4 lesser-known facts about Alice in Wonderland
One of the most famous children’s classics of all time, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, popularly known as Alice in Wonderland, has caught the fancy of generations of young readers. We bet that if you have read it, you still remember the vanishing cat and mad hatter, right? Even if you haven’t read the book, you probably have read the 2010 movie adaptation of the book by the same name. Recall the crazy tea party?
The book was written by renowned Victorian mathematician and author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under the pseudonym of Lewis Carroll in the year 1865. To this day, this literary masterpiece has been credited to have shaped the landscape of children’s literature. Let us go down the legendary rabbit hole invented in this book and uncover some of the lesser-known yet fascinating facts about Alice in Wonderland.
Queen Victoria was thrilled with the book
When the first edition of the book was released, Dodgson made sure that a copy of it reached the Buckingham Palace as Queen Victoria was known to be an avid reader. As it happened, the Queen was quite pleased with the book and had called it both whimsically charming and a light read! In fact, she was so impressed that she sponsored the printing of the next few editions, which made the book a blockbuster across England. The Queen even invited the author to her palace and asked him to bring his next work, which is when Dodgson gifted his first popular non-fiction, An Elementary Treatment of Determinants, an outcome of his professional mathematical persona. This book was published by Macmillan and Co, London in 1867.
The original manuscript resides in the Central British Library
The original manuscript of Alice in Wonderland was called ‘Alice’s Adventures Underground’ which was a hand-written and illustrated version that Carroll had given to his friend, Alice Liddell. At present, the original manuscript belongs to the Central British Library and it hardly ever leaves London. Even when it does go for a trip abroad, say for instance, like its display at New York City’s Morgan Library in 2015 (on the occasion of its 150th anniversary), it is accompanied by a chain of security measures, especially at the airports.
The book has never been out of print
Since its first publication in 1865, Alice in Wonderland has never been out of print. In fact, till date, the book has been translated into as many as 176 languages. Talk about being popular! Not only that, its sequel, namely Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There (1871) had been sold out within only seven weeks of their publication.
Dodo is based on Carroll herself
The fictional character of Dodo, the pet bird who Alice and her sisters befriend in the first few chapters, is a caricature of the author himself. As known by many, she had a stammering tendency and used to introduce himself as ‘Do-do-dogson'. Hence, the name Dodo