Lewis Carroll

I'm a huge fan of Lewis Carroll (with a big collection of related books) and this will be one I shall enjoy adding to the collection. As a biography it covers all the material which others have covered previously but the format - looking at his life through his relationships with others - and the detailed research Wakeling has done means that this gives new insights. Maybe not in any major way but I do feel I have a deeper understanding of Carroll after reading this.

Review will be posted Feb 20
'Lewis Carroll is a biography written by Edward Wakeling, a former chairman of the Lewis carroll Society, he owns one of the finest collections of Carroll material in private hands. He was also involved in editing the ten volumes of Lewis Carroll's Dairies. Basically - this book is probably as close as you can get to having been written by Carroll himself. Wakeling is the real deal.

The book starts with a chronology of Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson)'s life from his birth to death. The rest of the book expands upon all that as well as includes more detail on his family - including a family tree. There are illustrations throughout the book as well.

I had only known Lewis Carroll as the author of the Alice books, so it was nice to find out more about him and some of his other works. The book is just over 400 pages, but since the author is an expert on Carroll, it is full of wonderfully researched information. I am not sure there is a more thorough biography out there and I appreciate all the effort that must have gone in to putting this together. I enjoyed reading it.

I received a free e-copy of this book in order to write this review, I was not otherwise compensated.

The last one hundred years have seen enough biographies of Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) to make another seem superfluous.’

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (27 January 1832 to 14 January 1898), better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll was an Anglican deacon, logician, mathematician, photographer and writer. It’s almost 150 years since, on 26 November 1865, ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ was first published in the UK. It’s a book that has brought a lot of joy to at least four generations in my own family, as have other of his literary works. I’m not sure, though, that any of us have read any of his mathematical works.

Many biographies have been written about Lewis Carroll, but this one is different. Edward Wakeling has had an interest in Lewis Carroll since 1975, and now owns one of the finest collections of Carroll material in private hands. By drawing on Lewis Carroll’s voluminous correspondence, Edward Wakeling’s biography looks at Lewis Carroll from within his own social circle. Lewis Carroll’s correspondence numbered almost 100,000 items by the time of his death, and of those almost 6,000 (of which 4,000 have never before been published) are in Edward Wakeling’s personal database. Who did Lewis Carroll correspond with? Was his world as child-centric, as some have claimed?

‘From childhood, Dodgson had a natural flair for telling amusing and entertaining stories, and with a large number of siblings at his disposal he had a readymade audience.’

From reading this book it becomes clear just how wide Lewis Carroll’s circle was. His correspondents included many of the leading academics, artists, composers, musicians and publishers of the period, as well as some members of the royal family. There are also some delightful letters to and from children. I enjoyed reading about Lewis Carroll’s photography hobby, which he gave up in 1880, and his efforts to obtain the best illustrations for his books.

There’s a wealth of detail in this book, and while the information provided is fascinating, it is neither a quick nor an easy read. Until I read this book, I had little knowledge about Lewis Carroll’s life other than a few biographical details, and that his real name was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. I’d read occasional views that his interest in children was ‘unhealthy’ but was unaware of the background to such claims. Reading this book, while it seems clear that Carroll liked children and they liked him, his friendships seem to have been the kind of friendships that many of us were once freely able to enjoy with adults who were not family. How sad it is that times have changed. How important it is that we look at such friendships through the prism of the times in which they flourished.

‘This book is an attempt to confound some of the more outrageous biographies that have been published in the last half-century, where the writers have not availed themselves of the primary sources that survive and have indulged in all manner of speculation and mythmaking.’

I enjoyed reading this biography, and I now want to reread ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’. I may not be able to recapture the pure magic of my first read about 50 years ago, but I know that I will enjoy it even more knowing a little more about the man who wrote it.

Note: My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher I B Tauris for the opportunity to read an advance copy of this book.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

I did not expect to enjoy this book as much as I did.

Lewis Carroll (or to give him his true name, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) was a complex man. He was a story-teller, a mathematician of note, a tutor, a diarist, a logician, an artist, a photographer, an author, a supporter of the arts, both graphic and dramatic.

He was a devoted son, the entertainer of his ten siblings, a conscientious brother who took care of his unmarried sisters, a supporter of those who wanted and had the ability to learn but lacked the financial resources to do so.

This book features many of his photographs, extracts from his diaries, and letters, both written by and to him.

Edward Wakeling introduces us to the people in CLD's life - his family, friends, associates (both personal and professional) and acquaintances. Through them we get to know Mr Dodgson.

I hope you are as fascinated by him as I was.

Thank you to NetGalley and I.B. Tauris Publishers for the opportunity to review this book in exchange for an honest review.