Posts Tagged ‘Jack the Ripper’
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About the Author Lewis Carroll (Alice in Wonderland)
Monday, March 1st, 2010
- comingsoon.net
Tim Burton’s movie extension of Alice in Wonderland comes out this week (in case you’ve been living under a rock or petticoat or some other form of shady coverage). And with it arrives the speculative-but-oh-so-fun press with their avid ogling into author Lewis Carroll’s personal life. Awkward that—seeing as the guy’s been dead for 112 years.
Isn’t it fascinating how no one likes to speak ill of the dead and yet they obsess delightedly over speaking ill of the dead? Let’s see, this week alone I heard rumor that Carroll was a murderer, a molester, a plagiarist (apparently he didn’t write Alice in Wonderland—Queen Victoria did), and (my favorite) Jack the Ripper. Wow. (I’m beginning to think he and Dan Brown share the same taste in P.R. reps.)
So was Lewis Carroll any of those things?
I’ve no idea. But I’m not inclined to base my opinions of a man’s morality upon some missing journals and a few later-in-life, secondhand “recollections.” What I do know is that he was born to a country parson in 1832 as Charles Lutwidge Dodgson and grew up in north England as the eldest son in a full house. Carroll proved an intellectual child (first homeschooled, then attending Rugby School) and, as an adult, earned the post of Christ Church Mathematical Lectureship in Oxford along with taking deacon’s orders (although he chose against becoming a priest). Throughout his life he invented everything from ciphers to game rules to parliamentary policies to a very early version of the game Scrabble (at least according to Wikipedia). Carroll was a photographer (and, yes, he did some weird photos—I’ll give you that), a poet, and an author who was friends with the likes of Dante Gabriel Rossetti and George MacDonald.
Beyond that, most else is rumor. Albeit juicy rumor.
Which will probably push the movie sales through the theater roof for teenage Alice tripping down the rabbit hole in her effort to escape an unwanted marriage proposal.
And I am going to see it. And then I’m going to read Alice in Wonderland again.
How about you, my reading friendlies? What say you to all of this? And are you going to the movie?
And for more info on the subject, you can look here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_carroll or here: http://www.lewiscarroll-site.com/ or here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/feb/27/as-byatt-alice-in-wonderland
Tags: Alice in Wonderland pics, Author Lewis Carroll, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, Jack the Ripper, obsession, rumor, Tim Burton movie
Posted in Author Tidbits, Literary Classics | 26 Comments »
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