The Mystery of Lewis Carroll: A Biographical Investigation
Lewis Carroll published Alice in Wonderland in 1865, and it was a huge success. As a result, many people became keen to know all about him - and he was just as keen not to let them know a thing. He went to great lengths to portray himself as a man whose emotional life revolved around children, and this, together with the air of secrecy which he cultivated, has generated many curious, disturbing or ridiculous theories about the kind of person he was.
This biographical investigation uses little-known and recently discovered sources to illuminate Carroll as a funny, difficult, sometimes dark and highly original person set firmly in his own period. It unravels the cause of the break between him and Alice Liddell's family with previously overlooked documents confirming that Alice's older sister was heavily involved. It shows that little Alice Liddell is not the "Alice" of the books - even though she was the reason that they were written. It analyses the gossip about women which hounded Carroll for all his adult existence, and there are clues to the romantic secret which for years dominated (and in a way ruined) Carroll's personal life.
It examines what religion and the supernatural meant to Carroll, and suggests what Carroll's creative work meant to him and how it related to his life. His most celebrated books were written at times when he was under great personal strain, and were probably a form of self therapy.
Book Author
Jenny Woolf travelled a great deal as a child. She attended sixteen schools in various countries, and spent some periods off school entirely. This didn't do much for her formal education, but it gave her plenty of time to read, which she greatly appreciated.
After an art training at Bournemouth School of Art, she freelanced as a journalist for UK national newspapers and magazines. She was a contributing editor of the national American travel magazine Islands between 1994 and 2006, writing European-based features about personalities, notable travellers and interesting destinations. She cont...
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Book Reviews
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Hollywood Today
"...the perfect book for those who love Alice in Wonderland and want to know more about its unusual author." -
Columbus Dispatch
"Woolf ...covers a lot of old ground in this biography but entertainingly so. She also uses ...Carroll's bank records, to paint a well-rounded picture of a "whimsical, thoughtful and sometimes lonely man"; and puts to rest some scurrilous rumors about Carroll." -
Times
"At the heart of Woolf's book is her serendipitous discovery of 45 years' worth of Carroll's bank statements. As any suspicious spouse knows, these make gripping reading, revealing more than any diary entry ....Carroll's writing is entertaining and readable because of its mysteries, and the same might be said of this quirky and committed book." -
Wall Street Journal
"The Mystery of Lewis Carroll goes beyond the central controversy over his life to shed light on a man who has proved elusive to his biographers." -
Deseret News, Salt Lake City
"Woolf has worked hard to back up her information with facts and source documents. And her careful attention to detail is evident. As with any biography, she has made her own conclusions and shared her own sentiments, but the book feels less speculative than others of the genre. The Mystery of Lewis Carroll is not a fast read, but it has a rhythm that keeps it moving forward at a comfortable pace. At times, discussions may go too far in depth for the lay reader, but overall Woolf's piece is interesting, informative and enjoyable. " -
Daily Telegraph
"Both sides of [Dodgson] would have appreciated Jenny Woolf's sensible and generous new biography, The Mystery of Lewis Carroll. Dodgson might ruefully have recognised the contradictions of a professional life in which he upheld standard forms of piety in public while privately devouring books about ghosts and witchcraft. Carroll might have been grateful for the detective work involved in going through his bank account, which shows that the figure post-Freudian readers have been encouraged to see as pathetically seedy, if not actively predatory, actually donated large sums to charities that supported children who had been sexually exploited. Both would have been thankful for Woolf's dismissal of previous biographers' more lurid hypotheses, from drug addiction to stories about Jack the Ripper, and both would have enjoyed Woolf's own enjoyment at his verbal gymnastics and philosophical contortions." -
Boston Globe
"The Lewis Carroll she portrays is the man as his contemporaries might have seen him and not as he appears to us through the looking glass of time. It is, I think, a highly worthwhile enterprise and a useful corrective to the flood of fictionalized accounts ... Woolf's thoughtful, commonsensical approach leaves the reader feeling satisfied..." -
Winnipeg Free Press
"This biography...answers these questions gracefully, knowledgeably and fairly. It is a well-written and excellent summary of the life of a fascinating writer ...this even-handedness distinguishes Woolf's work from many others. She willingly confronts extremes but will not yield to the temptation of the biographer to make wild allegations that cannot be reasonably supported by the evidence....She has written a very readable, enjoyable, and fascinating biography of a brilliant and creative genius. " -
USA Today
"Woolf sheds more light on the mysterious Dodgson in this new biography." -
Prof. Sherry Ackerman, Daresbury Chronicle,
"Woolf's writing is sterling.... she presents facts, cleanly stated, interspersed with commentary, expressed in well crafted, carefully chosen language.... Woolf has written a really, really good book " -
Matthew Sweet, Financial Times
"In place of Freudian bafflegab or crazed acts of decryption, Woolf offers an audit of her subject. She has tracked down the details of his bank accounts, which record decades of profit, loss, gifts and purchases - and is the only source of information about Carroll unshaped by family or friends. Here are his desires and fears expressed as pounds, shillings and pence: his payments to doctors who offered therapies to cure his stammer; the receipt for his Velociman hand-propelled tricycle and "Whitley's Exerciser"; the red ink that immortalises his carefree attitude to debt. What emerges most forcefully, however, is his generosity..." -
Washington Post
"Jenny Woolf's engaging biography. ... Throughout The Mystery of Lewis Carroll, she always makes scrupulously clear what is fact and what is speculation. As a Lewis Carroll scholar, she has been hitherto best known for discovering and analyzing the writer's bank statements, which plainly lay out just how generous Dodgson was in assigning much of his income ...In The Mystery of Lewis Carroll Woolf eschews the minutiae and factual richness of Cohen's magisterial biography of 1995. Her aim is to present a convincing portrait, and she writes with affection as well as admiration for the man revealed by her research." -
Hampstead & Highgate Express
"...lays waste to many myths and clears up several contradictions ... her sensible approach contextualises his actions with the mindset of the Victorian era." -
TLS
"[Woolf is] scrupulous about drawing attention to gaps in the record ...The only area in which she allows herself the luxury of overstatement concerns the importance of Carroll's Oxford bank account records, which she has unearthed, and of which she is forgivably proud...." -
Area Magazine
"There are many biographies about this intriguing character, but The Mystery of Lewis Carroll has to be one of the most significant. Woolf successfully humanises the famous author, making him quite endearing, and ending any ‘curiouser and curiouser’ speculations about him." -
Lewis Carroll Society of North America
" ...consistently interesting... this volume represents a very good "state of the nation" with regard to current critical thought about Carroll, and is a solid book to recommend to someone new to the study of his life and works. "
