Lewis Carroll: A Biography

In this illuminating biography of the Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, who wrote under the name of Lewis Carroll, Donald Thomas has revealed the many paradoxes of Dodgson: he was a mathematician and logician who glorified illogic and non sequitur; he was a conservative professor and clergyman who was friends with the Bohemians; he wrote books for children filled with images of violence and brutality; and, while professing a prudish, innocent view of childhood, he took photographs of prepububescent girls in the nude.

In this landmark biography, Donald Thomas manages to make Charles Lutwidge Dodgson's personality comprehensible, and as with all great biographies, here the person and the Victorian age illuminate each other.