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THE MYSTERY OF LEWIS CARROLL
By: Jenny Woolf
Discovering the Whiimsical, Thoughtful, and Sometimes Lonely Man Who Created Alice in Wonderland.
St. Martin's Griffin
February 2011
On Sale: February 15, 2011
Featuring: Alice Liddells; Lewis Carroll
336 pages
ISBN: 031267371X
EAN: 9780312673710
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Non-Fiction Biography
Lewis Carroll was secretive and self contradictory, revelling in double meanings, false reflections and puzzles. From "Alice in Wonderland"'s first appearance in 1865, he shunned personal publicity, and used the Victorian equivalent of "spin" to conceal himself from the world. After his death, his huge family censored and destroyed many private documents. This book shines a light onto the living, breathing, unusual and sometimes exasperating human being that they tried to hide. Although the elusiveness and strangeness of Carroll's personality is acknowledged, he is shown as a real human being who lived, breathed and had a life. The book contains a chapter on Carroll's personal bank account - material discovered by the author. This document, covering over forty years, casts hitherto unseen and unconsidered light upon Carroll's life. The book also uses previously unpublished letters from Alice's sister to help unravel the reason why Carroll's friendship with the Liddell family came to an end. THE MYSTERY OF LEWIS CARROLL shows that Alice Liddell was not the "Alice" of the books, although she was the reason that they were written. β’It gives clues to a secret which dominated (and in some ways ruined) Carroll's personal life. β’It shows how a man previously thought to be a minor acquaintance got Carroll into major trouble - trouble which was never mentioned in his diaries. β’It illuminates and sets into historical context the topic of Carroll's love of little girls, which, though unusual, was not paedophiliac.
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