Lewis Carroll

This fresh and comprehensive analysis of the creative works of Lewis Carroll addresses with authority the dominant issues and events in the life and works of the Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson - the puzzling, eccentric, whimsical and brilliant Oxford mathematics don who changed literature and infused world culture with the publication of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

 

Conceived in 1862 and inspired by Carroll’s real-life dream-child Alice Liddell, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and its indelible character Alice is now accepted as a masterpiece. The book became a global phenomenon in Carroll’s life and has remained a bestseller and a rich source of inspiration for various art forms in the more than 150 years since its publication. Today, it is a global resource beyond Lewis Carroll or the property of editorial writers, advertising copywriters, literary critics, children of all ages, film makers and others. Lewis Carroll and his Alices are part of our cultural heritage.  Alice’s story lives in countless editions, illustrations, stage and screen adoptions and adaptations, and has been translated into no fewer than 174 languages. 

 

Writing with broad access to updated or previously unavailable primary materials and the vast arena of contemporary scholarship on Carroll and his works, Professor Guiliano offers an authoritative account of Carroll’s identities, behaviors and works. He connects the diverse elements in his art—from photography to poetry—to the great Alice books and more.

 

Through a focus on the primary works, the question “Why Alice?”—the original text and its cipher-like afterlives—is placed in numerous contexts, including the era in which the Alices were created, and their many layers of complexity pealed back.  In the end, the plurality of Carroll’s art is revealed, including through selected reproductions of his photographs and drawings.