The Works of Lewis Carroll
Lewis Carroll, John Tenniel, Alexander Woollcott
(Blacks Readers Service Co., July 6, 1926)
In 1856 he published his first piece of work under the authorship of "Lewis Carroll”., a romantic poem called "Solitude" appeared in The Train. That year, a new dean, Henry Liddell, arrived at Christ Church, bringing with him his young family. It does seem clear that his friendship with the Liddell family was an important part of his life in the late 1850s and he grew into the habit of taking the children (first the boy, Harry, and later the three girls) on rowing trips accompanied by an adult friend. It was on one such expedition, on 4 July 1862, that Dodgson invented the outline of the story that eventually became his first and largest commercial success. Having told the story and been begged by Alice Liddell to write it down, he eventually presented her with a handwritten, illustrated manuscript entitled Alice's Adventures Under Ground. Before this, the family of friend and mentor George MacDonald read Dodgson's incomplete manuscript, and the enthusiasm of the MacDonald children encouraged Dodgson to seek publication. In 1863, he had taken the unfinished manuscript to Macmillan the publisher, who liked it immediately. After the possible alternative titles Alice among the Fairies and Alice's Golden Hour were rejected, the work was finally published as Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in 1865 under the Lewis Carroll pen-name, which Dodgson had first used some nine years earlier. The overwhelming commercial success of the first Alice book changed Dodgson's life in many ways. The fame of his alter ego "Lewis Carroll" soon spread around the world. He also began earning quite substantial sums of money but continued with his seemingly disliked post at Christ Church. Late in 1871, a sequel – Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There – was published. Its somewhat darker mood possibly reflects the changes in Dodgson's life. His father had recently died (1868), plunging him into a depression that lasted some years Wikipedia