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Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832–1898), better known as Lewis Carroll, was an English author, poet, mathematician, illustrator, photographer, inventor and insomniac. Most famous for writing Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass (1871), he was also noted for his love of puzzles and wordplay – the entertainments that feature in Lewis Carroll’s Guide for Insomniacs. In 1856 Dodgson published his first work under the name that would make him famous when a romantic poem called ‘Solitude’ appeared in The Train under the authorship of ‘Lewis Carroll’. The pen name was a play on his real name and translated into Latin as ‘Carolus Ludovicus’ and then translated back into English as ‘Carroll Lewis’ and reversed to make ‘Lewis Carroll’. Dodgson’s editor chose the name from a list of four submitted by Dodgson, the others being Edgar U. C. Westhill, Louis Carroll and Edgar Cuthwellis. Phiz was the pen name of one of the greatest Victorian illustrators, Hablot Knight Browne (1815–1882), best known for illustrating the works of Charles Dickens. Phuz is the pen name of one of his alleged descendants, the noted contemporary artist, illustrator and maze-maker, David Farris. Gyles Brandreth is a writer, broadcaster, performer, former MP and Lord Commissioner of the Treasury, now Chancellor of the University of Chester, who has been a devotee of Lewis Carroll since he saw a production of Through the Looking-Glass when he was seven. In the 1970s he created a one-man Lewis Carroll stage show and TV series for the entertainer Cyril Fletcher. In the 1980s he devised the Alice in Wonderland board game for the makers of Scrabble. More recently, with Susannah Pearse, he created the musical Wonderland about Charles Dodgson and his friendship with the actress Isa Bowman. In 2023, with descendants of the Dodgson family and the great-grandchildren of Alice Liddell (the original Alice), he unveiled a plaque at Folly Bridge in Oxford, on the bank of the river Isis, commemorating the boat trip that took place on ‘the golden afternoon’ of 4 July 1862 when the story of Alice’s adventures was told for the first time.

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