High Fantasy Novels Codexery

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

A Victorian fantasy of logic, language, and a girl's journey.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is a Victorian novel that has become one of the best-known works of its era, influencing popular culture and literature.[1] The story originated from a boat trip on 4 July 1862, when Lewis Carroll told a tale to the three Liddell daughters.[2] Since its first publication, the novel has remained continuously in print, and translations exist in 174 different languages.[3][4][5]

Quick Facts

Author
Lewis Carroll
Illustrator
John Tenniel
Country
United Kingdom
Language
English
Genre
  • Children's fiction
  • portal fantasy
  • literary nonsense
Publisher
Macmillan
Released
1865
Pages
192

Facts from the source article.

Making and release

Macmillan Publishers agreed to publish the book by 1864, and Carroll financed the initial print run himself.[6] Two thousand copies were printed in June 1865, but Tenniel objected to the printing quality.[7][8] Macmillan finally published the new edition in November 1865, and Carroll requested a red binding.[9] The day after the boat trip, Carroll started writing the story, but that initial manuscript version no longer exists.[10]

Carroll created his own pictures for the original handwritten copy, yet for the printed version others recommended he secure a professional artist to make the images more attractive to readers.[10] Carroll told Macmillan to stop the printing process and hired Richard Clay as a different printer to produce a fresh batch of 2,000 copies.[7] The expense for the reprint was £600, which Carroll covered completely out of his own pocket.[7] For the Christmas shopping season of 1865, a fresh printing came out, though its title page showed the year 1866.[9][11]

What the cited sources add

McCrum notes that among the first avid readers of Alice were Queen Victoria and the young Oscar Wilde.[11] A 2016 Guardian article reports that only 22 known copies of the first edition exist, after Carroll withdrew the print run due to illustration problems.[8] The same article states that Carroll wrote in his diary on 2 August that he "finally decided on the reprint of Alice, and that the first 2,000 shall be sold as waste paper"[8] A Smithsonian article notes that Alice has been translated into every major language and numerous minor ones, including extinct and invented languages.[5]

The Scotsman observes that Alice's adventures have been reinvented as mainstream Disney fare, steampunk graphic novels, computer games, pop songs, and pornography.[12] The Scotsman also reports that Tim Burton's 2010 film became one of Disney's highest-grossing films.[12]

References

  1. Wikipedia, "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Berman, "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll", 15 October 2020; McCrum, "The 100 best novels: No 18 – Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (1865)", The Guardian, 20 January 2014; Susina 2009, p. 3; Lecercle 1994, p. 1; Cohen 1996, p. 135–136; Susina 2009, p. 3 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  2. Wikipedia, "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Kelly 1990, p. x, 14; Jones Gladstone 1998, p. 10; Gardner 1993, p. 21 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  3. Wikipedia, "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Douglas-Fairhurst, "Alice in Wonderland: the never-ending adventures", The Guardian, 20 March 2015 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  4. Wikipedia, "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: McCrum, "The 100 best novels: No 18 – Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (1865)", The Guardian, 20 January 2014; Belford, "Oscar Wilde: A Certain Genius", Bloomsbury Publishing, 2000, p. 151; Pudney 1976, p. 79; Pudney 1976, p. 79; McCrum, "The 100 best novels: No 18 – Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (1865)", The Guardian, 20 January 2014; Appleton, "The Mad Challenge of Translating "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"", Smithsonian, 23 July 2015 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  5. Appleton, "The Mad Challenge of Translating "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"", Smithsonian, 23 July 2015. facts only, no text reused. smithsonianmag.com
  6. Wikipedia, "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Cohen 1996, p. 135–136; Jaques Giddens 2016, p. 9; Jaques Giddens 2016, p. 9; Susina 2009, p. 3 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  7. Wikipedia, "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Jaques Giddens 2016, p. 9; Jaques Giddens 2016, p. 9; Ray 1976, p. 117; Jaques Giddens 2016, p. 9; Jaques Giddens 2016, p. 9; Cohen 1996, p. 135–136; Cohen 1996, p. 135–136 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  8. Flood, "'Legendary' first edition of Alice in Wonderland set for auction at $2–3m", The Guardian, 30 May 2016. facts only, no text reused. theguardian.com
  9. Wikipedia, "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: McCrum, "The 100 best novels: No 18 – Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (1865)", The Guardian, 20 January 2014; Jaques Giddens 2016, p. 9; Douglas-Fairhurst 2015, p. 81; "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland [exhibition item]", University of Maryland Libraries; Hahn 2015, p. 18; Muir 1954, p. 140; Brown 1997, p. 17–19 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  10. Wikipedia, "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Carpenter 1985, p. 57 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  11. McCrum, "The 100 best novels: No 18 – Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (1865)", The Guardian, 20 January 2014. facts only, no text reused. theguardian.com
  12. "Insight: The enduring charm of Alice in Wonderland", The Scotsman. facts only, no text reused. scotsman.com

Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.

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