If You Were
ALICE
In Wonderland
GIVEAWAY
Adapted by Gerry Gaston, Laura Livi, Corrado Sesselego Art by Laura Livi
Lewis Carroll the Writer Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (born 27 Jan. 1832 Daresbury, Cheshire, England – died 14 Jan. 1898 Guildford, Surrey, England), who went by the pen name “Lewis Carroll”, was an English writer, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer. Carroll’s family was of northern English origin with Irish connections. Conservative and High Church Anglican, most of Dodgson’s ancestors were army officers or members of the Church of England clergy. Carroll’s father was an active and highly conservative cleric of the Church of England and involved himself in the religious disputes that were dividing the church during the 19th Century. He inclined to Anglo-Catholicism and educated his children according to such principles. Despite this, Carroll had an ambiguous, if not contradictory, relationship with his family values and the whole Church of England. A brilliant mind though not always a perfect student, Carroll excelled at learning with little effort. He pursued an academic career at the Christ Church College in Oxford (the same as his father), where he won the Christ Church Mathematical Lectureship in 1855. He held this position for the next 26 years, remaining at Christ Church until his death. One distinctive trait he had from childhood was what he referred to as “his hesitation”: a stammer which affected him for his whole life. It is believed that he joked about his stammer, referring to himself as the Dodo (DO-DO-Dodgson) in the first Alice book. The stammer was perhaps more a personal problem than a social one, since Carroll was well accepted in 19th century English society and performed well at singing, mimicry and storytelling. On the other hand, what he could not accomplish with his social skills he achieved instead with his visual prowess in the field of photography. While Carroll was mostly regarded as politically, religiously, and personally conservative, he also expressed interest in philosophies and religions that reached far beyond this view. He was a founding member of the Society for Psychical Research, an English non-profit organization aimed at studying parapsychological events. In the period between his early published works (1854-1856) and the success of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) Carroll became familiar with the preRaphaelite movement. He met John Ruskin (1857), developed a closeness with Dante Gabriel Rossetti and his family, and also became friends with Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais and Arthur Hughes. He also befriended fairy-tale writer George MacDonald, who later convinced Carroll to submit Alice’s adventures for publication after MacDonald’s children read them enthusiastically. In 1856, Carroll published the romantic poem “Solitude” under what would become his famous pen name. “Lewis Carroll” itself was a word play from Dodgson’s name: Charles Lutwidge (first and second name) were translated into Latin as “Carolus Ludovicus” and then translated back into English as “Carroll Lewis” only to be
reversed. In that same year, Henry Liddell was appointed Dean of the Christ Church College and moved in with young wife Lorina and their 4 children: Harry, Lorina, Edith and Alice, all of whom greatly influenced Carroll’s personal and writing life.
Continue to “THE ALICES”
The Alices
On July 4, 1862, rowing from Folly Bridge, Oxford, to Godstow on the Isis river, ten year old Alice Liddell asked Charles L. Dodgson for a story to amuse herself and her two sisters, eight year old Edith and thirteen year old Lorina. While Reverend Robinson Duckworth rowed the boat, Dodgson told the story of a girl named Alice and her adventures underground after she fell into a rabbit hole. It was not the first story Dodgson had told the Liddell girls, but this time Alice begged him to write it down. In that moment, global literature for children of the 19th Century changed forever.
The extent to which Alice may be identified with the little Liddell girl of the same name is still controversial, since, in his letters, Dodgson, better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, denied that his character was based on any living young girl. Still, there is evidence suggesting Alice Pleasance Liddell and her sisters influenced the Wonderland saga. The original manuscript of Alice’s Adventures Under Ground is dedicated to Alice Liddell as “A Christmas Gift to a Dear Child in Memory of a Summer's Day”. The prologue of Alice’s Adventures seems to recall the boat trip of 1862 with a specific reference to the “Cruel Three” requesting a tale from Carroll and almost forcing him to comply. In addition, there is an acrostic poem at the end of Through the Looking-Glass that spells out Alice Pleasance Liddell. A word play with the word “pleasance” in the last verse of the prologue of Through the Looking-Glass links the start and end of the adventures with Alice Liddell. On the other hand, the Alice character is not physically identical to the real life Alice in either the manuscript version of Alice’s Adventure Under Ground or in the first edition of the book. Carroll followed the creation of the illustrations of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland with zealous enthusiasm. He personally chose artist John Tenniel to be the illustrator of his novel, paid him on his own, and also covered the costs for the engraver. Surely the images Tenniel produced represented exactly what Carroll had in mind.
If Alice Liddell was not the model for the literary Alice, other child-friends might have been. It is rumored that Carroll sent Tenniel some photos of Mary Hilton Badcock to be used as a model; Badcock strongly resembles the iconographic Alice. Biographer Anne Clark affirms that Carroll used Edith Liddell as a model for the physical representation of his characters. The literary Alice could simply be the blend of multiple child models, either the three Liddell sisters or totally different children that captured Carroll’s attention. Or, as Carroll always declared, Alice was simply created from his own imagination. The Alice in the actual game book is removed from the classical Disney version of the character and also moves away from the Tenniel interpretation. Instead, it can be considered an attempt to create in a single figure a mixture of all the young girls that may have inspired Alice back in the days of the Victorian era.
Continue to “THE RAVEN AND WRITING-DESK RIDDLE”
Why is a Raven like a Writing-Desk?
This riddle is nonsensical, posed to Alice by the Mad Hatter. Once Alice gives up trying to find the answer, he admits he hasn’t the slightest idea what the answer might be. Carroll himself confessed that the riddle was never intended to be answerable, and even Alice points out at the March Hare tea party that looking for an answer to such a riddle is only a waste of time. Nevertheless, in the preface to the 1896 edition of Alice’s Adventures,Carroll addresses the issue, turning it into a word play. He wrote: “Enquiries have been so often addressed to me, as to whether any answer to the Hatter’s Riddle can be imagined, that I may as well put on record here what seems to me to be a fairly appropriate answer: “Because it can produce a few notes, though they are very flat; and it is nevar put with the wrong end in front!”, where “N-E-V-A-R” is Raven spelled backwards. Unfortunately the word play was lost to the keen eye of an overzealous proofreader who normalized “nevar” into never, creating more confusion among readers. As of today, some of the most popular answers that have been proposed are collected in The Annotated Alice by Martin Gardner (1st ed. 1960, Definitive Edition 199899).
Here is just a sample: Because the notes for which they are noted are not noted for being musical notes. (Sam Loyd, 1914) Because Poe wrote on both. (Sam Loyd, 1914) Bills and tales (tails) are among their characteristics. (Sam Loyd, 1914) Because they stand on their legs, conceal their steels (steals), and ought to be made to shut up. (Sam Loyd, 1914) Because there’s a B in both, and there’s an N in neither (Aldous Huxley on Vanity Fair, September 1928, providing a nonsensical answer), later expanded by James Michie: because each begins with E. Both have quills dipped in ink. (David B. Jodrey, Jr) Because it slopes with a flap. (Cyril Pearson) Because without them both Brave New World could not have been written. (Roy Davenport) Because one has flapping fits and the other fitting flaps. (Peter Veale) Because one is good for writing books and the other better for biting rooks. (George Simmers) Because a writing-desk is a rest for pens and a raven is a pest for wrens. (Tony Weston) Because “raven” contains five letters, which you might equally well expect to find in a writing-desk (Roger Baresel) Because they are both used to carri-on de-composition. (Noel Petty) Because they both tend to present unkind bills. (M.R. Macintyre) Because they both have a flap in oak. (J. Tebbutt) Because it bodes ill for owed bills. (Francis Huxley) Because they each contain a river—Neva and Esk. (by Francis Huxley)
Continue to “LESS FAMOUS PUPPY EPISODE”
The Puppy Episode Alice runs away from the White Rabbit house, and heads back to the woods, only to meet a huge puppy who wants to play with her. Alice is very scared by the playful, but aggressive behavior of the puppy and manages to run away at the last minute. The “Puppy Episode” is probably one of the less known in the whole Wonderland books, however it is narratively funny and pedagocically interesting. Carroll switches the perspective and put Alice in poor Bill’s shoes (the little lizard she kicked in the Rabbit ‘s house, after having grown to to gigantic proportion)...
“Choose Your Own Path”
If You Were... Alice in Wonderland
Interactive Children’s Book Adapted from the Original Story as Written by Lewis Carroll What if Alice Decided NOT to Drink the Potion? What if Alice just Got Up and LEFT the Tea Party? What if Alice Decided to STAND UP to the Queen? These Choices, and Many More, will be Yours to Make as YOU Guide Alice on Her Adventure in Wonderland!
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Edited by Krystal Elghanayan Designed by Emiliano Civiletti , Gerry Gaston, Corrado Sess elego First published in 2014 by Project A Publishing, LLC 3 Alpine Court Little Rock, AR 72205, USA www.projectapublishing.com
“IF I WERE” book and gameboo k series © 2014 Project A Pub lishing, LLC & Blue Monkey Studio If I Were Alice in Wonderland © 2014 Project A Publishing, LLC & Blue Monkey Studio Artwork © 2010 Blue Mon key Studio Blue Monkey Studio di Sesseleg o, Livi, Civiletti Via XX Settembre 23/b - 161 21 Genova IT www.bemystudio.com
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