(1832-1898)
Lewis Carroll is a pen name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, the
professor of mathematics from Oxford. The future writer went to Rugby school and then to Christ Church College in Oxford, and he got Master’s Degree when he was 23. His first experience in writing was not a
fairy-tale, but a serious work on mathematics.
When Dodgson was working in the college, he got acquainted with
the Liddell family. Liddell was the dean of the faculty where he worked.
The Liddells had four children: a son, Harry, and three daughters: Lorina Charlotte, Alice, and Edith. Dodgson became a good friend of the
family and often entertained the children with different stories.
One day the Liddells together with Dodgson went on a boating trip
on the Thames, and he told the children the story about wonderful
adventures under ground. The story was so good that everybody asked
him to publish it.
The first book appeared in 1865 and had the title Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Dodgson continued writing and soon published
the second book: Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Saw
There.
He went on writing books and stories for children, but none of
them enjoyed so much popularity as stories about Alice and her adventures.
The Jabberwocky is one of the poems from the book Through the
Looking-Glass... and is a wonderful example of nonsense that people all
over the world enjoy up to now.
The Jabberwocky
’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”
He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought —
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.
And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!
One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back. “And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arm, my beamish boy!
О frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
He chortled in his joy.
’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
“It seems very pretty,” [Alice] said when she had finished it, “but
it’s rather hard to understand! ... Somehow it seems to fill my head with
ideas — only I don’t exactly know what they are!”
EXERCISES
14. Make up ten questions on the text.
15. Agree or disagree.
1. Lewis Carroll is the real name of the writer.
2. Lewis Carroll was a professor of mathematics in Oxford.
3. The Liddells had five children.
4. Dodgson liked telling children amusing stories.
5. The story about Alice’s adventures in Wonderland was told on a
boating trip on the Thames.
6. Lewis Carroll wrote many books for children, and all of them are
popular.
16. Speak about Lewis Carroll and his books
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