LEWIS CARROLL (1832-1898) Author of two of the best-known and best-loved children's books ever written, Lewis Carroll is also remembered for his neologisms and nonsense rhymes. Lewis Carroll is the pseudonym of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. He arrived at his pseudonym by translating his two first names back into English from Latin and reversing their order. Born the eldest of eleven children, he showed an early aptitude for writing and edited his own magazines to entertain the family. He was educated at Rugby soon after the school had been re-organized under Dr. Arnold, and then at Christ Church, Oxford. He became mathematical lecturer at the same college from 1855 until his retirement in 1881. He was ordained a clergyman in 1861, but held no benefice and rarely preached. He was a shy man who was handicapped by a stammer; his self-consciousness was lessened only in the presence of children, especially girls. Alice Liddell, second of the three young daughters of the Dean of Christ Church, was the greatest among these 'child friends'. On 4 July 1862 he and another took the sisters out boating, and Dodgson entertained his audience with a story he called 'Alice's Adventures Underground'. This was to appear in print in 1865 as Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, accompanied by Sir John Tenniel's atmospheric illustrations. It was followed by Through the Looking Glass (1872), relating the further adventures of Alice with pictures by the same illustrator. He also published the mock-heroic poem The Hunting of the Snark (1876) and the more sentimental Sylvie and Bruno (1889). At the same time he was also the author of several mathematical treatises, of wich the most influential was 'Euclid and his Modern Rivals' (1879). Queen Victoria was bemused, rather than amused, to receive one of these, when after the success of the Alice books, she gave him an audience and requested that Dodgson send her his next publication. Dodgson was also a pioneer in the art of photography; his portraits of children, especially, are highly skilled. However, he is still best remembered for his witty subversion of the staid and often stodgy books that the Victorians thought were suitable for their children. Through the Looking Glass and its precursor, Alice´s Adventures in Wonderland, were instant publishing successes and have remained popular with children and adults ever since.