When Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland came out in 1865, it was a blockbuster success. The book is widely credited with changing the landscape of children’s literature, adding nonsensical fun to what had been a genre obsessed with moralizing. This year, the literary cornerstone turns 150 years old. Here are a few facts you might not know about Alice and its author, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (better known as Lewis Carroll): 1.
The real Alice was the daughter of Carroll’s boss. The real Alice, who lent her name to the story, was the daughter of Henry Liddell, the dean of Christ Church College at Oxford, where Carroll taught mathematics. “Everyone who was employed by the school lived on campus,” says Carolyn Vega, the assistant curator of literary and historical manuscripts at the Morgan Library, which is currently running an on Alice.
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is a work of children’s literature by the English mathematician and author, Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, written under the. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, Alice's Adventures Under Ground, Alice's Adventures in Wonderlan.
“Carroll met the dean and Alice’s older brother first, and that’s how he came to know the entire family.”. Alice Liddell in wreath as “Queen of May,” 1860. Image Credit: Albumen print, Photograph by Lewis Carroll (1832–1898). Gift of Arthur A. Houghton, Jr., The Morgan Library & Museum, Photography by Graham S. The Mad Hatter never would have existed without the persistence of children.
When Carroll began telling a fantastic tale to Alice Liddell and her two sisters on a summer 1862 boating trip up the Thames, he didn’t plan on becoming a children’s author. But just like your niece who won’t stop begging to watch Frozen again, the kids wouldn’t stop asking him to tell the story—Carroll wrote about having to retell “the interminable Alice’s adventures” in his diary. He eventually turned it into a written novel, presenting it to Alice as an early Christmas gift in 1864. By the time he self-published the final version of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in 1865, it had doubled in length, with new scenes including those with the Mad Hatter and the Cheshire Cat. “T hese episodes are likely something that came up later in the retelling of the story,” Vega says. The original illustrator hated the first edition. Carroll commissioned prominent English illustrator John Tenniel to create the accompanying art for the story.
When he saw an early copy of the book, Tenniel was at how badly his drawings had been reproduced, Carroll scrapped the entire edition, spending more than half his annual salary to get it reprinted and leaving him in a financial hole before the book even came out. Luckily, once widely published, Alice enjoyed instant success. The books from the subpar printing were later sold in America. It was first made into a movie in 1903.
Only a handful of years after Carroll died, directors Cecil Hepworth and Percy Stowe made the story. At the turn of the century, that made it the longest film produced in Britain.
Hepworth himself played the Frog Footman, while his wife was cast as the White Rabbit and the Queen. Carroll almost called it “ Alice’s Hour in Elfland.” of the afternoon boating trip that inspired Carroll to come up with a story for young Alice Liddell, he tried out a few different titles for his novel. The original tale presented to the 10-year-old Liddell was called “Alice’s Adventures Underground,” but upon publication, Carroll decided he might call it Alice’s Hour in Elfland. Another rejected idea: Alice Among the Fairies. Eventually, he went with Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland instead. Probably for the best. It satirizes newfangled theories about math.
Scholars have theorized that Carroll’s day job made its way into the book in the form of satire about 19th century innovations in mathematics, like imaginary numbers. For instance, the riddles like the one the Mad Hatter asks Alice about a, “ were a reflection on the increasing abstraction that was going on in mathematics in the 19th century,” as mathematician Keith Devlin in 2010. Carroll was a very conservative mathematician, and he found new forms of math emerging in the mid-1800s compared to the algebra and Euclidian geometry he favored. “Nothing but a pack of cards!' 1885. Image Credit: John Tenniel (1820–1914), Hand-colored proof.
Gift of Arthur A. Houghton, Jr., The Morgan Library & Museum, Photography by Steven H. Crossot, 2014 7. The ori ginal illustrations were carved into wood. Tenniel was a renowned illustrator by the time he took on Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, known for his political cartoons.
His drawings were first made on paper, then carved on woodblocks by engravers, which were then made into metal electrotype reproductions to be used in the printing process. Carte de visite photograph of Lewis Carroll with lens, 1863. Image Credit:Photograph by Oscar Gustav Rejlander.
Gift of Arthur A. Houghton, Jr., The Morgan Library & Museum, Photography by Graham S. 8. Wonderland wouldn’t have seemed so absurd to the real Alice.
“Some of the things that seem like nonsense to us would have made total sense to Alice and her sisters,” Vega explains. When the Mock Turtle says in the book that he receives lessons in drawing, sketching, and “fainting in coils” from an “ old conger-eel, that used to come once a week,” the Liddells would have recognized their own art tutor, who gave the girls lessons in sketching, drawing, and oil painting.
Much of the “nonsense” from the book was “based on people and places and experiences that these very real children had and would have been familiar with,” Vega says. The Dodo is based on Carroll., Carroll alludes to the 1862 boating trip that inspired the story by putting those present (Alice, her sisters, and Carroll's colleague) in the story as birds. Carroll was the Dodo, named after his real name, Charles Dodgson., the author had a tendency to stammer, introducing himself as “Do-do-dogson.” His sometimes debilitating prevented him from, leading him to mathematics and writing instead. A page from the original manuscript given to Alice Liddell by Lewis Carroll.Image Credit: Lewis Carroll (1832–1898), Alice’s Adventures Under Ground, completed 13 September 1864, Illustrated manuscript. © The British Library Board.
The original manuscript almost never leaves London. For its latest exhibition, New York City’s Morgan Library managed to get ahold of Carroll’s original manuscript of “ Alice’s Adventures Under Ground”—the hand-written and illustrated version he gave to Alice Liddell. The book belongs to the British Library, and it rarely gets a vacation abroad. When it does, it’s a big deal, as The New York Times: [I]t is accompanied by security measures whose details are cloaked in obfuscation befitting Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Jamie Andrews, the head of cultural engagement for the British Library, said that it was not checked on the flight over (‘We don’t freight things like that’), but he would not say exactly where it was on the plane or who exactly was with it It did cause a minor stir at the airport.
' I showed the customs form to the customs guy at J. Andrews said. The man looked at the declared value of the manuscript, a number Mr. Andrews would not divulge. 'And he said, 'Jeez, son, what have you got in there, the crown jewels?' And in a sense it is our crown jewels.'
“Off with her head!” 1885. Image Credit: John Tenniel (1820–1914), Hand-colored proof. Gift of Arthur A. Houghton, Jr.,The Morgan Library & Museum, Photography by Steven H. Crossot, 2014. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was a pioneer of brand licensing.
Carroll was a savvy marketer of his story and characters. That’s perhaps the main reason the story is so well known today, even for those who haven’t actually read the book.
“ He’s one of the first authors working with manufacturers to bring out related products,” Vega says. He was all about the tie-ins. He designed a postage stamp case decorated with images of Alice and allowed her image to adorn cookie tins and other products. For readers eager to learn more about the origins of the book, he produced a facsimile of the original manuscript, a rare move for an author of his day. Later, he created a for even younger readers. His 19th century business savvy foretold companies like Disney decades before their founding.
The book has never been out of print. It has been translated into 176 languages. Its sequel, Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, sold out within seven weeks of its publication. SP Books The 328-page, large-format edition is cloth-bound and features an ornamental, iron-gilded cover. The facsimile of Fitzgerald’s original manuscript shows how the author reworked, rewrote, and otherwise altered the book throughout his writing process, changing character’s names (Nick was named “Dud” at one point), cutting down scenes, and moving around where certain information was introduced to the plot, like where the reader finds out how Gatsby became wealthy, which in the original manuscript wasn’t revealed until the end of the book. For Fitzgerald superfans, it's also signed. “The castle ground snarled with a wave of magically magnified wind.” So begins the 13th chapter of the latest installment, a text called Harry Potter and the Portrait of What Looked Like a Large Pile of Ash.
OK, so it’s not a original—it was written by artificial intelligence. As explains, the computer-science whizzes at created this three-page work of fan fiction after training an algorithm on the text of all seven Harry Potter books.
The short chapter was made with the help of a predictive text algorithm designed to churn out phrases similar in style and content to what you’d find in one of the Harry Potter novels it 'read.' The story isn’t totally nonsensical, though.
Twenty human editors chose which to put into the chapter, wrangling the predictive text into a linear(ish) tale. We used predictive keyboards trained on all seven books to ghostwrite this spellbinding new Harry Potter chapter — Botnik Studios (@botnikstudios) While magnified wind doesn’t seem so crazy for the Harry Potter universe, the text immediately takes a turn for the absurd after that first sentence. Ron starts doing a “frenzied tap dance,” and then he eats Hermione’s family. And that’s just on the first page. Harry and his friends spy on Death Eaters and tussle with Voldemort—all very spot-on Rowling plot points—but then Harry dips Hermione in hot sauce, and “several long pumpkins” fall out of Professor McGonagall.
Some parts are far more simplistic than Rowling would write them, but aren’t exactly wrong with regards to the Harry Potter universe. Like: “Magic: it was something Harry Potter thought was very good.” Indeed he does! It ends with another bit of prose that’s not exactly Rowling’s style, but it’s certainly an accurate analysis of the main current that runs throughout all the Harry Potter books. It reads: “‘I’m Harry Potter,’ Harry began yelling. ‘The dark arts better be worried, oh boy!’” Harry Potter isn’t the only work of fiction that Jamie Brew—a former head writer for ClickHole and the creator of Botnik’s predictive keyboard—and other Botnik writers have turned their attention to.
Botnik has previously created AI-generated scripts for TV shows like and, among other ridiculous machine-written parodies. To delve into all the magical fiction that Botnik users have dreamed up, follow the studio on.
The March Hare. First appearance Last appearance Created by Information Aliases Haigha Species Gender Male Occupation Host of the Mad Tea Party Messenger Nationality The March Hare (called Haigha in ) is a character most famous for appearing in the scene in 's. The main character,, hypothesizes, 'The March Hare will be much the most interesting, and perhaps as this is May it won't be raving mad – at least not so mad as it was in March.' ' is a common phrase, both now and in Carroll's time, and appears in 's collection of proverbs published in 1546. It is reported in by that this proverb is based on popular belief about ' behaviour at the beginning of the long breeding season, which lasts from February to September in Britain. Early in the season, unreceptive females often use their forelegs to repel overenthusiastic males.
It used to be incorrectly believed that these bouts were between males fighting for breeding supremacy. Like the character's friend,, the March Hare feels compelled to always behave as though it is tea-time because the Hatter supposedly 'murdered the time' whilst singing for the. 's illustration also shows him with straw on his head, a common way to depict madness in Victorian times. The March Hare later appears at the trial for the, and for a final time as ' Haigha' (which is pronounced to rhyme with 'mayor', according to Carroll), the personal messenger to the in.
(Alice either does not recognize him as the March Hare of her earlier dream, or chooses not to comment about this.). Alice in the Country of Hearts [ ] In this Japanese manga,, the March Hare is Elliot March. Elliot is Blood Dupre (the Hatter)'s right-hand man. He is basically human with the exception of two brown rabbit ears. When called a rabbit, he often becomes insulted and rants about how his ears are 'just bigger than average'. He isn't specifically crazy or mad, but he is a bit violent in the beginning. He almost kills Alice with his long-barrelled gun before Blood stopped him.
But, as the story progresses, it is shown that Elliot is a lovable, amusing character who is really very sweet. Pandora Hearts [ ] In this Japanese manga,, the March Hare is a 'Chain' whose 'Contractor' is Reim Lunettes.
It has the ability to fake death which helps Reim escape his attackers and proved to be so realistic that his comrades believed he really was dead. The March Hare was said to be a 'gentle Chain' which was not suited for battle, but very useful in its own ways. In a way, it contradicts all the varieties of the March Hare, as the Hare is shown to be mad or even insane.The character Reim himself is also similar to March Hare as his friend Break has the chain Mad hatter mirrors the friendship of the Hatter and the Hare's. In popular culture [ ] • In 's TV Miniseries, the March Hare is represented by the character Mad March. • The March Hare is featured as the primary antagonist in the story 'Tea Party in March' in the graphic novel Once Upon a Time: Out of the Past.
• In the song entitled 'We Have Heaven' by the British rock group Yes, a lyric mantra is sung from beginning to end saying 'Tell the Moon Dog, tell the March Hare.' Disney Animated Film [ ]. The March Hare as he appears in the 1951 film.
First appearance ( ) ( ) ( ) Information Species Gender Male Nationality, an animated film, depicted the March Hare at the tea party as being deliriously confused. He repeatedly offers Alice a cup of tea, but distractedly pulls the cup out of her reach or takes it from her hands just as she is about to drink. He was voiced by, after whom his appearance and personality were modelled. He was animated. Kimball also led the band, in which he played trombone.
This version of the character was also a semi-regular on and one of the guests in, often seen seated with the Mad Hatter. During these appearances, the March Hare was voiced by and. The March Hare also appears in the 'Mad T Party' in Disney's California Adventure park. He is based on the 2010 film's Thackery Earwicket interpretation, and plays bass guitar.
He is often found hopping around with Mallymkun the Dormouse on stage. Thackery Earwicket as he appears in the 2010 film. First appearance Created by Information Aliases March Hare Species Gender Male Occupation Nationality The March Hare appears in the 2010 Disney film, voiced. His full name is Thackery Earwicket; this, however, is not mentioned in the film.
In the movie, the March Hare behaves as if constantly nerve-wracked and completely delirious. He is a cook in the film, and the way he eccentrically throws dishes and pots suggests he is an amalgam of both the March Hare and from Lewis Carroll's original book.
The March Hare has a strong Scottish accent in this movie, while his friend the Mad Hatter (played by ) switches into a Scottish accent as well whenever his emotions are strained. He is first seen in the ' scene, which takes place at his 'Hare House'. Thackery hosts a tea party, which he shares with Tarrant Hightopp the Mad Hatter, Mallymkun the Dormouse, and Chess the. He appears a second time in the White Queen's kitchen, frantically cooking and throwing dishes. His third appearance is at the Frabjous Day scene, in which he stands with the other characters wielding a as his weapon, nervous and somewhat ready to go to battle. Burton stated that because Whitehouse is a great comedic actor, a lot of his lines came from improvisation. Games [ ] • In the game, the March Hare is portrayed as a victim of the Mad Hatter's insane experimentation.
Both the Hare and the Dormouse have become. • The March Hare appears in (a sequel to American McGee's Alice). • In the, Thackery Earwicket is a playable character. His special ability is and his main form of attack is to throw. He also uses his big ears and large feet as weapons. He uses his telekinesis to defeat the.
References [ ].