It is seen as an example of the literary nonsense genre. One of the best-known works of Victorian literature, its narrative, structure, characters and imagery have had huge influence on popular culture and literature, especially in the fantasy genre. Carroll published a sequel in 1871 entitled Through...
It is seen as an example of the literary nonsense genre. One of the best-known works of Victorian literature, its narrative, structure, characters and imagery have had huge influence on popular culture and literature, especially in the fantasy genre. Carroll published a sequel in 1871 entitled Through the Looking-Glass and a shortened version for young children, The Nursery "Alice", in 1890. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was inspired when, on 4 July 1862, Lewis Carroll and Reverend Robinson Duckworth rowed up The Isis in a boat with three young girls. During the trip Carroll told the girls a story that he described in his diary as "Alice's Adventures Under Ground" and which his journal says he "undertook to write out for Alice". She finally got the manuscript more than two years later. 4 July was known as the "golden afternoon", prefaced in the novel as a poem. Scholars debate whether Carroll in fact came up with Alice during the "golden afternoon" or whether the story was developed over a longer period. Carroll had known the Liddell children since around March 1856, when he befriended Harry Liddell. Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, who wrote a literary biography of Carroll, suggests that Carroll favoured Alice Pleasance Liddell in particular because her name was ripe for allusion. "Pleasance" means pleasure and the name "Alice" appeared in contemporary works including the poem "Alice Gray" by William Mee, of which Carroll wrote a parody; and Alice is a character in "Dream-Children: A Reverie", a prose piece by Charles Lamb. Carroll, an amateur photographer by the late 1850s, produced many photographic portraits of the Liddell children—but none more than Alice, of whom 20 survive. Carroll began writing the manuscript of the story the next day, although that earliest version is lost. The girls and Carroll took another boat trip a month later, when he elaborated the plot to the story of Alice, and in November he began working on the manuscript in earnest. To add the finishing touches he researched natural history in connection with the animals presented in the book, and then had the book examined by other children—particularly those of George MacDonald. Though Carroll did add his own illustrations to the original copy, on publication, he was advised to find a professional illustrator so the pictures were more appealing to its audiences. He subsequently approached John Tenniel to reinterpret Carroll's visions through his own artistic eye, telling him that the story had been well liked by the children. On 26 November 1864, Carroll gave Alice the handwritten manuscript of Alice's Adventures Under Ground, with illustrations by Carroll himself, dedicating it as "A Christmas Gift to a Dear Child in Memory of a Summer's Day". The published version of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is about twice the length of Alice's Adventures Under Ground and includes episodes, such as the Mad Tea-Party, that did not appear in the manuscript.