Was Carroll in love with 11-year-old Alice Liddell who inspired Alice in Wonderland and other mysteries of the famous author and mathematician *** 3 Stars

By Gabrielle Pantera

The Mystery of Lewis Carroll, secrets of the author of Alice in Wonderland

HOLLYWOOD, CA (Hollywood Today) 2/13/2010 – “I’ve had a laugh at some of the odd things people have sent when they knew I was writing a book,” says The Mystery of Lewis Carroll author Jenny Woolf. “One of the funniest, and creepiest, was a link of the Queen of Hearts and the playing-card gardeners as dressed up praying mantises. It can be viewed in 3-D and I’ve put it on the fan page for the book.”

The Mystery of Lewis Carroll reveals new facts about the famous mathematician and author of Alice In Wonderland. Lewis Carroll’s real name was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. Woolf uses recently discovered facts, such as Carroll’s accounts ledger and unpublished correspondence with his Alice Liddell’s family. Alice was the daughter of his dean at Oxford and inspiration for Alice In Wonderland. Woolf explores how Carroll was repressed by the Victorian era as well as his upbringing as a cleric’s son. There were many rumors about Carroll, was he in love with young girls or was it the idea of innocents? There are also rumors that he had affairs with married women.

Woolf tries to dispel some of the worst rumors about Carroll. She talks about his love for photography and how he took photographs of friend’s children nude, a common practice during the Victorian age rather than an indication of pedophilia. There’s no evidence that he harmed any children, although some say he wished to marry 11-year-old Alice Liddell. Four lost volumes of his 13-volume personal diaries might tell that story, if they’re ever found.

Woolf got the idea for the book about Carroll after she found his personal bank account, forgotten and unnoticed in an archive for over a hundred years. Once transcribed and interpreted, it revealed much about this interesting man.

Woolf used documents and family letters to piece together Carroll’s life from various archives all over the world. “Some of them I visited in person, others list their holdings online and researchers can buy photocopies of relevant documents,” says Woolf. “Some of the material had been transcribed by other researchers and some experts and collectors kindly allowed me the run of their material.”

“I read all the biographies, plus any monographs, studies, and magazine articles, and all the original documents I could find which had not been published,” says Woolf. “I also consulted letters, published and unpublished, and the nine existing volumes of his diary. In short, a lot of work. I wanted to be sure I had seen as much as possible so I could put together my own impression of this intriguing man.”

The BBC produced a half hour program about Woolf’s discovery of Carroll’s personal bank account. “There’s been movie interest in the book from a British company doing TV co-productions,” says Woolf. “It’s been interesting to me to realize how many different types of people are interested in Lewis Carroll, from sweet old ladies to the likes of Marilyn Manson.”

Woolf’s editor in the U.S. is Michael Flamini at St. Martins Press. “Like many editors who publish authors from other countries, I‘ve never met Jenny Woolf in person, though we have corresponded over the Internet,” says Flamini. “In recognition of Carroll, I think if we ever get to meet that we will be almost forced to have tea, though I will not probably be wearing a large hat. I discovered her book on a list of submissions from her agent and was intrigued. I loved the book and bought it immediately.”

“The original publisher of this book is Haus in the UK,” says Flamini. “I gave all of my editorial suggestions to the wonderful editor there who worked on this book. They’ve produced a great book that is also a beautiful object.”

Woolf’s editor in the UK is Robert Pritchard at Haus Publishing. “Much of the day-to-day detailed editing was done by the wonderful and efficient Jaqueline Mitchell for Haus,” says Woolf.

Jenny Woolf was born near London, England, and currently lives in the neighborhood of Hampstead. Her office is small. “I’m planning to move into a larger one,” says Woolf. “I just bought a wonderful glass desk for my new office. It reminds me of the glass table Alice found. Maybe I’ll keep a little bottle on it saying “Drink me”!”

The Mystery of Lewis Carroll For is the perfect book for those who love Alice in Wonderland and want to know more about it’sunusual author.

Woolf is currently writing a Gothic time-slip young adult novel, set half in Victorian times and half in modern England.

www.jabberwock.co.uk

The Mystery of Lewis Carroll: Discovering the Whimsical, Thoughtful, and Sometimes Lonely Man Who Created “Alice in Wonderland”

• By Jenny Woolf
• Hardcover, 336 pages, Publisher: St. Martin’s Press; 1 edition (February 2, 2010),
• Language: English, ISBN: 9780312612986
• $27.99