By Liliana Baltra
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, better known as Lewis Carroll, was born in 1832 and died in 1898. Having studied at Christ Church College, Oxford, later he became a mathematics lecturer at Oxford. He was also a minister of the Anglican Church and is very famous for his books Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking- Glass (1872) that we all have probably read.
What is less known is that he had a mentor: George MacDonald. MacDonald studied at the University of Aberdeen and then moved to London to study at Highbury College. He was a writer and a pastor of a Congregational Church in Arundel and then in Manchester. He used to write fairy tales for his children. Lewis Carroll who was also a well- known photographer took some pictures of MacDonald’s children. Knowing that he was a writer of stories for children, Carroll, who was a bit shy, decided to show him his Alice’s Adventures. MacDonald read the story to his own children who were fascinated with Alice and all the wonderful characters in the story. As a result of that, MacDonald encouraged him to publish it.
George MacDonald also inspired other authors of fantastic stories like C.S Lewis and J.R.R Tolkien.
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