About the Author
Lewis Carroll
(January 27, 1832 – January 14, 1898)
English author and poet
Best known for his 1865 novel, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
Lewis Carroll (whose real name was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) was an English author, mathematician, and photographer. Most famous for writing Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, he created an elaborate fantasy world. He used the pen name to separate his academic math books from his fictional literature. During the day, he was a quiet math teacher at Oxford University. Outside of his employment, he enjoyed telling stories to children. During a boat trip with his boss's daughter, a young girl named Alice Liddell, Carroll was inspired to create the character, Alice.
Besides writing children's fiction and math books dealing with logics and geometry, Carroll enjoyed word puzzles and brain teasers, and invented new words by combining two or more words, thus creating portmanteaus such as chortle, from chuckle and snort.
Images
Left to right:
1). Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson), c. 1857. Public domain. Courtesy of National Portrait Gallery, London. Either self-portrait or by his friend, Reginald Southey.
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Photo Gallery
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, 1865
The original Alice in Wonderland is a surreal 1865 fantasy novel by English author Lewis Carroll. It tells the story of a girl named Alice who falls down a rabbit hole and enters a fantastical world populated by anthropomorphic creatures. The famous animated adaptation was released by Disney in 1951.
The Literary Classic (1865)
The original book, titled Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, was written by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under his famous pseudonym, Lewis Carroll. Carroll created the whimsical story to entertain young Alice Liddell and her sisters during a boat trip.
- Key characters: The Mad Hatter, the White Rabbit, the Cheshire Cat, and the Queen of Hearts.
- Legacy: The book was published in 1865 with iconic illustrations by John Tenniel. It has since never gone out of print and remains one of the most famous works of Victorian literature.
The Disney Animated Adaptation (1951)
Walt Disney had been fascinated by the Alice stories as early as the 1920s. After years of development and screenplay rewrites, the film adaptation, Alice in Wonderland, was released on July 28, 1951.
- Reception: Originally criticized by fans of Carroll’s books for its chaotic pacing, it initially flopped at the box office, but has since achieved status as an animated classic.
- Voice cast: The film featured Kathryn Beaumont as Alice, Ed Wynn as the Mad Hatter, and Sterling Holloway as the Cheshire Cat.
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About the Movies
Alice in Wonderland, 1903, 1933, 1951, 1966, 1972, 1985, 1988, 1999, 2010
Film Adaptations of Alice in Wonderland:
Numerous Alice in Wonderland films exist, starting with the 1903 silent short: Alice in Wonderland.
Major adaptations span the iconic 1951 Disney animated movie and Tim Burton's 2010 live-action version. Exploring the sprawling catalog of film and television versions provides a rich look at how directors have re-imagined Lewis Carroll's fantasy worlds over the last century.
Major Live-Action & Hybrid Films
- Alice in Wonderland (1933): Produced by Paramount and directed by Norman Z. McLeod, it is known for its star-studded ensemble cast featuring W. C. Fields and Cary Grant.
- Alice of Wonderland in Paris (1966): An animated/live-action hybrid.
- Alice in Wonderland (1972): A musical film adaptation directed by William Sterling.
- Alice in Wonderland (1985): A star-studded TV movie produced by Irwin Allen.
- Dreamchild (1985): A blend of live-action and surreal puppetry by Jim Henson's Creature Shop, exploring the older Alice and her relationship with Lewis Carroll.
- Alice (1999): A Hallmark Entertainment television film heavily praised for its practical effects and massive cast.
- Alice in Wonderland (2010): The hit Tim Burton blockbuster focusing on an older Alice returning to Underland, which spawned the sequel, Alice Through the Looking-Glass (2016).
Animated Adaptations
- Alice in Wonderland (1951): The celebrated Disney classic, which combines characters and storylines from Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass.
- Alice (1988): A uniquely dark, stop-motion animation masterpiece by Czech surrealist Jan Švankmajer.
Notable Early Works and Lesser-Known Versions
- Alice in Wonderland (1903): The very first film adaptation of the book, directed by Cecil Hepworth and Percy Stow.
- Alice in Wonderland (1931): Bud Pollard's version, famous for being the first "talkie."
- Alice Through the Looking-Glass (1966): Directed by Jonathan Miller, focusing heavily on the absurdity and adult-like politics of Carroll's second novel.
- Alice (2009): A modern-day reimagining and miniseries starring Caterina Scorsone and Kathy Bates.
Read more about the film adaptations:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Films_and_television_programmes_based_on_Alice_in_Wonderland
Through the Looking-Glass, 1871
Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (1871) is Lewis Carroll's sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, where Alice steps through a mirror into a reversed world, a land based on a chessboard where she progresses from pawn to queen by navigating nonsensical characters like Tweedledum, Tweedledee, Humpty Dumpty, and the Red and White Queens. The story is filled with logic puzzles, wordplay, and famous poems like "Jabberwocky," which Alice reads in reverse.
Key elements of the story:
- The setting: A mirror world where everything is backward, including the rules of logic and time.
- The plot: Alice enters the Looking-Glass world and finds herself in a giant chess game, moving across the board to become a queen.
- Characters: She encounters living chess pieces, talking flowers, the Walrus and the Carpenter, and the Red Queen, who famously says, "it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place."
- Themes: The book explores themes of identity, logic, and the transition from childhood to adulthood, all through a lens of surreal humor.
- Famous poems: It includes iconic poems, including "Jabberwocky" and "The Walrus and the Carpenter," which are central to the narrative.
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About the Movies
Through the Looking-Glass
Alice Through the Looking-Glass is a 2016 fantasy adventure film directed by James Bobin and produced by Tim Burton. It is the sequel to 2010's Alice in Wonderland. The story follows Alice (Mia Wasikowska) as she escapes a difficult situation in the real world and returns to Underland, rather than Wonderland, as the title indicates. She discovers the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp) is in deep despair over the loss of his family. To save them, she travels through time using a magical device called the Chronosphere. Along the way, she must face the villainous Time (Sacha Baron Cohen) and the Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter).
Plot
The story begins with Alice working as a sea captain, honoring her late father's legacy. When she returns to London, she faces harsh sexism from businessmen trying to take away her ship. Escaping through a magical looking glass (mirror), she arrives back in the whimsical land of Underland, where she soon learns the Mad Hatter is severely depressed. He believes his family, whom everyone thought died in a fire, is actually still alive. Desperate to help her friend heal, Alice seeks out a physical, metallic globe called the Chronosphere, a device which controls time.
Concept of Time
Time is portrayed as a real, half-human, half-clock character played by Sacha Baron Cohen. The Chronosphere is a real object that functions like a mechanical key, allowing people to travel into the past. In this form of time travel, the Chronosphere is a magical boat that lets Alice travel backward against the current of the river — perhaps a takeoff from the famous last line of F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel,The Great Gatsby: "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
Time warns Alice that she cannot change the past without risking the end of the entire universe. Nevertheless, she steals the Chronosphere to prevent the tragic death of the Hatter's family.
Character Arcs and Themes
The time-travel mechanic shows the backstory of the main characters:
- The Mad Hatter: how his childhood trauma affected his relationship with his strict father
- The Red and White Queens: how their childhood feud caused the Red Queen to become a villain
This film involves themes of forgiveness, the importance of family, and learning from the past rather than trying to rewrite it.
Reception
Critics found the movie to be highly colorful with massive, impressive visual effects. However, many felt that the heavy computer-generated imagery (CGI) sometimes made the movie feel like a fast-paced video game rather than a story with emotional weight.
Read more about the film adaptation:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Through_the_Looking_Glass_(2016_film)
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