Lewis Carroll is the pen name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, born in England in 1832 and best remembered as a writer of books specifically for children (Harmon 2001, 98). Carroll was a poet and photographer as well as an author, but he also spent years as an Oxford don where he excelled as a teacher of mathematics. Whether through his use of absurd language, his exceptional visual images of children he photographed, his preoccupation with numbers, or his visual poems, Carroll was a master of imagery. Best known for his childrenÆs classics Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, CarrollÆs imaginative output in a variety of fields appears to have come from his unique character and lifestyle. As Harmon (2001) notes, Carroll was a ôshy, fastidious, deeply devout man who spoke with a stammer, never had an adult romantic relationship, and seemed most comfortable dwelling inside his own headö (98). When examining CarrollÆs life, it is readily apparent that his lack of expression with other adults in his daily life found full expression in images, whether photographic or written, on the page.
The images that dwelt inside CarrollÆs head expressed themselves in a variety of ways. His stories are filled with fantasy and the absurd, his photographs of young girls are often filled with whimsy, and his ôshaped verseö serves to highlight the strangeness of fantasy realms. Many of CarrollÆs poems appear in the ôAliceö books. Both the ôAliceö books and CarrollÆs poems seem to express images that are drawn from the state of dreaming. In the beginning of AliceÆs Adventures in Wonderland, we see Alice is tired and this might explain her encounter with a Rabbit who exclaims ôOh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late!ö (Carroll 2000, 19). We are told that such a fantastical image should have aroused wonder in Alice, but it did not, ôwhen she thought it over afterwards, it occurred to her that she ought to have wondered ...