The works of Lewis Carroll (1832-1898) seemingly belong to everyone, everywhere, and relate to nowhere. They take place `through the looking class; or `in wonderland’ – with no real association with any specific terrain in the Britain that Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, the mathematician who lay behind the Carroll pseudonym, lived in. For most of his life, that was Oxford, at the college he had been an undergraduate, Christ Church. The arrival of Henry Liddell to the College in 1856 to serve as Dean resulted in a friendship between the confirmed bachelor Dodgson and his new colleague, and in particular with Liddell’s wife and her three young daughters. Of these, it was to the youngest, Alice that he told a series of absurd stories for her amusement while on a boating trip in 1862. These he wrote up, and they were eventually published in 1865 (after, it has to be said, breaking off relations with the family in 1863). It has to be noted that despite there being a real Alice, the author himself was to deny later in his life that there had been any particular person in his mind when he produced the Wonderland books.
Supported by the wonderful illustrations of Sir John Tenniel, `Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’, and the later `Through the Looking Glass’ (1871) are some of the most successful works ever written, with an enthusiastic global following. It is no wonder therefore that claims are made trying to associate Dodgson with particular places supplying inspiration for his unique works. One such is from a real visit that he did make to the enigmatic shell grotto in Margate, where he went on 28th September 1870. He described this place, discovered only a few decades earlier, as `a marvellous subterranean chamber, lined with elaborate shell-work’.
He stayed in Margate for about five weeks with three of his sisters, either side of his grotto visit. In his diary, on October 20th of that year, he wrote that `I made many pleasant acquaintances … chiefly on account of being attracted by their children: very few turned out to be above the commercial class – the one drawback of Margate society… The vacation has produced nothing in the way of work, however, the entire idleness … has … been of the greatest possible service to me.’ (Quoted in Morton N Cohen, `Lewis Carroll: A Biography’, Pan Macmillan, London and New York, 1995). One of these young girls recalled later how she had met the, by then, relatively famous author:
`Our acquaintance began in a somewhat singular manner. We were playing on the Fort at Margate, and a gentleman on a seat near asked us if we could make a paper boat, with a seat at each end, and a basket in the middle for fish! We were, of course, enchanted with the idea, and our new friend—after achieving the feat—gave us his card, which we at once carried to our mother. He asked if he might call where we were staying, and then presented my elder sister with a copy of “Alice in Wonderland,” inscribed “From the Author.” He kindly organised many little excursions for us—chiefly in the pursuit of knowledge. One memorable visit to a light house is still fresh in our memories.’ (From `The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll’, Stuart Dodgson Collingwood, Century Publishing, New York, 1894, https://www.ajhw.co.uk/books/book187/book187.html)
Margate clearly left an impression on him. In a letter of 1879 to the young girl, Kathleen Eschwege, he wrote:
`Well, so I hope I may now count you as one of my child-friends. I am fond of children (except boys), and have more child-friends than I could possibly count on my fingers, even if I were a centipede (by the way, have they fingers? I’m afraid they’re only feet, but, of course, they use them for the same purpose, and that is why no other insects, except centipedes, ever succeed in doing Long Multiplication), and I have several not so very far from you—one at Beckenham, two at Balham, two at Herne Hill, one at Peckham—so there is every chance of my being somewhere near you before the year 1979. If so, may I call? I am very sorry your neck is no better, and I wish they would take you to Margate: Margate air will make any body well of any thing.’ (Ibid)
Despite the temptation to see some inspiration between the wonderful grotto with its subterranean walls covered by millions of shells, and the claims that it dates back to deep antiquity and the arrival of Phoenician travellers to the British islands, unfortunately his visit was five years after the first Alice book was produced. Even so, it is a satisfying thought to think of the Reverend Dodgson pondering, underground no less, the reasons for why such a strange remnant should be located near the sea front of the Kentish coastal town.