Alice in Wonderland

The first 200 words of this essay...

Alice in Wonderland

Did you read and enjoy Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland books as a child? Or better still, did you have someone read them to you? Perhaps you discovered them as an adult or, forbid the thought, maybe you haven't discovered them at all! Those who have journeyed Through the Looking Glass generally love (or shun) the tales for their unparalleled sense of nonsense.

Public interest in the books--from the time they were published more than a century ago--has almost been matched by curiosity about their author. Many readers are surprised to learn that the Mad Hatter, the Cheshire Cat and a host of other absurd and captivating creatures sprung from the mind of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, a shy, stammering Oxford mathematics professor.

Dodgson was a deacon in his church, an inventor, and a noted children's photographer. Wonderland, and thus the seeds of his unanticipated success as a writer, appeared quite casually one day as he spun an impromptu tale to amuse the daughters of a colleague during a picnic. One of these girls was Alice Liddell, who insisted that he write the story down for her, and who served as the model for the