Lewis Carroll was born Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, the oldest of his ten siblings, in 1832 in Daresbury, England. As a young man, he had a sharp and questioning mind and was fascinated by the mechanics of things. Some of his typical childhood projects included building his own miniature train complete with railway stations, performing magic tricks, and writing plays performed by marionettes that he made and manipulated. In 1850, Carroll entered Oxford College, where he studied mathematics and became a teacher. He also became a clergyman. Carroll is perhaps best known for writing Alice in Wonderland, which began as a story told one day to three young girls during a boat ride on the Thames River on July 3, 1862. Carroll went on to publish many books, but that wasn't the only writing he did. From the time he was 28, Carroll kept a record of all the letters he wrote. When he died at the age of 66, the record listed 98,721 letters!