A few years ago I enrolled in a Children’s Literature course at my local University where I am studying part-time, working towards a degree in English Literature. Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland was on our reading list, and I quite enjoyed studying it from a scholarly perspective. It’s a story a quite enjoy, though it was never a treasure of my childhood. As always in Literature courses, the professor gave background information to the class on the life of the author and how the book came to be published. For those who don’t know, Alice in Wonderland had an incredibly interesting beginning.
See, Lewis Carroll is the pen name of Charles Dodgson, and when he was a young man studying at Oxford University, he befriended the children of the Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, notably three young sisters, Lorina, Alice and Edith, who spent many a summer day in his company, playing, picnicking and rowing down the river. He would amuse them by making up stories. One day while rowing on the river he made up a story about a girl named Alice. After the story was finished, the real Alice begged him to write it down, but he demurred. From that day onward, as often as she could, Alice continued to persuade Dodgson to write down the story. It wasn’t until several years had passed however, that Dodgson finally gave in, wrote the story and published it. Alice in Wonderland was an immediate success and continued to be for generations afterward. Alice Liddell, the daughter of the Dean of Christ Church, henceforth forever became known as the inspiration for Alice in Wonderland.
In Alice I have Been, Melanie Benjamin pieces together what is known about Charles Dodgson and Alice Liddell and their relationship, and provides us with a decent, highly fictionalized tale of Alice’s life from childhood through to old age, including the speculation that Dodgson had interfered with the child Alice, though as there is no concrete proof that anything untoward happened between the two, these events are merely hinted at and shrouded in mystery, left up to the reader to come to whichever conclusion suits them best. I for one believe as my professor did, that Dodgson was a young man with a stunted maturity, feeling far more comfortable relating to young children than his contemporaries.
Benjamin’s book, though slow-paced, was a pretty interesting read, and I quite enjoyed exploring the impact of being a wildly popular book’s inspiration had on the adult Alice. For years she wanted nothing to do with the book, not even sharing the stories with her own children, until as an old woman, financial troubles forced her to go public and tour the U.S. as “the” Alice who inspired a most beloved story. Quite fascinating, really, learning more about the real woman behind the fictional character.
Till next time, happy reading!
L 
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