"Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland", an often abbreviated version of "Alice in Wonderland", is a tale written by the English mathematician, poet and prose writer Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll and published in 1865. It tells the story of a girl named Alice who falls through a rabbit hole into an imaginary world inhabited by strange anthropomorphic creatures.
"It’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then. " ― Lewis Carroll
The tale enjoys steady popularity among both children and adults. The book is considered one of the finest examples of absurd literature; it uses numerous mathematical, linguistic and philosophical jokes and allusions. The flow of the narrative and its structure have had a strong influence on art, especially the fantasy genre. "Alice Through the Looking Glass" is a plot continuation of the work. "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" is a literary adaptation of the handwritten book "Alice's Adventures Underground".
On Friday, July 4, 1862, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson and his friend Robinson Duckworth went up the Thames in a boat in the company of three daughters of the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University and Dean of Christ Church College Henry Liddell: thirteen-year-old Lorina Charlotte, ten-year-old Lorina Charlotte Liddell Alice Pleasance Liddell and eight-year-old Edith Mary Liddell. This day, as the English poet Wystan Hugh Auden would later say, "is as memorable in the history of literature as July 4 in the history of America."
The walk began at the Folly Bridge near Oxford and ended five miles later in the village of Godstow with a tea party. Throughout the journey, Dodgson told his bored companions the story of a little girl, Alice, who went in search of adventure. The girls liked the story, and Alice asked Dodgson to write the story for her. Dodgson began writing the manuscript the day after the trip. Subsequently, he noted that the journey down the rabbit hole was of an improvisational nature and was, in fact, "a desperate attempt to come up with something new."
On November 26, 1864, Dodgson presented Alice Liddell with his work entitled Alice's adventures under ground, with the subtitle A Christmas gift to a Dear Child in a Memory of a Summer Day), consisting of only four chapters, to which he attached a photo of Alice at the age of 7. A number of biographers of Lewis Carroll, including Martin Gardner, believe that there was an earlier version of "Alice" destroyed by Dodgson himself. So, it is known that before the manuscript was published, the author increased the volume of the work from 15.5 thousand to 27.5 thousand words, supplementing the tale with episodes about the Cheshire Cat and the Crazy Tea Party. Dodgson himself stated that the success of his work is based on the help of two assistants - a fairy of fantasy and love for children.
Over time, in 1928, Alice Liddell was forced to sell the manuscript at Sotheby's for £ 15,400. The book was bought by the American collector A. S. Rosenbach. In 1946, the handwritten fairy tale again goes to auction, where it is estimated at 100 thousand dollars. On the initiative of L. G. Evans, an employee of the Library of Congress of the United States, a collection of donations was announced to the fund for the purchase of the book. In 1948, when the required amount was raised, a group of American benefactors donated it to the British Library in recognition of the role of the British people in World War II, where it is preserved to this day.
This article was sponsored by Jeffrey Petro.
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