzles and childlike interactions that he would much preferred to inhabit than the world he was personally faced with. Whatever the true motivations and meanings behind them, the stories have stood the test of time as children tales and literature in their own right and scholars today continue to pore over the interpretation of the musings of a lonely mathematics teacher from 150 years ago.

About the author

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898), better known by his pen name, Lewis Carroll, was an English writer, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer. His most famous writings are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass, as well as the poems "The Hunting of the Snark" and "Jabberwocky", all examples of the genre of literary nonsense. He is noted for his facility at word play, logic, and fantasy, and there are societies in many parts of the world (including the United Kingdom, Japan, the United States, and New Zealand) dedicated to the enjoyment and promotion of his works and the investigation of his life.

Davies Guttmann was born in 1966 in Vienna, were he lives with his wife and their four children. He started his business life 1988 as editor of the leading Austrian stock market letter. Many other financial publications followed. Guttmann also worked for various newspapers as a financial journalist. In the 90ies he was co-publisher of werk-zeug, a technology and art magazine, as well as Streetfashion, a magazine featuring fashionable people on the streets of the world. After this Guttmann worked as a Alternative Investment and Private Equity specialist.

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