Lewis Carroll was the pen-name of Charles L. Dodgson, the man who wrote a
famous book for children "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland".
Charles L. Dodgson was born in England in 1832. He got his early
education at a public school. Then he became a student at Oxford.
Charles studied mathematics and later taught this subject in the same
college.
Charles Dodgson had no family, but he loved children very much.
He often visited his friend, who had a large family. There were three
little girls in the family. One of them Alice, was four years old.
Dodgson liked Alice very much and he often told her interesting stories
which he made up himself. Charles told Alice Liddell about the adventure
of a little girl, and she liked the stories very much.
When Alice Liddell was about ten years old, she asked Charles to
write down the stories for her, and he did so. He called the heroine of
his book also Alice. This hand-written book had many pictures made by
Charles himself. They were not very good pictures but the children liked
them.
One day a friend of the Liddells, a writer, came to see the
family. He saw the hand-written book made by Charles Dodgson and began
to read it with great interest. He read the book to the end and said
that it was good and that all the children in England must read it.
Charles decided to publish the book but he did not want to do it under
his own name. So he took the pen-name of Lewis Carroll. The book came
out in 1865 and all the people who read it liked it very much. Later the
book was published in the United States, in France and in Germany. The
first Russian translation of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" came out
in 1923.
In England the book was published very many times during the
author's life and you can always find it in the bookshops of today.
"Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" is still a favourite children's book.
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