| CHAPTER | PAGE | |
| [I.]— | There Was Once a Little Boy | [1] |
| [II.]— | School Days at Richmond and Rugby | [15] |
| [III.]— | Home Life During the Holidays | [30] |
| [IV.]— | Oxford Scholarship and Honors | [42] |
| [V.]— | A Many-Sided Genius | [60] |
| [VI.]— | Up and Down the River with the Real Alice | [80] |
| [VII.]— | Alice in Wonderland and What She Did There | [98] |
| [VIII.]— | Lewis Carroll at Home and Abroad | [125] |
| [IX.]— | More of “Alice Through the Looking-Glass” | [146] |
| [X.]— | “Hunting of the Snark” and Other Poems | [176] |
| [XI.]— | Games, Riddles and Puzzles | [202] |
| [XII.]— | A Fairy Ring of Girls | [221] |
| [XIII.]— | “Alice” On the Stage and Off | [242] |
| [XIV.]— | A Trip with Sylvie and Bruno | [272] |
| [XV.]— | Lewis Carroll—Man and Child | [287] |
LEWIS CARROLL.
CHAPTER I.
THERE WAS ONCE A LITTLE BOY.
here was once a little boy whose name was not Lewis Carroll. He was christened Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, in the parish church of Daresbury, England, where he was born, on January 27, 1832. A little out-of-the-way village was Daresbury, a name derived from a word meaning oak, and Daresbury was certainly famous for its beautiful oaks.
The christening of Baby Charles must have been a very happy occasion. To begin with, the tiny boy was the first child of what proved to be a “numerous family,” and the officiating clergyman was the proud papa. The name of Charles had been bestowed upon the eldest son for generations of Dodgsons, who had carried it honorably through the line, handing it down untarnished to this latest Charles, in the parish church at Daresbury.
The Dodgsons could doubtless trace their descent much further back than a great-great-grandfather, being a race of gentlemen and scholars, but the Rev. Christopher Dodgson, who lived quite a century before Baby Charles saw the light, is the earliest ancestor we hear of, and he held a living in Yorkshire. In those days, a clergyman was dependent upon some noble patron for his living, a living meaning the parish of which he had charge and the salary he received for his work, and so when the Rev. Christopher’s eldest son Charles also took holy orders, he had for his patron the Duke of Northumberland, who gave him the living of Elsden in Northumberland, a cold, bleak, barren country. The Rev. Charles took what fell to his lot with much philosophy and a saving sense of humor.