Writing a biography has made me think about the whole process of biography writing. It feels strange to be setting myself up as an authority on someone else! I'd never do it even about a member of my own family. It's even harder when the subject is dead, and nobody is alive who can say if I'm right or wrong.

The more I pore over the documents, the more I recognise how Carroll approached life himself. He was very good at showing people just enough to enable them to jump to their own conclusions. He didn't put them right if they were wrong, but he never seems to have actually told lies. He was also very clever and very secretive. Knowing a bit about how his mind worked enables me to form hypotheses about hitherto mysterious events in his life, and I can then check them against facts that do exist.

I've written another little piece about him on Suite101 - this time about his games, riddles and puzzles.