Charles attended Christ Church College at Oxford and graduated first in his class in mathematics. He went on to teach mathematics there, and wrote stacks of books about higher math. He also loved to tell stories, invent and improve upon games, and make up puzzles,  from the time he was a child. The eldest of eleven children, he kept them entertained in all these creative ways and more. He was a master communicator, even though a childhood bout with a fever left him deaf in one ear, and a case of bronchitis went into his chest, and he suffered from a stammer (he called it his “hesitation“).

These things may have kept him from interacting fluently with adults, but they certainly didn’t keep him from developing his mind, and they made him more comfortable with children. He never married, but he played the role of an uncle to his friends’ children, as many Victorian bachelors did. He was a particular friend of George McDonald’s, and often spent time with his family and entertained his children. But perhaps his favorite was a young girl named Alice Liddell. He would often take Alice and her two sisters on both trips and picnics, and entertaining them with stories along the way.

It was on one of these excursions of the Thames River from Oxford to Godstowe that the short story of “Alice’s Adventures Underground” was first told. Alice enjoyed the story so much, she begged him to write it down, and so he did, in longhand, with his own illustrations. Alice loved it, as did her sisters and George McDonald’s children. A year the book was published as Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland under the pen name Lewis Carroll, to keep his important mathematical writings separate from this children’s fantasy story. 

The book was an instant success. There's a well-known story that Queen Victoria loved it so much, she ordered/requested/directed that Carroll dedicate his next book to her. The story goes that the author obeyed, but (perhaps not liking being told what to do) the book he wrote and dedicated to her was no delightful fantasy. It was  An Elementary Treatise on Determinants, With Their Application to Simultaneous Linear Equations and Algebraic Equations. Isn't that hilarious? We wish it were true, but it turns out it's NOT.  As we told the kids, "well-known" doesn't always mean "true"--a lesson to tuck away for research and life.  

Hands-on connections in this guide:  "Carrolling" activity;other activities as expressions of the author’s work; all props as thematic/ symbolic elements of the story; music and audiovisuals about the author’s life or book; setting, narrative arc, creative writing, and vocabulary worksheets