BACKGROUND BEHIND
ALICE IN WONDERLAND
G'day folks,
Some books stand out from the rest, and Alice In Wonderland seems to be one of those. Here is some background about this book and its author. It's quite a long post, but very detailed, and you might find it interesting
Some books are products of
their time – and remain there. Popular for a short period, they fade away as
the years go by, only remembered by the occasional literary researcher. Other
books are more fortunate. They become what we call “timeless” – they seem to
exist outside of time, as if they had always been there and always would be.
For these books, the passage of time diminishes neither their visibility nor
their impact. They are books so culturally vital that not only do they never go
out of print, but they also grow in popularity through critical and academic
attention. They are the books that form or, in some cases, remake our culture.
Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
is one of these influential books. Not only is it one of the most beloved books
in the history of literature, but it is also one of the most fervently studied.
Just this year, Martin Gardner’s exhaustive The
Annotated Alice has been reissued and expanded, and a new study by
Victorian-era scholar Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, The Story of Alice: Lewis Carroll and the Secret History of
Wonderland, has added further weight to the Alice bookshelves.
These books testify to the continuing relevance of a book that is now a century
and a half old.
It
isn’t difficult to understand the perpetual appeal of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
Its unique combination of wild fantasy, subversive humor, and clever play with
logic and language make it an almost inexhaustible source of the best kind of
nonsensical fun. But, undeniable as the book’s entertainment value may be,
within and underneath the nonsense there is also a rich seam of ideas that
reward deeper exploration. The book continues to live because it’s both highly
entertaining and ripe with ideas, equally at home in a nursery as it is in a
university course.
Where did this book come from and why does it
exist? How did it get published and what was its effect, then and now? Today
Bio presents the biography of a book, one that has transformed the imaginative
lives of innumerable children, and through them, the world they have grown up
to inhabit.
Alice Meets the Professor
Like the character of Alice herself, Lewis Carroll was a fiction
based on a real person. His real name was Charles Lutwedge Dodgson, his pen
name having been chosen as a Latin play on his first and middle names
(“Charles” became “Carolus” became “Carroll”; “Lutwidge” became “Ludovicus”
became “Lewis”). Pen names were common enough in Victorian England, but they
were especially useful to men of certain position who wanted to moonlight at
other work. Dodgson was an Anglican cleric and math professor at Oxford
University whose serious publications included A Syllabus of Plane Algebraic Geometry and the snappily titled An Elementary Treatise on Determinants, with Their
Application to Simultaneous Linear Equations and Algebraic Equations. There was no place for white rabbits and mad hatters in books
like these.
His
“serious” work aside, Carroll’s taste for whimsy had long been in evidence. He
had been penning verse and prose for his own enjoyment since he was a child. A
great number of these literary efforts were comical in tone, often turning
traditional forms on their heads to make a joke or pull off a pun. It was a
hobby, much like his love of a new technology that also grabbed his interest:
photography. At the time, taking and developing a photograph was a laborious
process, but the discipline and precision required to create a print suited
Carroll’s personality perfectly.
At
Oxford, Carroll's interest in photography became well known, and other
professors and their families were often his subjects. One of these was the new
Dean of Oxford, Henry George Liddell, who became dean the same year that
Carroll received his permanent appointment as math lecturer, 1855. Carroll
became a frequent visitor to the Dean’s home and a family friend to the dean’s
wife and their four children. One of those children would come to play the key
role in Carroll’s life – her name, of course, was Alice, and she stood out from
her brother and two sisters by virtue of her humorous personality and active
imagination.
Carroll, a childless
bachelor, enjoyed the company of Alice and the other Liddell children, and he
often used them as subjects for his photographs. He would entertain them with
games and tell them stories. Like many Victorians, Carroll possessed a
sentimental view of children as heavenly innocents who were closer to the
divine than adults, but although his photographs often idealized them, his
stories were usually more down-to-earth. Often, they upended the standard
morality tales that were the largest share of a child’s literary diet in the
mid-19th century, turning them nonsensical. The Liddell children thoroughly
enjoyed visits from the ever-creative and ever-attentive Carroll, who was so
unlike their own stern and taciturn father.
Alice Goes Underground
On July
4, 1862, Carroll, a colleague, and the Liddell sisters took a boat excursion up
the Thames to go on a picnic – not an unusual occurrence. Carroll liked to go
boating and rowing, and he often did so with Harry, Alice’s brother, or with a
larger group of the siblings. As he did on land, Carroll liked to entertain his
young charges on such trips with stories that he would improvise as he went
along. On this day, however, he decided to try out a new story into which he’d
made 10-year-old Alice a central figure. It was about a girl (named Alice,
naturally) who goes down a rabbit hole and has many adventures underground, few
of which obey any logical aboveground rules. Carroll spent much of the trip
spinning his yarn, all the way up the river and even at the picnic spot once
they arrived. By all accounts, the story delighted its audience with its
outrageous developments and ever more surreal episodes.
Carroll’s improvisations on
this day must have been particularly inventive; the next day, still buzzing
about the story, Alice Liddell urged him to commit it to paper for her. Carroll
wasn’t sure he could recreate his spontaneous story, but since Alice was so
insistent that he try, he began to write down what he could remember. Putting
it in writing naturally reshaped the tale, but it still retained its
shaggy-dog, improvisatory character.
Getting it down didn’t come easy, however;
it took Carroll months to produce even a preliminary version. The story also
kept taking new forms and moving in new directions as the Liddell children
would ask him to continue the tale on his frequent visits to their home.
These
visits became abruptly less frequent after a visit in June of 1863. The reason
is unclear; Carroll’s personal diaries are missing pages, possibly removed by
relatives after his death, and the Liddell family remained mum on the topic
throughout their lives. Some researchers speculate that Carroll formally asked
for the hand of Alice or Ina Liddell, after which he was rebuffed by Dean
Liddell (in 1860s England, a girl of 12 was considered old enough to consent to
marriage, so such a request would not be unheard of, but Carroll would not have
been an especially appealing prospect to a family of the Liddells’ station).
Other speculations include that Carroll made some attempt to move beyond the
bounds of friendship with Alice or her sister; that Carroll had inappropriately
approached the girls’ chaperone, a woman named Ms. Pickett; or that Carroll had
simply offended Mrs. Liddell with a gift he’d given Alice, a book about three
girls who need a man to take care of them after their mother dies.
Whatever
the true reason for the sudden break, Carroll ceased to visit the Liddells for
more than a year afterwards and met them in public very infrequently. He
continued to work on his handwritten manuscript, however, even decorating the
pages with his own sketches. By mid-1864, he had completed the first version of
the tale, which he called Alice’s
Adventures Under Ground. He had it bound, and on November 26, 1864,
he dispatched it to Alice Liddell as an early Christmas gift with the
inscription “A Christmas Gift to a Dear Child in Memory of a Summer Day.” Alice
was proud of the gift and shared it with visitors. Carroll, meanwhile, was
happy that he had fulfilled his promise to her and realized his initial
ambition for the story. Already, however, he began to see a potential in the
tale far beyond the modest intentions behind its creation.
Alice Gets a Makeover
Through an Oxford connection, Carroll met with Alexander
Macmillan, whose publishing firm had become a highly respected house for writers
in its 20 years of existence. Macmillan agreed to publish a more developed
version of the Alice story after seeing a completed chapter, which Carroll had
put together at the same time as he was working on Alice’s Adventures Under Ground. Carroll agreed to underwrite the production costs of the book
as long as he could maintain full control over the project.
Soon,
Carroll was working to improve and expand his original work. There were more
puns and games, added characters (including The Mad Hatter and his tea party),
and invented language (Carroll coined words like beamish and chortle that later
became genuine English words). Perhaps most importantly, Carroll realized that
his illustrations were not professional enough for a published version of the
tale. Impressed by the work of Punch artist John Tenniel, Carroll convinced him
to join the project. In some ways, Carroll regretted his decision – Tenniel was
as much of a perfectionist as he was, and he slowed down the progress of the
book considerably. Carroll had to admit when he saw the artist’s work, however,
that his illustrations added a striking new dimension to the book. They were as
distinctive in their way as Carroll’s text.
In
mid-1865, over a year after Carroll had commissioned Tenniel to create art for
his project, and after many proofs had been corrected and revised, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
was complete. Carroll was delighted to hold a copy of the finished book in his
hand that July, but Tenniel wrote him to say that he was unhappy with the print
quality of his pictures. Carroll reluctantly asked Macmillan not to distribute
the 2,000 copies that comprised the first run of the book, and at his own
expense, he had the book reset and reprinted by a different printer. Tenniel
was satisfied with this version, and Carroll agreed that it was superior: “a
perfect piece of artistic printing,” in his own words. In November of 1865, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
hit the bookstores in time for the holidays.
By
this time, Carroll had already sent a specially bound and printed version of
the book to Alice Liddell. He made sure that it was delivered on July 4, the
day of the boat trip that inspired the tale. Carroll never lost sight of the
fact that Alice was the inspiration for his book. As he wrote in a letter to
her mother, Alice was the person “without whose infant patronage I might
possibly never have written at all.”
Alice Enters (and Conquers) the World
Alice’s
Adventures in Wonderland was the Harry Potter of its day. Its
second run sold out quickly, and the book was reprinted multiple times within
its first couple of years on the market. Carroll recouped his losses on the
first, unused printing by deciding to sell most of the copies to an American
publisher, D. Appleton & Co. (the remaining copies were donated to a
children’s hospital near Oxford). Thus, in April of 1866, the book began to be
sold in the U.S., and as far as we know, no one complained about the print
quality. On the contrary, it proved almost as popular here as it had in its homeland.
In the next few years, the book would spread further across the globe once it
was translated into French, German, and Swedish (Carroll himself supervised
several of these translations, which proved tricky with a book so concerned
with wordplay).
Lewis
Carroll became a respected and recognized name almost overnight. Although he
had ambivalent feelings about the attention that came his way, Carroll couldn’t
deny that success had its benefits, including a move to nicer rooms on campus
with a state-of-the-art photography studio added on, which provided more
opportunities to photograph new acquaintances. One of these was Lord Salisbury,
Chancellor of Oxford, who would later become Prime Minister of England. Carroll
also sent copies of the book to people he was interested in meeting, including
other writers and statesmen. He even sent a copy to the Queen’s daughter with
his compliments.
Carroll
did not rest on his laurels, however. In much the same way that the success of
the first Harry Potter book resulted in a sequel soon afterwards, the success
of Alice’s Adventures in
Wonderland prompted Carroll to consider a sequel to his own hit
book. He saw many possibilities for further adventures, some of which he
already had written, and he was in negotiations with Macmillan by the end of
the summer for a new Alice book. He began to assemble a new manuscript,
although his other activities caused it to develop slowly. By early 1868, he
was ready to ask Tenniel if he would be willing to create illustrations for the
new Alice book. Although initially reluctant, Tenniel finally agreed by the
summer. By Christmastime 1871, better late than never, the sequel finally
emerged: Through the
Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There. An immediate hit, it
sold even more quickly than its predecessor had.
The impact of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass on
children’s literature was immense. If imitation is the highest form of
flattery, then Carroll was the most flattered man in England. Books full of wonderland-style
environments, books based on dreams, and books based on nonsense all flooded
the market. Children’s literature, too long the province of writers more
concerned with moralizing than with engaging their young readers, flowered into
a genre of greater variety and imagination. Even adult non-fiction began to
resonate with the effects of Alice. So widespread was the concept of a
“wonderland” that soon the word began to be applied to actual places rather
than imaginary landscapes.
Alice
cast a long shadow, and for the rest of his life, Carroll would be known
primarily for his Alice
books. He took the legacy seriously, and created variations of his book to meet
different needs, such as The
Nursery “Alice,” a simplified version for very young readers that
he issued in 1890. Although he would write other works of poetry and prose,
some rather eccentric, Carroll never again reached as large of an audience. At
times, he would chafe at the hold the Alice
books maintained on his career, but mostly he was proud. He approved stage
versions, and even contributed ideas to a couple of them. He even published a
reproduction of the original version of the story that he had handwritten for
Alice Liddell in 1886 so that fans could see the book in its original form. (Alice
Liddell still possessed this original version and would hold onto it until a
few years before her death. Today it resides in the British Museum.)
When
Carroll published the facsimile of Alice’s
Adventures Under Ground, Alice Liddell became more widely
recognized as the inspiration for the creation of Wonderland. She would carry
this notoriety for the rest of her life, even after a society marriage and
three children (two of whom were killed in World War I). Just as being Alice’s
“father” sometimes irked Carroll, the strain of being “the real Alice” could
sometimes be wearisome for Alice Liddell, now Alice Hargreaves. Late in life
she wrote to her son, “Oh, my dear I am tired of being Alice in Wonderland!
Doesn’t it sound ungrateful & is
– only I do get tired.” As much as a respectable upper class lady could,
however, she remained a booster for Carroll and the books until her death in
1934, even taking part in a Carroll centenary celebration in New York in 1932.
After Carroll’s death in 1898 and the expiry
of the copyright on the original book in 1907, the floodgates opened and new
sequels appeared by other writers, as well as new editions with pictures by
different artists. Since 1907, over 150 artists have done interpretations of
the Alice books; even Salvador Dali
did one. This proliferation of editions ensured that the story was
constantly before the public, as did cheaper editions approved by Carroll when
he was still alive. For the first time, these editions brought the story to
families who couldn’t afford to purchase expensive hardbound books.
Another
important reason for Alice’s
longevity had to do with technological innovations in entertainment. Alice had
already graduated to the stage by the late 19th century, but at the dawn of the
20th, the advent of the moving picture created an entirely new arena for the
Alice phenomenon to take hold. As early as 1903, a version of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,
retitled Alice in Wonderland,
had appeared in England. Edwin S. Porter,
the man who directed The Great
Train Robbery, adapted the story in the U.S. for the first time in
1910. Dozens of versions followed, most famously Walt Disney’s animated version
from 1951. Variations on the story continue to appear in cinemas in this
century, the most high-profile film of recent years being the revisionist Alice in Wonderland from
2010 starring Johnny Depp,
Helena Bonham Carter,
and Mia Wasikowska.
A sequel to this film, Alice
Through the Looking Glass, is in production and due to be released
next May. The characters created by Lewis Carroll continue to fascinate.
Since
his death, many biographies of Lewis Carroll have appeared, some more favorable
than others. Contemporary writers sometimes look with a jaundiced eye at
Carroll’s private life, particularly his interest in photographing children,
and pronounce judgment. Judging Victorian culture by modern standards can be
precarious, however, and speculating about questionable behavior in the absence
of solid evidence can be unfairly damning. Perhaps it’s only natural that
readers want to know more about the motivations of a man who created a book
that features, and was written for, a young girl, but these readers may be
losing sight of the key point – the book itself, which has grown so far beyond
the circumstances of its creation, continues to delight and fire the
imaginations of generations of children, long after its author ceased to be. A
tale created to please one child has gone on to fascinate millions. A man is
not timeless, but his work can be, and that is the case with Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
– a book that will live as long as children (and adults) enjoy it on its own
terms, irrespective of the ebb and flow of its creator’s reputation.
Clancy's comment: Amazing that we are still talking about it today. Hope they are still reading my books well after I'm gone.
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