Berol, Alfred C., (collector)

Alfred C. Berol (1892-1974), who assembled this substantial collection of Lewis Carrol letters, manuscripts and ephemera, was the president of the Eagle Pencil Company (later renamed Berol Corp.) of Danbury, Connecticut. Though an avid collector of a wide array of rare books and manuscripts, Berol was a particularly ardent collector of Lewis Carroll materials .

Lewis Carroll, the pseudonym used by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, was born in Daresbury, Cheshire, England in 1832. He was a writer, teacher, photography enthusiast, mathematician and Oxford don. While Lecturer in Mathematics at Oxford, Dodgson met Alice Liddell who was the daughter of the Dean of Christ Church College. Alice Liddell became the inspiration for Dodgson's abiding classic of children's literature: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.