The Centre Cannot Hold

Alice was written in 1865, three years after the Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson first devised the story to entertain the real Alice and her sisters. He had originally told the tale to Alice and her sisters while he and the Reverend Robinson Duckworth rowed in a boat up the River Thames with three little girls: Lorina, Alice and Edith Liddell.

The girls loved it, and Alice asked Dodgson to write it down for her. After a lengthy delay — over two years — he eventually did so and on 26 November 1864 gave Alice the handwritten manuscript of Alice’s Adventures Under Ground, with illustrations by Dodgson himself.

But before Alice received her copy, Dodgson was already preparing it for publication and expanding the 18,000-word original to 35,000 words, most notably adding the episodes about the Cheshire Cat and the Mad Tea-Party. In 1865, Dodgson’s tale was published as Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by “Lewis Carroll” with illustrations by John Tenniel.

Referenced in:

Alice – Stevie Nicks
Alice in Wonderland – Lisa Mitchell