The REAL Alice in Wonderland

By Alex in Film, History, Pictures on Apr 2, 2010 at 3:56 pm

Photo: Lewis Carroll / Getty Images

Here’s a fun trivia for you for when you go see Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland movie: did you know that there actually was a real alice? Her name was Alice Pleasance Lidell.

From The Real Alice in Wonderland gallery over at LIFE:

Before Alice ever set foot in Wonderland, there was Alice Liddell, the 10-year-old friend of an eccentric, stuttering lecturer in mathematics who would later find fame as a writer, under the name Lewis Carroll. (Pictured: A photo by Carroll of a 6-year-old Alice Liddell as "the Beggar-Maid" in 1858.)

Link

Tags: Alice in Wonderland, Alice Lidell, Lewis Carroll, Tim Burton

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DG
Apr 2nd, 2010 at 4:39 pm
Is it just me, or does Lewis Carroll seem like a creeper?
zeytoun
Apr 2nd, 2010 at 5:18 pm
Charles Dogson (Lewis Carroll) took nude pictures of Alice and other young girls (6 have surfaced, others are presumed lost)

What to make of it is the big debate.

Some have said that he was a pedophile (possibly a celibate one), and that 6 pages torn from his diary were to conceal this (one unsubstantiated theory: that he had written about proposing to Alice, then 11).

Others say that this is a misunderstanding, that the nudes would have been perfectly normal for a well-know amateur photographer at the time.
Tom Taborda
Apr 2nd, 2010 at 7:50 pm
And, under her married name, Alice Hargreaves, she is also a character in Philip José Farmer’s SciFi series – ‘Riverworld’

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riverworld
astrodex
Apr 3rd, 2010 at 1:54 pm
He liked young girls. He lost interest when they got too old. If he were alive today he would most likely be registered. Great books, though.
Minnesotastan
Apr 3rd, 2010 at 3:45 pm
This month’s Smithsonian has an extended article discussing Charles Lutwidge Dodgson’s relationship with Alice and other children:

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/Lewis-Carrolls-Shifting-Rep utation.html
Sunny@theLibrary
Apr 3rd, 2010 at 4:20 pm
There’s a great, recent-ish, historical fiction book out about Dodgson and Lidell. Alice I Have Been is the title, and the author is escaping me.

Of course, it is fiction, but I found it fairly fascinating and informative. Some portion of the book dealt with the very photograph shown here.
nemo
Apr 3rd, 2010 at 4:23 pm
The Smithsonian article is interesting. It’s nice to see some common myths, such as the notion that Carroll was uninterested in adult women cleared up, as well as a clarification that there were no photos he took that were anything unusual for the time.
ted
Apr 4th, 2010 at 9:07 am
nemo, the Smithsonian article is just as biased in the opposite direction. It presents evidence to “prove” that he was interested in adult women that’s flimsier than the evidence that “proves” he liked little girls.
Dennis
Apr 11th, 2010 at 6:47 am
That girl looks like actress from movie )) a little. Is it daugther of Lewis Carrol?

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