Macmillan Publishers published the book on the 26th of November, 1865.
On the 19th of October 1863, Carroll first met high-powered publisher Alexander Macmillan. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was to be published by Macmillan Publishers sometime in 1864.
The book has a sequel called Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There.
This is a sequel to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, which was published on the 27th of December, 1871. The book is also known as Alice Through the Looking-Glass or simply Through the Looking-Glass.
It was made into a Disney film.
It debuted in London and New York on July 26 and 28, 1951, respectively, as Disney’s thirteenth animated feature. The tale plays some voices and some featured in the film are:- Kathryn Beaumont as Alice
- Sterling Holloway as the Cheshire Cat
- Verna Felton as the Queen of Hearts
- Ed Wynn as the Mad Hatter
The idea of adapting Alice into an animated feature film was first proposed by Walt Disney in the 1930s. It was then revived by him in the 1940s.
It was later recreated into a live-action film on the 25th of February 2010.
An American dark fantasy film, Alice in Wonderland, was produced by Walt Disney Pictures in 2010 and directed by Tim Burton. With Mia Wasikowska as the title character, Johnny Depp, Anne Hathaway, Helena Bonham Carter, Crispin Glover, and Matt Lucas, as well as Alan Rickman, Stephen Fry, Michael Sheen, and Timothy Spall as voices, the film stars a stellar cast. This was followed by a 2016 sequel, Alice Through the Looking Glass.
The live-action film was directed by Tim Burton, giving the film his classic dark style.
A filmmaker and artist, Timothy Walter Burton was born on the 25th of August, 1958. The Gothic fantasy and horror films he has directed include:
- Beetlejuice (1988)
- Edward Scissorhands (1990)
- The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
- Sleepy Hollow (1999)
- Corpse Bride (2005)
- Sweeney Todd (2007)
- Dark Shadows (2012)
Despite its visual style, costumes, musical score, performances, and special effects, Alice in Wonderland received mixed reviews upon release. As a result of its theatrical run, the film grossed over $1.025 billion, becoming the fifth highest grossing movie of ever and the second highest-grossing movie of 2010. The film was nominated for three Golden Globes, including Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy. It was also nominated for Best Visual Effects, Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design, and Best Art Direction at the 83rd Academy Awards.
Walt Disney was not the first to make Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland a film.
You might not know that Walt Disney was not the first to make Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland a film. But due to its lasting popularity, directors Percy Stow and Cecil Hepworth made the story a 12-minute movie in 1903. Because it was at the beginning of the century, this was the longest film produced in Britain at the time. Hepworth played the Frog Footman, and his wife was cast as the White Rabbit and the Queen.
The book’s illustrations are by Sir John Tenniel.
During the later half of the 19th century, Sir John Tenniel was prominent as an illustrator, graphic humorist, and political cartoonist. He graduated from the Royal Academy of Arts in London in 1893 and became the first illustrator or cartoonist in history to receive a knighthood for artistic achievements.
Among the most definitive representations of the Alice characters are Tenniel’s black-and-white drawings. In the sense of conveying a disturbing sense that the real world may no longer be reliable, Tenniel’s “grotesque” was one of the reasons Lewis Carroll chose Tenniel as his illustrator for the Alice books. The dark, atmospheric compositions of exaggerated fantasy creatures carefully drawn in outline were characteristically grotesque in Tenniel’s style. Alice’s Jabberwocky drawing is one of Tenniel’s most grotesque illustrations.
Lewis Carroll’s real name was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson.
When he published a romantic poem in 1856, he used the pseudonym Lewis Carroll. This was a play on his Latin first and middle names. Edgar U. C. Westhill, Edgar Cuthwellis, and Louis Carroll (spelled differently) were also options he gave the editor to choose from.
Carroll had many jobs.
This includes a novelist, mathematician, clergyman, photographer and artist. Can you imagine him being called Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson?!
Christ Church College
Carroll’s main job was as a mathematician, and he worked at the Christ Church College at Oxford. The University of Oxford’s Christ Church college, also known as The House, is one of its constituent colleges. It is the only college founded jointly by the university and the cathedral of the Oxford diocese, Christ Church Cathedral, which serves as the college chapel. The college was founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII.
The name ‘Alice’ was used because it was the daughter of Carroll’s boss.
Henry Liddell (Carroll’s boss) was the dean of Christ Church College. Henry Liddell and his wife Lorina, as well as his entire family, formed a friendship with Carroll. Taking this photograph in summer 1860, he captured Alice, Ina, Harry, and Edith Liddell.
The Doormouse’s story
Elsie, Lacie, and Tillie are the Liddells’ three daughters mentioned in the Doormouse story. Lacie is an anagram of Alice, Lorina Charlotte’s initials became Elsie, and Tillie was short for Matilda, a nickname given to Edith.
Boating Trips
Most of his story ideas were formed when on boating trips with the Liddell family because that is when the children wanted to hear his stories.
The Mad Hatter’s Existence
The Mad Hatter from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland wouldn’t have existed without the Liddell children persisting on him telling the story. He writes this in his diary and eventually turns it into a written novel to give Alice as a Christmas present. A year later and the book was self-published by Carroll, and it had doubled in length.The book almost wasn’t called Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
Carroll had referred to it in his diary as Alice’s Adventures Underground, ready to give to Alice Liddell. Other potential names were Alice’s Hour in Elfland or Alice Among the Fairies.Tenniel hated the first edition of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
Tenniel (the book’s illustrator) hated the first edition of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland because of how badly his drawings had been reproduced.Poor Lewis Carroll!
Carroll spent more than half his annual salary to get the book reprinted, leaving him short of money before the book even came out. But, of course, the book was eventually a success once published.Hair
Alice was originally brunette, not blonde, in the illustrations!Tenniel’s original illustrations were carved into the wood.
This was because of the printing process back then. His drawings were on paper, then they were carved on woodblocks by engravers, which were then made into metal electrotype reproductions to be used in the printing process.
Was he ridiculing mathematics?
There are theories about Carroll ridiculing math in his children’s story. Carroll was a conservative mathematician, so he found the new forms of math emerging in the middle 1800s strange. A mathematician called Keith Devlin guessed that the quote ‘why is a raven like a writing desk?’ said by the Mad Hatter in Carroll’s book could be an example of Carroll mocking others in his field. Devlin suggested that the riddles “were a reflection on the increasing abstraction that was going on in mathematics in the 19th century.”
Carroll had a stutter.
This prevented him from pursuing his initial dream job as a priest, turning him towards his other mathematics skills and writing skills, not that he ever planned on becoming a children’s author.
Carroll based the Dodo from the book on himself.
Because of his stutter, he did so because he would often introduce himself, and his last name would be said like ‘Do-Do-Dodgson’.Crazy?
Mad as a hatter wasn’t invented as a term for crazy in Carroll’s book. The phrase ‘mad as a hatter’ describes how hat makers often got dementia from the mercury used in curing felt. The phrase had been around since the early 1800s, but Carroll licensed it because of how popular the phrase was after he published the book.
Carroll was a great marketer for his story.
He’s one of the first authors who worked with manufacturers to bring out related products. He designed a post-stamp case with pictures of Alice and allowed her image to adorn cookie tins and other products.
Royal Fans
Queen Victoria was a known fanatic of the Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. How fancy! Surely her favourite character was the Queen of Hearts.Popularity
The book has been translated into 176 languages. The sequel, Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, was a bestseller within a week of its release.Controversy – Why was Alice in Wonderland banned?
Despite it being one of the most famous writings, the books were banned in China in 1931 because ‘animals should not use human language’. According to the censor general, it was an “insult” to attribute animal behaviour to humans with the same level of complexity as humans, especially in children’s literature for young readers. So… anthropomorphic creatures are a no there, got it.Drug References
Alice has had many drug references, such as ‘Eat Me’ cakes which make you grow, a ‘Drink Me’ bottle, which makes you shrink, a multi-sided mushroom to make you grow and shrink, and smoking caterpillars.
Carroll’s Health
Carroll suffered from several health conditions, one of which was a rare neurological condition that wasn’t discovered until after his death. An English psychiatrist, John Todd, discovered it in 1955 and called it Todd’s syndrome, often called Alice-in-Wonderland syndrome. It is associated with brain tumours, drugs and migraines.
Other Books
Although Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was his most famous writings, Carroll also has other books, including The Hunting of the Snark and Jabberwocky.
I have previously used Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland as inspiration for a costume I created for a competition. You can see the finished Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland costume on my Instagram or watch the process on my YouTube channel. See you down the rabbit hole!
Bonus Content for Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll:
What is the Summary of Alice Adventures in Wonderland?
In Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Alice’s story begins with a young girl (a curious child) reading over her sister’s shoulder on a hot summer day, Alice spots a White Rabbit in a waistcoat running by her on a riverbank. Taking out a pocket watch, the he announces he is late and disappears down a rabbit hole. A great hallway lined with doors awaits Alice as she follows the White Rabbit down the hole. On a nearby table, she discovers a key that she uses to open a small door. She is overcome with tears when she realizes she cannot fit through the door when she sees a beautiful garden. She drinks the mysterious contents of a bottle marked “DRINK ME”. Since she left the key on the tabletop above her head, she shrinks down to the right size but is unable to enter the door. She grows to an inordinately large size when she discovers a cake marked “EAT ME”. A giant pool of her own tears forms at her feet as she tries again to enter the garden. Her tears dissolve into a pool as she cries. Her pool of tears turns into a sea, and she meets a mouse while treading water. Alice is accompanied by the Mouse as she walks to shore, where several animals are gathered. The animals flee when Alice tells tales of her cat, Dinah, after the Caucus Race.
Alice returns to the Rabbit, who mistakenly thinks she is his servant and orders her to fetch his belongings. As Alice drinks a bottle of unmarked liquid at the White Rabbit’s house, she grows to the size of the room. Alice swats the White Rabbit and his servants away with her giant hand when he returns to his house fuming at her. She is thrown rocks outside by the animals, which mysteriously transform into cakes when they hit her. She shrinks as a result of eating one of the cakes. A Caterpillar is smoking a hookah (water pipe) on a mushroom in the forest where she wanders off. In an argument with Alice, the Caterpillar tells her that different parts of the mushroom will cause her to grow or shrink. Her neck stretches above the trees as she tastes a part of the mushroom. She is attacked by a pigeon, which views her as a serpent that would feed on pigeon eggs.
In order to shrink down to a normal height, Alice eats another part of the mushroom. The Duchess’s house is the last stop on her wanderings. A grinning Cheshire Cat greets her, as well as a cook throwing enormous quantities of pepper into a cauldron filled with soup. Alice is rudely treated by the Duchess before she leaves to prepare for a croquet match with the Queen. The Duchess hands Alice the baby, which she discovers is actually a pig, as she leaves. The Cheshire Cat accompanies Alice back into the forest after letting the pig go.
In Wonderland, everyone, including Alice, is mad, according to the Cat. A floating grin marks the end of the Cheshire Cat’s directions to the March Hare’s house.
It is in the March Hare’s house that Alice discovers the Mad Hatter, the Dormouse, and the March Hare having tea. In the midst of the mad tea party, Alice stands uninvited, treated rudely by all three. As a result, they are trapped in perpetual tea-time because they have wronged Time.
Alice joins the Queen of Hearts in a strange croquet game after saving several gardeners from the Queen’s temper. Throughout the match, the Queen frantically calls out for the execution of the other player as she tears about the hilly croquet ground, with live flamingos and hedgehogs playing the mallets and balls. When Alice is caught in this madness, the Cat asks her how she is. He then insults the King of Hearts impudently and interrupts him during their conversation. As a result, the King orders the Cheshire Cat to be executed, but since he is now only a floating head, no agreement can be reached on how to behead it.
Alice feels uneasy after the Duchess approaches her and tries to befriend her. Alice is told to visit the Mock Turtle by the Queen of Hearts after she chases the Duchess away. Alice is sent to meet the Mock Turtle by the Queen of Hearts, accompanied by the Gryphon. Mock Turtle and Gryphon listen sympathetically to Alice’s odd experiences, commenting on their strangeness. When the Gryphon brings Alice back to the croquet ground after hearing the Mock Turtle’s story, they hear an announcement about the trial about to begin.
For stealing the Queen’s tarts, the Knave of Hearts stands trial. Various witnesses take the stand during the proceeding, led by the King of Hearts. In both cases, the Mad Hatter and the Cook give testimony, but neither of their testimony makes any sense. Heralding Alice’s appearance, the White Rabbit calls her to the witness stand. When the Rabbit provides the King with a letter written by the Knave, the King takes encouragement in his line of questioning. As it happens, the King interprets the letter as a poem admitting the Knave’s guilt. Alice protests the King’s interpretation of the note, believing it to be nonsense. As the Queen grows furious, she orders her to beheaded, but Alice grows so huge that she knocks down her army of playing cards.
Back at the riverbank, Alice suddenly wakes up on her sister’s lap. Her sister ponders Alice’s adventures while she recounts her dream to her sister later on.
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