You might’ve read Lewis Carroll’s books and greatly admire his style of writing. That’s great, but did you know his real name was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson? Now, this fact might now amuse you, but we just wanted to let you know. Well, there are some very interesting facts about this 19th-century writer. You must be very curious to know about them right now.
Patience. We’re now going to unfold some of those secrets right here. You’ll find these facts about him quite amusing and they may even leave you stunned! So, without further ado, let’s dive right in and uncover some amusing facts about Lewis Carroll.
1. He created a writing tablet of sorts to write in the dark
You might’ve had this experience at some point of time in your life. All of a sudden, in the middle of the night, you came up with an idea. You thought it was so revolutionary that it should be written down, but felt too lazy to get up.
Carroll must’ve understood the feelings of folks like you and he came up with a great idea. He invented a kind of writing tablet and called it nyctograph. It allowed individuals to take notes in the dark. Now, they didn’t need to get out of bed and switch the lights on. Whenever an idea struck them at night, they could just grab this device and note it down.
The device was actually a card with two rows of eight square-shaped holes. He also provided a guide for the user to enter a shorthand code of dots and dashes. He thought that even the blind could benefit from it!
2. He was the dodo in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
This book was the one that made him immensely popular across the world. The book itself gained massive popularity and has been adapted into many movies. The outline for it was created during one of the rowing trips that he made with the kids.
They were the children of his boss, Henry Liddell. He later narrated the story to Alice Liddell. She liked it so much that she begged him to write it down. Carroll wrote it down and presented Alice with the handwritten and illustrated manuscript. It was eventually published by Macmillan as Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. The rest is history, as they say!
It went on to become a worldwide best-seller. Not many know that he based the character of dodo on himself. He stammered during his childhood and often introduced himself as ‘Do…Do…Dodgson’. This might’ve been the idea behind the character.
3. Someone thought he was Jack the Ripper!
Jeez, that’s gross! How can somebody say things like this? Now, the number of people suspected of being this serial killer makes for a long list. Well, the one who said this weird thing was none other than the author, Richard Wallace.
Jack the Ripper had committed the murders during 1888, when Carroll was in his 50s. Richard Wallace came up with the theory as he thought of Carroll’s writings as confessions. He examined that the author behind the creation of Alice had an unhappy childhood.
Right from his strict religious upbringing to bullying while at school, he was subject to many internal struggles. Carroll included codes and clues in his creations, but thinking they were confessions about killings is something extreme!