Alice’s author has more to offer

Did you know that Lewis Carroll penned more than a story about a young girl stumbling through a fantastical world of characters? I did not. I had an Alice in Wonderland doll like many of my peers. When I was a teenager, I read somewhere that Carroll was a math teacher and found that interesting. But this source of information provided no additional accolades around his professional achievements.

Perhaps it is because Lewis Carrol is a pen name for Chales Lutwidge Dodgson. Perhaps it is because we now live with never ending access to information, at least to those who wish to jump down the rabbit hole. His Wikipedia page is quite long. Here’s a bit (the youth clearly suffered from distraction).

His early academic career veered between high promise and irresistible distraction. He did not always work hard, but was exceptionally gifted, and achievement came easily to him. In 1852, he obtained first-class honours in Mathematics Moderations and was soon afterwards nominated to a Studentship by his father’s old friend Canon Edward Pusey.^[19][20] In 1854, he obtained first-class honours in the Final Honours School of Mathematics, standing first on the list, and thus graduated as Bachelor of Arts.^[21][22] He remained at Christ Church studying and teaching, but the next year he failed an important scholarship exam through his self-confessed inability to apply himself to study.^[23][24] Even so, his talent as a mathematician won him the Christ Church Mathematical Lectureship in 1855,^[25] which he continued to hold for the next 26 years.^[26] Despite early unhappiness, Dodgson remained at Christ Church, in various capacities, until his death, including that of Sub-Librarian of the Christ Church library, where his office was close to the Deanery, where Alice Liddell lived.^[27

The book that catches my attention is a volume on symbolic logic, Symbolic Logic and the Game of Logic. What else could the mind that offered up so many tremendous visuals in an adventure do with little drawings and abstract concepts? A visual of a fleeting concept can be quite powerful. Apparently the book is full of quirky humor.