Alice-Sweet-Alice

Down the Rabbit Hole
Home of the Autumn People

I’m Late, oh dear, I’m late
The Alice in Wonderland story is a fantastical nonsense chronicle. The story was originally written for the Victorian era. It has many underlying jokes that are more for adults than for children. Especially the book, but not the Disney sugary version that we have all come to know. The original story contains many hidden meanings; drug use, and sexual overtones. The first is more prevalent. The true story is a story that is filled with death jokes, sinister figures, and nightmarish illusions.

The story came to be one summer day on July 4th, 1862, by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, or as we know him, Lewis Carroll, his close friend the reverend Duckworth, and the sisters, Alice, Lorina, and Edith Liddell. They were all on a boat trip for the day, and Alice was getting tired and wanted to be told a story with a lot of “nonsense” in it. Dodgson tried to only tell parts of the story, but the girls wanted the entire thing told at that moment. On a few other trips he did continue the story.

Alice loved the story so much, that she asked Dodgson to write the story down. He gave the finished story to young Alice as an early Christmas present in 1864. A writer and friend of Dodgson, Henry Kingsley saw the story and encouraged him to publish the book. With much admiration from other friend’s children’s, he re-wrote, added some other chapters, some poems and jokes, and more illustrations, (drawn by Sir John Tenniel) and had many title changes before print. “Alice” was finally published by Macmillan Press on July 4th 1865.

“Alice’s” copyright ended in 1907, and is the third most quoted book in the world next to the Bible and Shakespeare. It has been translated into over 125 languages, and published hundreds of times.

Through the Looking Glass was written about six years after Alice. During this time Dodgson had been trying to teach Alice how to play the game of Chess. He made up stories to show the moves of the pieces on the board. For the sequel to Alice, this would prove very beneficial in making up story ideas and how to identify the characters in the book. How “Through the Looking Glass” came to be was when he met a young girl named Alice Raikes. He invited her into his home, placed her in front of a mirror, seated on a chair, and handed her a piece of fruit. He then asked her which hand the child in the mirror was holding the orange in. She told him that it was in her left hand. He asked her what she meant, since the fruit was in her right hand, and she told him that if she was on the other side of the glass, wouldn’t it still be in her right hand? Dodgson was so thrilled that he decided that the book would be about a world on the “other side of the looking glass”. The book was finally published late 1871 early 1872.

The Disney Movie
I’ve seen the Disney Movie many, many times, but it is after all for children, and for me doesn’t hold a comparison to the book, or close to the BBC version. In the early 30’s there was much discussion of how the book was going to come to screen, short serials, and who would play Alice. The Disney version has both Alice and Through the Looking Glass incorporated into one movie. Production began in 1946 and took five years to finish. It has been released three times in the theater, 1951, 1974, and 1981. Video came out 1981 and 1986.

All of this has been gotten from Project Gutenbergs on-line text. There are also many sites that you can get a very in-depth description of chapter per chapter, and explanations of the poems, summaries, analyses, and more translations.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland: The setting is Wonderland, and you get there by dropping through a rabbit hole. The inhabitants are not people but mostly animals. Size and time is not important. It is our world but seen through the eyes of a child.
Chapter 1: Down the Rabbit-Hole
Chapter 2: The Pool of Tears
Chapter 3: A Caucus-Race and a Long Tale
Chapter 4: The Rabbit sends in a little Bill
Chapter 5: Advice from a Caterpillar
Chapter 6: Pig and Pepper
Chapter 7: A Mad Tea-Party
Chapter 8: The Queen's Croquet-Ground
Chapter 9: The Mock Turtle's Story
Chapter 10: The Lobster Quadrille
Chapter 11: Who stole the Tarts?
Chapter 12: Alice's Evidence

Through the Looking Glass: Like Wonderland, and also home to strange beings. You can get here by entering through a mirror. All things here are reversed, and you have to do everything in the opposite way. The land is laid out like a huge chessboard, with little brooks to mark the edges. It is a dream world, but is a symbol for our own world.
Dramatis Personae and Chessboard
Preface
Poem: "Child of the pure unclouded brow"
Chapter 1: Looking-Glass House
Chapter 2: The Garden of Live Flowers
Chapter 3: Looking-Glass Insects
Chapter 4: Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee
Chapter 5: Wool and Water
Chapter 6: Humpty Dumpty
Chapter 7: The Lion and the Unicorn
Chapter 8: "It's my own Invention"
Chapter 9: Queen Alice
Chapter 10: Shaking
Chapter 11: Waking
Chapter 12: Which dreamed it?
Poem: "A boat beneath a sunny sky"

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