Algebra in Wonderland

Since I was an mathematics undergraduate at Christ Church, Oxford, from 1975-78, Charles Dodgson has inevitably had a certain fascination, albeit one I haven't pursued. This New York Times article tells me things I probably ought to have known already. Charles Dodgson seems to have been rather the curmudgeon, but it's not clear from this article whether he had a spark as a mathematics tutor or whether he escaped from his students as much as he could. Teaching a thousand 19th Century mathematics undergraduates brilliantly would probably not make a hundredth of the cultural impact that Alice in Wonderland has made, however.