Carroll, Lewis, pseudonym of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832-98), English logician, mathematician, photographer, and novelist, best known for his fantasy, Alice in Wonderland. Dodgson was the eldest son and third child in a family of seven girls and four boys born to Frances Jane Lutwidge, the wife of the Rev. Charles Dodgson. He was born in Daresbury, Cheshire, on Jan 27, 1832. His father was perpetual curate there from 1827 until 1843, when he became rector of Croft in Yorkshire - a post he held until his death on Jan 14, 1898 in Guildford, Surrey.

His family lived in an isolated country village and had few friends outside the family but found little difficulty in entertaining themselves. Charles showed a great aptitude for inventing games to amuse them. The "Rectory Magazines", manuscript compilations to which the family were supposed to contribute, were created when he was 12. Young Dodgson attended Richmond School, Yorkshire (1844-45), and then Rugby School (1846-50). He endured several illnesses during this period, one of which left him deaf in one ear. After Rugby he spent a further year being tutored by his father, during which he matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford (May 23, 1850). He went into residence as an undergraduate there on Jan. 24, 1851. Alice in Wonderland grew out of Dodgson's entertainment of the children of Henry George Liddell, dean of Christ Church. He had a natural affinity for children, having been the eldest son with eight younger brothers and sisters. He also spoke naturally and easily to children, a relief to him since he suffered from a bad stammer. Alice Liddell and her sisters Lorina and Edith were not, of course, the first of Dodgson's child friends. Dodgson had also enjoyed the company of the children of the writer George Macdonald, the sons of the poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson, and various other chance acquaintances. The Liddell children, however, undoubtedly held an especially high place in his affections.

Alice in Wonderland began as a tale spun by Dodgson, when on July 4, 1862, Dodgson and his friend Robinson Duckworth, fellow of Trinity, rowed the three Liddell children up the Thames from Oxford to Godstow. They picnicked on the bank, and returned to Christ Church late in the evening. The fairy-tale of Alice's Adventures Underground was told to the children during this occasion. Much of the story was based on a picnic a couple of weeks earlier when they had all been caught in the rain; for some reason, this inspired Dodgson to tell so much better a story than usual that both Duckworth and Alice noticed the difference, and Alice went so far as to plead Dodgson to write down the story.

Later in life, Dodgson attempted a return to the Alice vein but only produced Sylvie and Bruno (1889) and its second volume, Sylvie and Bruno Concluded (1893), both regarded as failures by critics, though the two novels taken together are a study of the man. His poems and verses were collected in 1869 as Phantasmagoria and Other Poems and later (with additions) as Rhyme? and Reason? (1883) and Three Sunsets and Other Poems (published posthumously, 1898).