CR5 Issue 154 March 2018 digital

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The History of Alice By Catherine Rose Screenshot of Alice from the trailer for the film Alice in Wonderland (1951) The Mad <strong>March</strong> Hare is a character from folklore that was forever immortalised by the Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, also known as author Lewis Carroll, in his classic children’s novel Alice in Wonderland. It was written for Alice Liddell, a friend’s daughter who looked nothing like Sir John Tenniel’s famous illustrations. So, who was the real Alice? Alice Pleasance Liddell, who later became Hargreaves when she married the Hampshire cricketer Reginald Hargreaves, was born on 4th May 1852 in Westminster, London. She was the fourth child of ten (two died in infancy) and close to her older and younger sisters Lorina (known as Ina) and Edith, who both went on to feature in Dodgson’s photographs and writing. Soon after she was born, Alice’s father Henry Liddell became Dean of Christ Church College and the family moved to Oxford in 1856 - the same year that Alice met Dodgson, a keen photographer and college librarian. Dodgson took many photos of Alice during their acquaintance, some of them hauntingly beautiful. They show a pretty elfin girl with a dark bob and soulful eyes pictured in various poses, costumes and guises from Oriental girl to beggar maid. By the time she was 20, Alice had become so well-known that the famous Victorian photographer Julia Margaret Cameron also took her portrait. Remarkable for capturing the personality of her subjects, Cameron’s photograph shows Alice, by then an attractive young woman, staring defiantly into the lens. The original Alice’s Adventures Underground was conceived on a boat trip that the ten-year-old Alice and her sisters made with Dodgson and his friend Canon Duckworth. Entertaining them with one of his imaginative stories, the author invented a fabulous tale about Alice falling down a rabbit hole and meeting all sorts of curious characters on the way. After being begged by Alice to write it down, he presented it to her as a bound handwritten manuscript in November 1864. Encouraged by his friends Henry Kingsley and author George MacDonald, Dodgson decided to commercially publish the story a year later. It was illustrated by the artist Sir John Tenniel and proved so popular that it was followed up in 1872 by Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There, later to become simply Alice Through the Looking Glass. However, around the same time that Lewis Carroll’s famous novel was being born, there was a huge falling out between Dodgson and the Liddells. It is still not known what caused the rift as Dodgson’s diary entries for this time were removed. As a result, there has been much speculation over the years as to what happened. One theory is that Dodgson (aged 31) wanted to marry Alice (then 11) but the family were against it. Although times have changed and we would find this both shocking and unacceptable today, Victorian morality was very different and it wasn’t uncommon for an older man to choose a child bride. Up until 1885, when it was raised to 16, the age of consent for a girl was 12. Other theories have suggested Henry Liddell was put out by Charles Dodgson’s criticisms of his deanery or that there was a scandal when, following visits to see the children while their parents were away, Dodgson was accused of having an affair with their governess. It has also been suggested that Alice’s mother believed Dodgson’s visits and photo sessions had become too intrusive. Whatever the reason, it 56 Log into www.cr5.co.uk your local community website! was clearly a bad enough rift for her to take the step of burning all his previous letters to Alice. Imaginative and creative, Dodgson loved the company of children and as a result, his sexuality has later been scrutinised. Alice herself never accused him of any wrongdoing and it was even suggested that her only surviving son Caryl (her other two sons died in the First World War) was named in honour of the author. Following the fall out with Dodgson, as a young woman it is said that Alice had an affair with Queen Victoria’s youngest son Prince Leopold after he came to study at Christ Church, but that the pair were forbidden to marry by the queen because Alice was a commoner. Fast forward just over a century and the same scenario between a Prince and another ‘commoner’ who also met at university had a very different outcome! Perhaps a clue to their feelings is that Prince Leopold named his daughter Alice, and in turn, Alice named one of her sons Leopold. Because the illustrated Alice bears no resemblance to Alice Liddell and the original story was markedly changed for publication, some critics believe the fictional Alice isn’t based on the real Alice at all. However, it can’t be denied that Dodgson made strong references to her throughout the text. Perhaps the strongest is an acrostic poem epilogue to Alice Through the Looking Glass. A poignant and nostalgic verse about that original boat trip, it spells out her name and begins: A boat beneath a sunny sky, Lingering onward dreamily, In an evening of July…. There is a perhaps even sadder ending to this story as after Alice’s husband died, she sold her original manuscript of Alice’s Adventures Underground in 1928. It fetched the considerable sum of £15,400 at Sotheby’s and today is kept in the British Museum. Alice died in 1934 and her ashes are interred at Lyndhurst.
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