A biography of the enigmatic and beloved author of Alice in Wonderland.Foreword by Edward Wakeling, former chairman of the Lewis Carroll SocietyLewis Carroll was brilliant, secretive and self contradictory. He reveled in double meanings and puzzles, in his fiction and his life. Journalist Jenny Woolf's The Mystery of Lewis Carroll shines a new light on the creator of Alice in Wonderland and brings to life this fascinating, but sometimes exasperating human being whom some have tried to hide. Using rarely-seen and recently discovered sources, such as Carroll's accounts ledger and unpublished correspondence with the "real" Alice's family, Woolf sets Lewis Carroll firmly in the context of the English Victorian age and answers many intriguing questions about the man who wrote the Alice books, such as:Was it Alice or her older sister that caused him to break with the Liddell family? • How true is the gossip about pedophilia and certain adult women that followed him? • How true is the "romantic secret" which many think ruined Carroll's personal life? • Who caused Carroll major financial trouble and why did Carroll successfully conceal that person's identity and actions?Woolf answers these and other questions to bring readers yet another look at one of the most elusive English writers the world has known."Goes beyond the central controversy over his life to shed light on a man who has proved elusive to his biographers." —Wall Street Journal"Engaging . . . Woolf writes with affection as well as admiration for the man revealed by her research." —Washington Post Book World