How Lewis Carroll Came to Write Alice’s         Adventures In Wonderland

Lewis Carroll is the pen-name of Charles Dodgson (1832-1898) who was the 3rd of eleven children, whose father was a priest in the Church of England.  Carroll composed poems, rhymes, puzzles, and stories during his boyhood in the mid-Victorian Age, a time that placed a premium on the finer points of manners, dress and behavior (watch the movie “Sense and Sensibility” with Emma Thompson to get a feel for this era).

Carroll was a shy, private person who spoke with a stammer.  He loved children but never married.  He decided against becoming a priest and instead became a lecturer of mathematics at Oxford University.  He was very fond of the theater.

In 1855, when 23 years old, Carroll obtained his first camera (the first reliable ones were invented in the 1830’s) and fell in love with photography.  He had wanted to become an artist but could not draw well enough, so the camera became for him a magical drawing machine.  He especially enjoyed photographing family, friends, and their children.  Among Carroll’s first portrait sitters were the three Liddell sisters, Alice being his favorite.

On July 4, 1862 Carroll and his friend, the Reverend Canon Duckworth, took the three Liddell sisters on a row boat ride along the Thames River which flows through Oxford.  It was then that young Alice begged Carroll for one of his stories.  So Carroll made up a story on the spot, incorporating the picnic they had had prior to the boat ride. 

The next day Alice asked Carroll to write the story down for her, so he agreed and decided he would present it to her as a Christmas present.  He worked diligently on the story and even did the illustrations himself.

When others read Alice’s story they encouraged Carroll to have it published.  So he went about refining it and even added to it such episodes as “The Caucus Race”, “Mad Tea Party”, and the Cheshire Cat.  He even changed the title from Alice’s Adventures Underground to Alice’s Adventure’s In Wonderland. 

Carroll chose Sir John Tenniel, the famous cartoonist, to illustrate his story.  The book was published by MacMillan on July 4, 1865, exactly three years after making up the original story for Alice.  The book was an overnight success, a publishing sensation, hailed as truly revolutionary.  Even Tenneil’s illustrations became famous, and used as a source for advertisements and fodder for pop-art.  Carroll lived to see his story adapted to the London stage.

In 1907, the copyright for Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland ran out, and almost every year since a new edition of it is published with ever new illustrations.  Although much humor and irony is lost on modern-day readers, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is still a great bedtime story to be read to children and enjoyed by the parents who do so.