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= Alice's_Adventures_in_Wonderland =
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Introduction
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'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' (also known as 'Alice in
Wonderland') is an 1865 English children's novel by Lewis Carroll, a
mathematics don at the University of Oxford. It details the story of a
girl named Alice who falls through a rabbit hole into a fantasy world
of anthropomorphic creatures. It is seen as an example of the literary
nonsense genre. The artist John Tenniel provided 42 wood-engraved
illustrations for the book.
The novel received positive reviews upon release and is now one of the
best-known works of Victorian literature; its narrative, structure,
characters and imagery have had a wide influence on popular culture
and literature, especially in the fantasy genre. It is credited as
helping end an era of didacticism in children's literature,
inaugurating an era in which writing for children aimed to "delight or
entertain". The tale plays with logic, giving the story lasting
popularity with adults as well as with children. The titular character
Alice shares her name with Alice Liddell, a girl Carroll knew;
scholars disagree about the extent to which the character was based
upon her.
The novel has never been out of print and has been translated into 174
languages. Its legacy includes adaptations to screen, radio, visual
art, ballet, opera, and musical theatre, as well as theme parks, board
games and video games. Carroll published a sequel in 1871 entitled
'Through the Looking-Glass' and a shortened version for young
children, 'The Nursery "Alice"', in 1890.
"All in the golden afternoon..."
==================================
'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' was conceived on 4 July 1862, when
Lewis Carroll and the Reverend Robinson Duckworth rowed up the river
Isis with the three young daughters of Carroll's friend Henry Liddell:
Lorina Charlotte (aged 13; "Prima" in the book's prefatory verse);
Alice Pleasance (aged 10; "Secunda" in the verse); and Edith Mary
(aged 8; "Tertia" in the verse).
The journey began at Folly Bridge, Oxford, and ended 5 mi upstream at
Godstow, Oxfordshire. During the trip, Carroll told the girls a story
that he described in his diary as "Alice's Adventures Under Ground",
which his journal says he "undertook to write out for Alice". Alice
Liddell recalled that she asked Carroll to write it down: unlike other
stories he had told her, this one she wanted to preserve. She finally
received the manuscript more than two years later.
4 July was known as the "golden afternoon", prefaced in the novel as a
poem. In fact, the weather around Oxford on 4 July was "cool and
rather wet", although at least one scholar has disputed this claim.
Scholars debate whether Carroll in fact came up with 'Alice' during
the "golden afternoon" or whether the story was developed over a
longer period.
Carroll had known the Liddell children since around March 1856, when
he befriended Harry Liddell. He had met Lorina by early March as well.
In June 1856, he took the children out on the river. Robert
Douglas-Fairhurst, who wrote a literary biography of Carroll, suggests
that Carroll favoured Alice Pleasance Liddell in particular because
her name was ripe for allusion. "Pleasance" means pleasure and the
name "Alice" appeared in contemporary works, including the poem "Alice
Gray" by William Mee, of which Carroll wrote a parody; Alice is a
character in "Dream-Children: A Reverie", a prose piece by Charles
Lamb. Carroll, an amateur photographer by the late 1850s, produced
many photographic portraits of the Liddell children - and especially
of Alice, of which 20 survive.
Manuscript: ''Alice's Adventures Under Ground''
=================================================
Carroll began writing the manuscript of the story the next day,
although that earliest version is lost. The girls and Carroll took
another boat trip a month later, when he elaborated the plot of the
story to Alice, and in November, he began working on the manuscript in
earnest. To add the finishing touches, he researched natural history
in connection with the animals presented in the book and then had the
book examined by other children--particularly those of George
MacDonald. Though Carroll did add his own illustrations to the
original copy, on publication he was advised to find a professional
illustrator so that the pictures were more appealing to his audience.
He subsequently approached 'Punch' cartoonist John Tenniel to
reinterpret his visions through his own artistic eye, telling him that
the story had been well-liked by the children.
Carroll began planning a print edition of the 'Alice' story in 1863.
He wrote on 9 May 1863 that MacDonald's family had suggested he
publish 'Alice'. A diary entry for 2 July says that he received a
specimen page of the print edition around that date. On 26 November
1864, Carroll gave Alice the manuscript of 'Alice's Adventures Under
Ground', with illustrations by Carroll, dedicating it as "A Christmas
Gift to a Dear Child in Memory of a Summer's Day". The published
version of 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' is about twice the
length of 'Alice's Adventures Under Ground' and includes episodes,
such as the Mad Hatter's Tea-Party (or Mad Tea Party), that do not
appear in the manuscript. The only known manuscript copy of 'Under
Ground' is held in the British Library. Macmillan published a
facsimile of the manuscript in 1886.
Plot
======================================================================
Alice, a young girl, sits bored by a riverbank and spots a White
Rabbit with a pocket watch and waistcoat lamenting that he is late.
Surprised, Alice follows him down a rabbit hole, which sends her into
a lengthy plummet but to a safe landing. Inside a room with a table,
she finds a key to a tiny door, beyond which is a garden. While
pondering how to fit through the door, she discovers a bottle labelled
"Drink me". Alice drinks some of the bottle's contents, and to her
astonishment, she shrinks small enough to enter the door. However, she
had left the key upon the table and cannot reach it. Alice then
discovers and eats a cake labelled "Eat me", which causes her to grow
to a tremendous size. Unhappy, Alice bursts into tears, and the
passing White Rabbit flees in a panic, dropping a fan and two gloves.
Alice uses the fan for herself, which causes her to shrink once more
and leaves her swimming in a pool of her own tears. Within the pool,
Alice meets various animals and birds, who convene on a bank and
engage in a "Caucus Race" to dry themselves. Following the end of the
race, Alice inadvertently frightens the animals away by discussing her
cat.
The White Rabbit appears looking for the gloves and fan. Mistaking
Alice for his maidservant, he orders her to go to his house and
retrieve them. Alice finds another bottle and drinks from it, which
causes her to grow to such an extent that she gets stuck in the house.
Attempting to extract her, the White Rabbit and his neighbours
eventually take to hurling pebbles that turn into small cakes. Alice
eats one and shrinks herself, allowing her to flee into the forest.
She meets a Caterpillar seated on a mushroom and smoking a hookah.
During the Caterpillar's questioning, Alice begins to admit to her
current identity crisis, compounded by her inability to remember a
poem. Before crawling away, the Caterpillar says that a bite of one
side of the mushroom will make her larger, while a bite from the other
side will make her smaller. During a period of trial and error,
Alice's neck extends between the treetops, frightening a pigeon who
mistakes her for a serpent. After shrinking to an appropriate height,
Alice arrives at the home of a Duchess, who owns a perpetually
grinning Cheshire Cat. The Duchess's baby, whom she hands to Alice,
transforms into a piglet, which Alice releases into the woods. The
Cheshire Cat appears to Alice and directs her toward the Hatter and
March Hare before disappearing, leaving his grin behind. Alice finds
the Hatter, March Hare, and a sleepy Dormouse in the midst of a tea
party. The Hatter explains that it is always 6 p.m. (tea time),
claiming that time is standing still as punishment for the Hatter
trying to "kill it". A conversation ensues around the table, and the
riddle "Why is a raven like a writing desk?" is brought up. Alice
impatiently decides to leave, calling the party stupid.
Noticing a door on a tree, Alice passes through and finds herself back
in the room from the beginning of her journey. She takes the key and
uses it to open the door to the garden, which turns out to be the
croquet court of the Queen of Hearts, whose guard consists of living
playing cards. Alice participates in a croquet game, in which
hedgehogs are used as balls, flamingos are used as mallets, and
soldiers act as hoops. The Queen is short-tempered and constantly
orders beheadings. When the Cheshire Cat appears as only a head, the
Queen orders his beheading, only to be told that such an act is
impossible. Because the cat belongs to the Duchess, Alice prompts the
Queen to release the Duchess from prison to resolve the matter. When
the Duchess ruminates on finding morals in everything around her, the
Queen dismisses her on the threat of execution.
Alice then meets a Gryphon and a Mock Turtle, who dance to the Lobster
Quadrille while Alice recites (rather incorrectly) a poem. The Mock
Turtle sings them "Beautiful Soup", during which the Gryphon drags
Alice away for a trial, in which the Knave of Hearts stands accused of
stealing the Queen's tarts. The trial is conducted by the King of
Hearts, and the jury is composed of animals that Alice previously met.
Alice gradually grows in size and confidence, allowing herself
increasingly frequent remarks on the irrationality of the proceedings.
The Queen eventually commands Alice's beheading, but Alice scoffs that
the Queen's guard is only a pack of cards. Although Alice holds her
own for a time, the guards soon gang up and start to swarm all over
her. Alice's sister wakes her up from a dream, brushing what turns out
to be leaves from Alice's face. Alice leaves her sister on the bank to
imagine all the curious happenings for herself.
Characters
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The main characters in 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' are the
following:
Character allusions
=====================
In 'The Annotated Alice', Martin Gardner provides background
information for the characters. The members of the boating party that
first heard Carroll's tale show up in chapter 3 ("A Caucus-Race and a
Long Tale"). Alice Liddell is there, while Carroll is caricatured as
the Dodo (Lewis Carroll was a pen name for Charles Lutwidge Dodgson;
because he stuttered when he spoke, he sometimes pronounced his last
name as "Dodo-Dodgson"). The Duck refers to Robinson Duckworth, and
the Lory and Eaglet to Alice Liddell's sisters Lorina and Edith.
Bill the Lizard may be a play on the name of British Prime Minister
Benjamin Disraeli. One of Tenniel's illustrations in 'Through the
Looking-Glass'--the 1871 sequel to 'Alice'--depicts the character
referred to as the "Man in White Paper" (whom Alice meets on a train)
as a caricature of Disraeli, wearing a paper hat. The illustrations of
the Lion and the Unicorn (also in 'Looking-Glass') look like Tenniel's
'Punch' illustrations of William Ewart Gladstone and Disraeli,
although Gardner says there is "no proof" that they were intended to
represent these politicians.
Gardner has suggested that the Hatter is a reference to Theophilus
Carter, an Oxford furniture dealer, and that Tenniel apparently drew
the Hatter to resemble Carter, on a suggestion of Carroll's. The
Dormouse tells a story about three little sisters named Elsie, Lacie,
and Tillie. These are the Liddell sisters: Elsie is L.C. (Lorina
Charlotte); Tillie is Edith (her family nickname is Matilda); and
Lacie is an anagram of Alice.
The Mock Turtle speaks of a drawling-master, "an old conger eel", who
came once a week to teach "Drawling, Stretching, and Fainting in
Coils". This is a reference to the art critic John Ruskin, who came
once a week to the Liddell house to teach the children to draw,
sketch, and paint in oils. The Mock Turtle sings "Turtle Soup", which
is a parody of a song called "Star of the Evening, Beautiful Star",
which the Liddells sang for Carroll.
Poems and songs
======================================================================
Carroll wrote multiple poems and songs for 'Alice's Adventures in
Wonderland', including:
*"All in the golden afternoon..."--the prefatory verse to the book, an
original poem by Carroll that recalls the rowing expedition on which
he first told the story of Alice's adventures underground
*"How Doth the Little Crocodile"--a parody of Isaac Watts's nursery
rhyme, "Against Idleness and Mischief"
*"The Mouse's Tale"--an example of concrete poetry
*"You Are Old, Father William"--a parody of Robert Southey's "The Old
Man's Comforts and How He Gained Them"
*The Duchess's lullaby, "Speak roughly to your little boy..."--a
parody of David Bates' "Speak Gently"
*"Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Bat"--a parody of Jane Taylor's "Twinkle
Twinkle Little Star"
*"The Lobster Quadrille"--a parody of Mary Botham Howitt's "The Spider
and the Fly"
*"'Tis the Voice of the Lobster"--a parody of Isaac Watts's "The
Sluggard"
*"Beautiful Soup"--a parody of James M. Sayles's "Star of the Evening,
Beautiful Star"
*"The Queen of Hearts"--an actual nursery rhyme
*"They told me you had been to her..."--White Rabbit's evidence
Symbolism
===========
Carroll's biographer Morton N. Cohen reads 'Alice' as a 'roman à clef'
populated with real figures from Carroll's life. Alice is based on
Alice Liddell; the Dodo is Carroll; Wonderland is Oxford; even the Mad
Hatter's Tea Party, according to Cohen, is a send-up of Alice's own
birthday party. The critic Jan Susina rejects Cohen's account, arguing
that Alice the character bears a tenuous relationship with Alice
Liddell.
Beyond its refashioning of Carroll's everyday life, Cohen argues,
'Alice' critiques Victorian ideals of childhood. It is an account of
"the child's plight in Victorian upper-class society", in which
Alice's mistreatment by the creatures of Wonderland reflects Carroll's
own mistreatment by older people as a child.
In the eighth chapter, three cards are painting the roses on a rose
tree red, because they had accidentally planted a white-rose tree that
the Queen of Hearts hates. According to Wilfrid Scott-Giles, the rose
motif in 'Alice' alludes to the English Wars of the Roses: red roses
symbolised the House of Lancaster, and white roses the rival House of
York.
Language
==========
'Alice' is full of linguistic play, puns, and parodies. According to
Gillian Beer, Carroll's play with language evokes the feeling of words
for new readers: they "still have insecure edges and a nimbus of
nonsense blurs the sharp focus of terms". The literary scholar Jessica
Straley, in a work about the role of evolutionary theory in Victorian
children's literature, argues that Carroll's focus on language
prioritises humanism over scientism by emphasising language's role in
human self-conception.
Pat's "Digging for apples" is a cross-language pun, as 'pomme de
terre' (literally; "apple of the earth") means potato and 'pomme'
means apple. In the second chapter, Alice initially addresses the
mouse as "O Mouse", based on her memory of the noun declensions "in
her brother's Latin Grammar, 'A mouse - of a mouse - to a mouse - a
mouse - O mouse! These words correspond to the first five of Latin's
six cases, in a traditional order established by medieval grammarians:
'mus' (nominative), 'muris' (genitive), 'muri' (dative), 'murem'
(accusative), '(O) mus' (vocative). The sixth case, 'mure' (ablative)
is absent from Alice's recitation. Nilson suggests that Alice's
missing ablative is a pun on her father Henry Liddell's work on the
standard 'A Greek-English Lexicon', since ancient Greek does not have
an ablative case. Further, mousa (μούσα, meaning muse) was a standard
model noun in Greek textbooks of the time in paradigms of the first
declension, short-alpha noun.
Mathematics
=============
Mathematics and logic are central to 'Alice'. As Carroll was a
mathematician at Christ Church, it has been suggested that there are
many references and mathematical concepts in both this story and
'Through the Looking-Glass'. Literary scholar Melanie Bayley asserts
in the 'New Scientist' magazine that Carroll wrote 'Alice in
Wonderland' in its final form as a satire on mid-19th century
mathematics.
Eating and devouring
======================
Carina Garland notes how the world is "expressed via representations
of food and appetite", naming Alice's frequent desire for consumption
(of both food and words), her 'Curious Appetites'. Often, the idea of
eating coincides to make gruesome images. After the riddle "Why is a
raven like a writing-desk?", the Hatter claims that Alice might as
well say, "I see what I eat…I eat what I see" and so the riddle's
solution, put forward by Boe Birns, could be that "A raven eats worms;
a writing desk is worm-eaten"; this idea of food encapsulates idea of
life feeding on life itself, for the worm is being eaten and then
becomes the eater--a horrific image of mortality.
Nina Auerbach discusses how the novel revolves around eating and
drinking which "motivates much of her [Alice's] behaviour", for the
story is essentially about things "entering and leaving her mouth."
The animals of Wonderland are of particular interest, for Alice's
relation to them shifts constantly because, as Lovell-Smith states,
Alice's changes in size continually reposition her in the food chain,
serving as a way to make her acutely aware of the 'eat or be eaten'
attitude that permeates Wonderland.
Nonsense
==========
'Alice' is an example of the literary nonsense genre. According to
Humphrey Carpenter, 'Alice' brand of nonsense embraces the nihilistic
and existential. Characters in nonsensical episodes such as the Mad
Hatter's Tea Party, in which it is always the same time, go on posing
paradoxes that are never resolved.
Rules and games
=================
Wonderland is a rule-bound world, but its rules are not those of our
world. The literary scholar Daniel Bivona writes that 'Alice' is
characterised by "gamelike social structures." She trusts in
instructions from the beginning, drinking from the bottle labelled
"drink me" after recalling, during her descent, that children who do
not follow the rules often meet terrible fates. Unlike the creatures
of Wonderland, who approach their world's wonders uncritically, Alice
continues to look for rules as the story progresses. Gillian Beer
suggests that Alice looks for rules to soothe her anxiety, while
Carroll may have hunted for rules because he struggled with the
implications of the non-Euclidean geometry then in development.
Illustrations
======================================================================
The manuscript was illustrated by Carroll, who added 37
illustrations--printed in a facsimile edition in 1887. John Tenniel
provided 42 wood-engraved illustrations for the 1865 published version
of the book. The first print run was destroyed (or sold in the US) at
Carroll's request because Tenniel was dissatisfied with the printing
quality. There are only 22 known first edition copies in existence.
The book was reprinted and published in 1866. Tenniel's detailed
black-and-white drawings remain the definitive depiction of the
characters.
Tenniel's illustrations of Alice do not portray the real Alice
Liddell, who had dark hair and a short fringe. In 1911, Harry Theaker,
with Tenniel's approval, was commissioned by Macmillan to colour
sixteen of Tenniel’s plates for an 'Alice' edition and her dress was
blue - and has remained so in the popular mind ever since. 'Alice' has
provided a challenge for other illustrators, including those of 1907
by Charles Pears and the full series of colour plates and
line-drawings by Harry Rountree published in the (inter-War)
Children's Press (Glasgow) edition. Other significant illustrators
include: Arthur Rackham (1907), Willy Pogany (1929), Mervyn Peake
(1946), Ralph Steadman (1967), Salvador Dalí (1969), Graham Overden
(1969), Max Ernst (1970), Peter Blake (1970), Tove Jansson (1977),
Anthony Browne (1988), Helen Oxenbury (1999), and Lisbeth Zwerger
(1999). To mark the 200th anniversary of Tenniel's birth, in 2020
Chris Riddell provided illustrations for a new edition of the novel.
Publication history
======================================================================
Carroll first met Alexander Macmillan, a high-powered London
publisher, on 19 October 1863. His firm, Macmillan Publishers, agreed
to publish 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' by sometime in 1864.
Carroll financed the initial print run, possibly because it gave him
more editorial authority than other financing methods. He managed
publication details such as typesetting and engaged illustrators and
translators.
Macmillan had published 'The Water-Babies', also a children's fantasy,
in 1863, and suggested its design as a basis for 'Alice'. Carroll saw
a specimen copy in May 1865. 2,000 copies were printed by July, but
Tenniel objected to their quality, and Carroll instructed Macmillan to
halt publication so they could be reprinted. In August, he engaged
Richard Clay as an alternative printer for a new run of 2,000. The
reprint cost £600, paid entirely by Carroll. He received the first
copy of Clay's edition on 9 November 1865.
Macmillan finally published the new edition, printed by Richard Clay,
in November 1865. Carroll requested a red binding, deeming it
appealing to young readers. A new edition, released in December 1865
for the Christmas market but carrying an 1866 date, was quickly
printed. The text blocks of the original edition were removed from the
binding and sold with Carroll's permission to the New York publishing
house of D. Appleton & Company. The binding for the Appleton
'Alice' was identical to the 1866 Macmillan 'Alice', except for the
publisher's name at the foot of the spine. The title page of the
Appleton 'Alice' was an insert cancelling the original Macmillan title
page of 1865 and bearing the New York publisher's imprint and the date
1866.
The entire print run sold out quickly. 'Alice' was a publishing
sensation, beloved by children and adults alike. Oscar Wilde was a
fan; Queen Victoria was also an avid reader of the book. She
reportedly enjoyed 'Alice' enough that she asked for Carroll's next
book, which turned out to be a mathematical treatise; Carroll denied
this. The book has never been out of print. 'Alice's Adventures in
Wonderland' has been translated into 174 languages.
Publication timeline
======================
The following list is a timeline of major publication events related
to 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland':
*1869: Published in German as 'Alice's Abenteuer im Wunderland',
translated by Antonie Zimmermann.
*1869: Published in French as 'Aventures d'Alice au pays des
merveilles', translated by Henri Bué.
*1870: Published in Swedish as 'Alice's Äventyr i Sagolandet',
translated by Emily Nonnen.
*1871: Carroll meets another Alice, Alice Raikes, during his time in
London. He talks with her about her reflection in a mirror, leading to
the sequel, 'Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There',
which sells even better.
*1872: Published in Italian as 'Le Avventure di Alice nel Paese delle
Meraviglie', translated by Teodorico Pietrocòla Rossetti.
*1886: Carroll publishes a facsimile of the earlier 'Alice's
Adventures Under Ground' manuscript.
*1890: Carroll publishes 'The Nursery "Alice"', an abridged version,
around Easter.
*1905: Mrs J. C. Gorham publishes 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Retold in Words of One Syllable' in a series of such books published
by A. L. Burt Company, aimed at young readers.
*1906: Published in Finnish as 'Liisan seikkailut ihmemaailmassa',
translated by Anni Swan.
*1907: Copyright on 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' expires in the
UK, entering the tale into the public domain, 42 years after its
publication, some nine years after Carroll's death in January 1898.
*1910: Published in Esperanto as 'La Aventuroj de Alicio en Mirlando,'
translated by E. L. Kearney.
*1915: Alice Gerstenberg's stage adaptation premieres.
*1928: The manuscript of 'Alice's Adventures Under Ground' written and
illustrated by Carroll, which he had given to Alice Liddell, was sold
at Sotheby's in London on 3 April. It was sold to Philip Rosenbach of
Philadelphia for , a world record for the sale of a manuscript at the
time; the buyer later presented it to the British Library (where the
manuscript remains) as an appreciation for Britain's part in two World
Wars.
*1960: American writer Martin Gardner publishes a special edition,
'The Annotated Alice'.
*1988: Lewis Carroll and Anthony Browne, illustrator of an edition
from Julia MacRae Books, win the Kurt Maschler Award.
*1998: Carroll's own copy of Alice, one of only six surviving copies
of the 1865 first edition, is sold at an auction for US$1.54 million
to an anonymous American buyer, becoming the most expensive children's
book (or 19th-century work of literature) ever sold to that point.
*1999: Lewis Carroll and Helen Oxenbury, illustrators of an edition
from Walker Books, win the Kurt Maschler Award for integrated writing
and illustration.
*2008: Folio publishes 'Alice's Adventures Under Ground' facsimile
edition (limited to 3,750 copies, boxed with 'The Original Alice'
pamphlet).
*2009: Children's book collector and former American football player
Pat McInally reportedly sold Alice Liddell's own copy at auction for
US$115,000.
Reception
======================================================================
'Alice' was published to critical praise. One magazine declared it
"exquisitely wild, fantastic, [and] impossible". In the late 19th
century, Walter Besant wrote that 'Alice in Wonderland' "was a book of
that extremely rare kind which will belong to all the generations to
come until the language becomes obsolete".
F. J. Harvey Darton argued in a 1932 book that 'Alice' ended an era of
didacticism in children's literature, inaugurating a new era in which
writing for children aimed to "delight or entertain". In 2014, Robert
McCrum named 'Alice' "one of the best loved in the English canon" and
called it "perhaps the greatest, possibly most influential, and
certainly the most world-famous Victorian English fiction". A 2020
review in 'Time' states: "The book changed young people's literature.
It helped to replace stiff Victorian didacticism with a looser,
sillier, nonsense style that reverberated through the works of
language-loving 20th-century authors as different as James Joyce,
Douglas Adams and Dr. Seuss." Joe Sommerlad in 'The Independent'
writes that Roald Dahl "owes a debt to the "Drink Me" episode in
'Alice'" in regard to Dahl's 'George's Marvellous Medicine' where the
grandmother drinks a potion and is blown up to the size of a
farmhouse. The protagonist of the story, Alice, has been recognised as
a cultural icon. In 2006, 'Alice in Wonderland' was named among the
icons of England in a public vote.
Adaptations and influence
======================================================================
Books for children in the 'Alice' mould emerged as early as 1869 and
continued to appear throughout the late 19th century. Released in
1903, the British silent film 'Alice in Wonderland' was the first
screen adaptation of the book.
In 2015, Robert Douglas-Fairhurst wrote in the 'Guardian',
{{blockquote|Since the first publication of 'Alice's Adventures in
Wonderland' 150 years ago, Lewis Carroll's work has spawned a whole
industry, from films and theme park rides to products such as a "cute
and sassy" Alice costume ("petticoat and stockings not included"). The
blank-faced little girl made famous by John Tenniel's original
illustrations has become a cultural inkblot we can interpret in any
way we like.}}
Labelled "a dauntless, no-nonsense heroine" by the 'Guardian', the
character of the plucky, yet proper, Alice has proven immensely
popular and inspired similar heroines in literature and pop culture,
many also named Alice in homage. The book has inspired numerous film
and television adaptations, which have multiplied, as the original
work is now in the public domain in all jurisdictions. Musical works
inspired by 'Alice' include the Beatles's song "Lucy in the Sky with
Diamonds", with songwriter John Lennon attributing the song's
fantastical imagery to his reading of Carroll's books. Argentine
prog-rock band Seru Giran used 'Alice' as a metaphor to represent the
political climate in Argentina during the 1970s in their song "Canción
de Alicia en el país". A popular figure in Japan since the country
opened up to the West in the late 19th century, Alice has been a
popular subject for writers of manga and a source of inspiration for
Japanese fashion, in particular Lolita fashion.
Live performance
==================
The first full major production was 'Alice in Wonderland', a musical
play in London's West End by Henry Savile Clarke and Walter Slaughter,
which premiered at the Prince of Wales Theatre in 1886.
Twelve-year-old actress Phoebe Carlo (the first to play Alice) was
personally selected by Carroll for the role. Carroll attended a
performance on 30 December 1886, writing in his diary that he enjoyed
it. The musical was frequently revived during West End Christmas
seasons during the four decades after its premiere, including a London
production at the Globe Theatre in 1888, with Isa Bowman as Alice.
As the book and its sequel are Carroll's most widely recognised works,
they have also inspired numerous live performances, including plays,
operas, ballets, and traditional English pantomimes. These works range
from fairly faithful adaptations to those that use the story as a
basis for new works. Eva Le Gallienne's stage adaptation of the
'Alice' books premiered on 12 December 1932 and ended its run in May
1933. The production was revived in New York in 1947 and 1982. A
community theatre production of 'Alice' was Olivia de Havilland's
first foray onto the stage.
A dramatisation by Herbert M. Prentice premiered at the Shakespeare
Memorial Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon in 1947, and was in turn adapted
for television by John Glyn-Jones and shown by the BBC on Christmas
Day 1948. The BBC screened another adaptation of Prentice's play in
1956. Joseph Papp staged 'Alice in Concert' at the Public Theater in
New York City in 1980. Elizabeth Swados wrote the book, lyrics, and
music based on both 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' and 'Through
the Looking-Glass'. Papp and Swados had previously produced a version
of it at the New York Shakespeare Festival. Meryl Streep played Alice,
the White Queen, and Humpty Dumpty. The cast also included Debbie
Allen, Michael Jeter, and Mark Linn-Baker. Performed on a bare stage
with the actors in modern dress, the play is a loose adaptation, with
song styles ranging the globe.
The 1992 musical theatre production 'Alice' used both books as its
inspiration. It also employs scenes with Carroll, a young Alice
Liddell, and an adult Alice Liddell, to frame the story. Paul Schmidt
wrote the play, with Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan writing the music.
Although the original production in Hamburg, Germany, received only a
small audience, Tom Waits released the songs as the album 'Alice' in
2002.
Joseph Horovitz composed an 'Alice in Wonderland' ballet commissioned
by the London Festival Ballet in 1953. It was performed frequently in
England and the US. A ballet by Christopher Wheeldon and Nicholas
Wright commissioned for the Royal Ballet entitled 'Alice's Adventures
in Wonderland' premiered in February 2011 at the Royal Opera House in
London. The ballet was based on the novel Wheeldon grew up reading as
a child and is generally faithful to the original story, although some
critics claimed it may have been too faithful.
Unsuk Chin's opera 'Alice in Wonderland' premiered in 2007 at the
Bavarian State Opera and was hailed as World Premiere of the Year by
the German opera magazine 'Opernwelt'. Gerald Barry's 2016 one-act
opera, 'Alice's Adventures Under Ground', first staged in 2020 at the
Royal Opera House, is a conflation of the two 'Alice' books. In 2022,
the Opéra national du Rhin performed the ballet 'Alice', with a score
by Philip Glass, in Mulhouse, France.
Commemoration
======================================================================
Following the establishment of a memorial fund in 1932 to celebrate
the centenary of Carroll's birth, characters from the book were
depicted in the stained glass windows of his hometown church, All
Saints', in Daresbury, Cheshire, which was dedicated in 1935. Another
commemoration of Carroll's work in his home county of Cheshire is the
granite sculpture 'The Mad Hatter's Tea Party', located in Warrington.
International works based on the book include the Alice in Wonderland
statue in Central Park, New York, and the Alice statue in Rymill Park,
Adelaide, Australia.
In 2015, 'Alice' characters were featured on a series of UK postage
stamps issued by the Royal Mail to mark the 150th anniversary of the
publication of the book. In 2021, the Royal Mint issued their first
'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' commemorative coin collection,
including a £5 coin featuring Alice and the Cheshire Cat (inspired by
Tenniel's original illustration).
See also
======================================================================
*Down the rabbit hole
*Translations of 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'
*Translations of 'Through the Looking-Glass'
Text
======
* [
https://purl.dlib.indiana.edu/iudl/general/VAB8615 'Alice's
Adventures in Wonderland' (1865, first issue, first edition, bound in
original red cloth)] with forty-two illustrations by John Tennielfull
colour scan from Indiana University Digital Library
*
[
https://digitallibrary.usc.edu/asset-management/2A3BF1QS3B3B3?WS=SearchResults
'Alice's Adventures Under Ground' (1865), Carroll's manuscript later
reworked into 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' (1866)] (with
forty-two illustrations by John Tenniel)full colour scan from
University of Southern California Digital Library
*
*
*
*
Archival materials
====================
*
[
https://digitallibrary.usc.edu/asset-management/2A3BF1ZQ68?Flat=y&WS=SearchResults#/DamView&VBID=2A3BXZA93RZBS&PN=1&WS=SearchResults
Cassady Lewis Carroll Collection] from University of Southern
California Digital Library
:*
[
https://digitallibrary.usc.edu/asset-management/2A3BF1RX64YOV?WS=SearchResults
'To all child-readers of "Alice's adventures in Wonderland"'
(Christmas 1871)]
:*
[
https://digitallibrary.usc.edu/asset-management/2A3BF1O3U9KQU?Flat=y&WS=SearchResults
Alice in Wonderland: coloured lantern slides, 1910-1919]
::"3 square blue boxes, each with 8 glass lantern slides and leaflet
with abridged excerpt from 'Alice', 24 slides & 3 leaflets all"
License
=========
All content on Gopherpedia comes from Wikipedia, and is licensed under CC-BY-SA
License URL:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
Original Article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice's_Adventures_in_Wonderland
