The Author Immortalized by Children

Charles Dodgson wrote on algebra, geometry, and trigonometry—but what immortalized his name were the books of fancy written in the language of children!

From Coronet magazine

On the afternoon of one fine spring day, Princess Beatrice, youngest daughter of Queen Victoria, received a children's book, elegant in appearance; and how great was her astonishment when she opened the book to find on the first page the author's good wishes together with his signature, and to find all the pages adorned with bright colored pictures and with the rich imagination that accompanied the events of the wonderful fairy tale...

Queen Victoria's admiration was no less than that of the little princess, for the book took a high place in her esteem, and she at once asked her chief custodian to bring her copies of all the books from this author's pen...

And how great was her astonishment when she found among this man's works books on algebra, geometry, and trigonometry!! Thus she was the first to discover that Lewis Carroll—who had the merit of bringing happiness and delight into the hearts of thousands of children through their reading of his companionable fairy tales—was himself a professor of mathematics at Oxford University, known in his private life as Charles Dodgson!

And even today, when we read this author's delightful books of fancy for children, we find it hard to believe that this man could treat with such success deep mathematical problems and theories! And introduce certain reforms into the science of mathematics and refute certain others!

The contradiction between this man's two personalities was very great indeed... The bashful professor who taught at Oxford University in no way resembled the merry, light-hearted man who wrote the famous "Alice" stories for children!

The first to inspire Carroll with these stories, and to discover in him this overflowing bent and this splendid, gushing imagination, were his little brothers and sisters; his family numbered eleven children, of whom he was the eldest, and on cold evenings, when the little ones gathered round the hearth, Carroll would regale them with his stories, transporting them out of this world into another world whose days were all sunshine and delights, laughter and song!

But the one who prompted him to set these stories down and print them on paper was the little girl Alice Liddell; she alone inspired the "Alice" stories, immortal in the world of children!

This was on one of the July days of the year 1862, when Carroll invited his neighbor's three little daughters to accompany him on an outing in the open country; and in the shade of a hunched rock the children asked the professor to tell them one of his sweet stories. The youngest of them was Alice, the dearest of them to his heart and the most insistent in the request... and she added to her insistence by saying:

"Be sure that there is plenty of magic and fairy-tale nonsense in your story!"

It was a magical moment, in which Carroll's genius brought forth the firstborn of his stories for children, and he went on spinning out his tales until the first stars appeared on the horizon. It was hard for the little girls to part from Carroll and from the enjoyment of his enchanting tales, and they did not agree to return home until they had taken from him a promise to repeat these outings and to tell these tales again, Carroll relating them in his deep, low-pitched musical voice...

And one day little Alice surprised him with this question: "Why don't you write these sweet tales in a beautiful book?"

And so the Alice stories came before children for the first time, and they fell upon them eagerly and read them with a longing beyond all longing and asked for more of this ware; Carroll's renown spread, and his name became known in all the circles of children—and what circles in the world are empty of children? And what children do not love tales, especially the fanciful kind?

The professor of mathematics at Oxford grew old and aged in his modest suit... but Carroll remained young and vigorous with the passing of the years; his library filled with gay, bright books, and children kept flocking to them until God took him, on a cold morning in the year 1898.

And today, when the name of Professor Dodgson has all but been forgotten, folded away by the years, the memory of Carroll remains alive, renewed with every new generation of children.