This essay will focus on the prototypes of "Alice", and will also touch upon the problem of the perception of child nudity in art and photography of the Victorian era.
And about fairies, of course, where would the 19th century be without them!
There are several prototypes of the character of two "Alices" - "Alice in Wonderland" and "Alice Through the Looking Glass". The first of the books is undoubtedly dedicated to the daughter of the dean of Christ Church College, Henry Liddell.
The acquaintance with the Liddell sisters took place on April 25, 1856, when the future author of the cult book about adventures in Wonderland was photographing the cathedral; at that time Alice was almost four years old. Charles Dodgson* wrote in his diary: “The three girls were in the garden almost all this time, and we easily became friends; we tried to place them in a group in the foreground, but they turned out to be very restless. I mark this day with the sign of a stone.” With this sign he marked only meetings with outstanding people or events of exceptional importance.
Alice at age 8, 1860, photo by Lewis Carroll
Years passed, friendship with the girls grew stronger, and on July 4, 1862, an entry dear to all Alisomaniacs appeared in the diary of Charles Dodgson: “With Duckworth and the three Liddell girls, we went up the river to Godstow, drank tea on the shore and got home only at a quarter past eight, we arrived came to me and showed the girls a collection of photographs, and at about nine they were delivered to the dean’s apartment.”
It was on this day, at Alice’s request, that a fairy tale was invented about the adventures of a little girl in the Underground Land, where you can get by successfully falling down a rabbit hole.
The first manuscript of Alice's Adventures Underground (approximately eighteen thousand words) was handwritten by Carroll and decorated with thirty-seven drawings made by himself. The author completed the manuscript in February 1863 and sent it to Alice's home in November 1864.
Soon, at the insistence of friends, Carroll begins negotiations to publish the fairy tale at his own expense. In the new version of the manuscript, the number of words increased to thirty-five thousand. Tom Taylor, the future editor of Punch, introduces the writer to the artist John Tenniel. But this is already material for the next post.
In the original handwritten copy of the tale, Alice's Adventures Underground (which was published in facsimile more than thirty years later), the author pasted a photograph of little Alice Liddell on the last page.
But if we look at Carroll's drawings, we see a completely different Alice. Before us appears a girl with slightly curly hair below her shoulders, her hair color is much lighter than that of Alice Liddell, and there is no similarity in her facial features.
The collaboration between Tenniel and the author of Alice was not easy, the artist complained of “tyranny.” Carroll outlined the desired image of Alice in words and jealously watched its execution. It is believed that he pointed to photographs of three girls as a prototype -
Mary Hilton Badcock
Mary Hilton Babcock
Beatrice Henley
and Alice's younger sister, Edith Liddell.
After much debate about the appearance and details of the heroine’s costume, the writer approved the following image:
Alice by John Tenniel
later version in color:
Alice by John Tenniel
Indeed, the heroine of the fairy tale bears no resemblance to the real Alice. Carroll often photographed not only the Liddell sisters, but many of his friends' children, especially girls.
Edith (left), Lorina (center) and Alice (right)
Lewis Carroll, Fine Art Photography, Liddell-Sisters (Alice right), 1858
About 3,000 photographs by Charles Dodgson (Carroll) have survived, just over half of them depict children, and only 30 photographs depict naked or semi-nude children. Now, in the 21st century, such images may be shocking, but by Victorian standards they were something quite common. In those days, childhood was considered the epitome of innocence and grace.
Evelyn Hatch, 29 July 1879
I want to make it clear right away that we are talking only about children from middle and upper class families. Little hard workers from poor families were forced to work almost equally with adults; they were deprived of childhood, and many of them died early, breaking under the yoke of unbearable worries and trials; girls were often sold to brothels. But they preferred not to notice the life of the “bottom”; wealthy people existed in another world.
All photographs were taken only with permission and in the presence of parents. In one of Carroll's letters to the mother of an eight-year-old girl, discussing plans to photograph the child, he insists that there must be no delay, since by next year Annie might already be "too old" to be photographed as "the daughter of Eve" (nude).
“It is a chance not to be lost, to get a few good attitudes of Annie's lovely form and face, as by next year she may (though I much hope won't) fancy herself too old to be a 'daughter of Eve. '"
It wasn't just Carroll who took photographs of naked children. Take a look, for example, at a photograph of little Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught, the third son of Queen Victoria of Great Britain.
Prince Arthur, Duke of Connau by photographer Leonida Caldesi, 1857
Or another striking example. Perhaps the most famous photograph of Frank Sutcliffe, “The Water Rats,” was taken in 1886. It became so popular that the Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VII, ordered a large copy of this photograph for himself.
Water Rats by Frank Meadow Sutcliffe, 1886
Children were considered the embodiment of innocence, purity and beauty. But the period of childhood was short. From the age of 13, it was unacceptable for a girl to be alone with a man, wear short dresses and behave spontaneously; from the age of 15-16 she was considered an adult. Although it was possible to marry without parental consent only after reaching the age of 21, parents often gave consent to marriage or engagement much earlier, for example, Queen Victoria's eldest daughter was engaged at the age of fourteen.
It should be noted that in 1875, the age of sexual consent in Great Britain was raised to 13 years (hard to believe, but previously it was only 10-12 years old!), and after a series of sensational exposés about child prostitution, the age of consent was raised to 16 years. this only happened in 1885.
Therefore, it was important for the photographer to photograph children who had not yet entered puberty.
Portrait of Edith (left), Lorina (center) and Alice (right) Liddell, 1860
“Lewis Carroll was unbearable as a photographer, there was no sweetness with him, he was not aware of the end of the world he was causing in someone else’s house. He stopped at nothing, pursuing two goals: to get either a celebrity or lovely children. The photographs that have survived to this day certainly justify his zeal.
He tried through third parties to obtain permission to photograph Queen Victoria, but to no avail. He addressed the Prince of Wales personally, and the story about this leaves a sad aftertaste. The prince (the future Edward VII) had just returned from America and, like everyone else, was completing his education at Christ Church College. In December 1860, Queen Victoria unexpectedly visited the college, and in the evening a reception was held at the dean's. Carroll seemed to feel uncomfortable there: “I chose the moment to remind General Bruce of his promise to introduce me to the Prince, which he did as soon as there was a pause in the conversation between His Royal Highness and Mrs. Fellows. He graciously extended his hand to me, and I began by apologizing for my importunity about taking photographs. He commented on the weather not being favorable for this activity, and I asked if photographers had bothered him in America; he replied that they bothered him, but he didn’t really give in to them. I talked about a new American method in which you can take 12 thousand pictures per hour.
Alice, Ina, Harry & Edith Liddell, spring 1860
At that moment Edith Liddell passed by, and I noticed that you can make lovely compositions with children; he agreed with me, said that he had seen my photographs of children and he really liked them. Then I expressed my desire to get his autograph on a postcard with his portrait. He promised. Thinking it was time to end the conversation, I assured him that he would do me honor if he wished to receive copies of any of my photographs. He thanked me, and I walked away because I didn’t notice any desire on his part to continue the conversation.”
In November of the same year, he photographed the Crown Prince of Denmark and certified him (not without some vulnerability) as “undoubtedly a brighter representative of the monarchy than his relative,” the Prince of Wales: the memory of the refusal must still have tormented him. The following year, the queen’s own praise reached him in a roundabout way: “I received a letter from Mrs. Reed, in which was enclosed a note from Lady A. Stanley (the wife of the rector of Westminster Abbey) to Lady A. M. Dawson, where she says that she showed me photographs the queen and she was instructed to convey that “Her Majesty admires them.” Such photographs are in the taste of the Prince Consort and would give him great pleasure." **
Photography at that time was often inspired by painting. Carroll adored Gertrude Thompson’s drawings, he invited the artist to illustrate his book “Three Sunsets and Other Poems,” Thompson agreed and later even became a friend of the writer.
Lewis Carroll, "Three Sunsets, and other poems ... With twelve fairy-fancies by E. Gertrude Thomson", London, 1898, page 80
It must be said that Gertrude Thompson became famous for her images of fairies and little folk. It is illustrative to cite here some of her illustrations for Carroll's book in the context of the perception of child nudity in the Victorian era. It seems that the little people happily shared the happy privilege of the children, since these drawings did not shock anyone, on the contrary, they were touched and admired.
Lewis Carroll, "Three Sunsets, and other poems ... With twelve fairy-fancies by E. Gertrude Thomson", London, 1898, page 51
Lewis Carroll, "Three Sunsets, and other poems ... With twelve fairy-fancies by E. Gertrude Thomson", London, 1898, page 32
It is surprising that there was a surge of interest in the magical world in the 19th century - the century of the heyday of scientific knowledge and rationality, which we often associate with steampunk aesthetics. Yes, Victorians had a passion for fairies!
In 1922, Arthur Conan Doyle, the famous writer and certified physician, published the book “The Phenomenon of the Fairies”, here is an excerpt from this work: “There is a whole people who can be as numerous as the human race, which leads its own life and separated from us by some difference in vibrations."
Lewis Carroll, "Three Sunsets, and other poems ... With twelve fairy-fancies by E. Gertrude Thomson", London, 1898, page 46
Lewis Carroll, "Three Sunsets, and other poems ... With twelve fairy-fancies by E. Gertrude Thomson", London, 1898, page 40
The surge of interest gave rise to numerous images of the small people, which delighted Lewis Carroll. There are several known poems by the writer dedicated to magical creatures, the first of them, written by the 13-year-old author, depicts a very strict and forbidding fairy - My Fairy. An adult writer sent poetic greetings to his child friends on behalf of the fairies - Christmas-Greetings from a Fairy to a Child (Christmas greetings for a child from a fairy).
“When in London, Carroll often visited Gertrude Thomson in her studio, where she drew her “fairies” from life. Carroll also drew children who came to her; she corrected his drawings and explained things to him.
Soon Carroll invited her to come photograph “living fairies.” In her memoirs, written after Carroll's death, Gertrude talks about his spacious studio on the roof of the college, where there were costumes everywhere in which Carroll photographed the children (they loved these disguises). During frequent breaks, all the young models had a snack and listened to the fairy tales that he told them, and toys were taken out of the huge cabinet in the studio - clockwork wrestlers, rabbits, bears, etc. “We sat on the floor, Lewis Carroll, fairies, animals , I... How we had fun during these hours! How loudly his laughter rang out! And what wonderful nonsense he told! It was like entire pages from “Alice,” only much more delightful, because his voice and smile enchanted us all. I tried more than once to remember his stories and write them down. It was impossible - just as impossible as catching a flash of color on sunlit water or catching a passing rainbow. It was something mysterious, elusive, like an autumn cobweb, and to capture it in the words that we use would mean to deprive everything of life and grace, to completely destroy everything ... "
They saw each other often during these years and often worked together. Sometimes Carroll would bring his camera equipment to Gertrude's studio and photograph the children while she painted them. Sometimes Gertrude came to Oxford and spent the day there; he took photographs, she sketched his young friends for him. ***
Lewis Carroll, "Three Sunsets, and other poems ... With twelve fairy-fancies by E. Gertrude Thomson", London, 1898, page 70
Lewis Carroll, "Three Sunsets, and other poems ... With twelve fairy-fancies by E. Gertrude Thomson", London, 1898, page 84
“Well, secondly, the following question arises: when is the best time to see fairies and other magical folk? I, perhaps, can answer this question for you.
The first rule here is this: the day must be very hot - there’s no point in arguing about that; and you should be slightly sleepy - but not too much, so don’t forget that your eyes shouldn’t close. And, of course, you should be in an “otherworldly” mood - the Scots call such a mood “ghostly”, or even “otherworldly” - maybe this sounds better; Well, if you don’t know what this means, I’m unlikely to be able to explain it to you, wait until you see the fairy, then you’ll understand.”
It seems that a large part of Victorian society shared the idea expressed in the quote by D.M. Barry: “Every time you say you don”t believe in fairies, a fairy dies” - As soon as someone says: “Nonsense, there are no fairies,” one of them immediately falls dead.
Lewis Carroll, "Three Sunsets, and other poems ... With twelve fairy-fancies by E. Gertrude Thomson", London, 1898, page 65
Lewis Carroll, "Three Sunsets, and other poems ... With twelve fairy-fancies by E. Gertrude Thomson", London, 1898, page 76
Carroll's tender feelings for Alice Liddell waned after the publication of the book, it degenerated into reserved politeness. "Through the Looking Glass" already had a different Alice - Alice Theodora Raikes, at that time she was eight years old. She later recalled:
“One day, hearing my name, he called me over and said: “So you are Alice too. This is very good. Come to me, I’ll show you something very mysterious.” We went with him to a house with the same door to the garden as ours and ended up in a room filled with furniture, with a tall mirror in the corner. “Come on,” he said, handing me an orange, “in which hand are you holding it?” “On the right,” I answered. “Now,” he continued, “go to that mirror and tell me in which hand the girl you see there is holding the orange.” After some thought, I answered: “On the left.” “Right,” he said, “how do you explain it?” I couldn’t explain, but something had to be said, and I decided: “If I were on the other side of the mirror, then, probably, the orange would be in my right hand again, right?” I remember he laughed: “Well done, Alice.” Your answer is the best so far"
We didn't talk about it anymore; However, several years later I learned that, according to him, this conversation gave him the idea of “Through the Looking Glass,” a copy of which he sent me at one time along with his other books.” **
And "The Hunting of the Snark" was inspired by his friendship with the "little barefoot girl" Gertrude Chattaway.
Gertrude Chataway about 9 years old, photographed by Lewis Carroll
In December 1891, fifty-nine-year-old Carroll wrote in his diary: “Since Mrs. Hargreaves, the first “Alice,” is now visiting her father, I invited her to tea. She couldn’t make it, but she did me the honor of stopping by briefly during the day with Rhoda.” And a completely different tone in a letter to Gertrude, a few days later:
“My dear old friend! (Friendship is old, but a child never grows old.) I wish you a happy New Year and much, much happiness in the future to you and your loved ones. However, first of all - to you: I know you better and love you more. I pray for your happiness, dear child, on this joyful New Year and for many years to come.” **
It turns out that little Alice Liddell was the first lucky enough to become Carroll’s child-friend; she and the other girls simply embodied the ideal image of a “child friend.” This was also served by the ideal image of “Alice”, which the writer tried to capture in his photographs - a thoughtful look, slightly curly hair from light brown to chestnut shade below the shoulders, age up to nine years.
This is especially noticeable in photographs colored according to the clear instructions of the author.
Beatrice Hatch, 30 July 1873
Photograph taken by Lewis Carroll, then colored by Anne Lydia Bond on Carroll's instructions
Henderson Annie and Frances, July 1879
Photograph taken by Lewis Carroll, then colored on Carroll's instructions
The question is: how to achieve the perfect photo?
Carroll: "Just put Xie Kitchin in front of the lens."
"The Prettiest Doll in the World", Alexandra "Xie" Rhoda Kitchin by Lewis Carroll July 5, 1870
Carroll described his heroine in the article “Alice on the Stage” (“The Theatre”, April, 1887):
“What were you, Alice, in the eyes of your adoptive father? How should he describe you? Loving first of all; loving and tender - loving like a dog (forgive the prosaic comparison, but I don’t know any other love that would be as pure and beautiful), and tender as a doe; and then courteous - courteous towards everyone, whether high or low, majestic or funny, King or Caterpillar, as if she herself were a royal daughter, and her dress was pure gold; and also trusting, ready to accept all the most incredible things with that conviction that is familiar only to dreamers; and finally, inquisitive - inquisitive to the extreme, with that taste for Life that is available only to a happy childhood, when everything is new and good, and Sin and Sadness are just words - empty words that mean nothing!
It seems that the writer was sure that children (especially girls) live in a special, wonderful world, but they inevitably grow up and leave Wonderland. Carroll himself managed to avoid this.
P.S. Unfortunately, Gertrude Thompson's fairy illustrations do not excite me. If you want to see images of the wonderful people, I recommend the following posts.
Alice Pleasance Liddell (May 4, 1852 – November 15, 1934) is the prototype for the character Alice from the book “Alice in Wonderland.”
Biography
Alice Liddell was the fourth child of Henry Liddell, a classical philologist, dean of one of the colleges at Oxford and co-author of the famous Liddell-Scott Greek dictionary. Alice had two older brothers who died of scarlet fever in 1853, an older sister Lorina and six other younger brothers and sisters.
After Alice's birth, her father was appointed Dean of Christ Church College, and in 1856 the Liddell family moved to Oxford. Soon Alice met Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. He became a close family friend in subsequent years.
Alice grew up in the company of two sisters - Lorina was three years older, and Edith was two years younger. On holidays, they holidayed with the whole family on the west coast of north Wales at Penmorfa Country House, now the Gogarth Abbey Hotel.
The making of "Alice in Wonderland"
On July 4, 1862, while out on a boat, Alice Liddell asked her friend Charles Dodgson to write a story for her and her sisters Edith and Lorina. Dodgson, who had previously had to tell stories to Dean Liddell's children, making up events and characters as he went along, readily agreed. This time he told his sisters about the adventures of a little girl in the Underground Country, where she ended up after falling into the White Rabbit's hole. The main character very much resembled Alice (and not only in name), and some of the secondary characters resembled her sisters Lorina and Edith. Alice Liddell liked the story so much that she asked the narrator to write it down. Dodgson promised, but still had to be reminded several times. Finally, he fulfilled Alice's request and gave her a manuscript called "Alice's Adventures Underground." Later the author decided to rewrite the book. To do this, in the spring of 1863, he sent it to his friend George MacDonald for review. New details and illustrations by John Tenniel have also been added to the book. Dodgson presented a new version of the book to his favorite for Christmas in 1863. In 1865, Dodgson published Alice's Adventures in Wonderland under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll. The second book, Alice Through the Looking Glass, was published six years later, in 1871. Both tales, which are well over 100 years old, are still popular today, and the handwritten copy that Dodgson once gave to Alice Liddell is kept in the British Library.
In the science fiction pentalogy Riverworld by writer Philip José Farmer, a character named Alice Liddell Hargreeves is introduced. The text of the first novel of the pentalogy mentions that at the age of eighty she was awarded a Certificate of Honor from Columbia University for the important role she played in the creation of Mr. Dodgson's famous book.
(1852-05-04 )Henry George Lidell
Lorina Hannah Lidell (Reeve)
Reginald Jervis Hargreeves
Alan Niveton Hargreaves
Leopold Reginald "Rex" Hargreeves
Caryl Liddell Hargreaves
Biography
Alice at age 7, 1860, photo by Lewis Carroll
Alice Liddell was the fourth child of Henry Liddell (6 February 1811 - 18 January 1898) - a classical philologist, dean of one of the colleges at Oxford and co-author of the famous Liddell-Scott Greek dictionary - and his wife Lorina Hannah Liddell (née Reeve) ( March 3, 1826 - June 25, 1910). Parents spent a long time choosing a name for the baby. There were two options: Alice or Marina. But the parents settled on Alice, considering this name more suitable. Alice had two older brothers - Harry (born 1847) and Arthur (born 1850) - who died of scarlet fever in 1853, an older sister Lorina (born 1849) and six other younger brothers and sisters, including younger sister Edith (born 1854), with whom she was very close.
After Alice's birth, her father, who had previously been headmaster of Westminster School, was appointed dean of Christ Church, and in 1856 the Liddell family moved to Oxford. Alice soon met Charles Latwidge Dodgson, who encountered her family on April 25, 1856, while photographing the cathedral. He became a close family friend in subsequent years.
Alice grew up in the company of two sisters - Lorina was three years older, and Edith was two years younger. During the holidays they holidayed with the whole family on the west coast of north Wales at Penmorpha Country House (now the Gogarth Abbey Hotel) on the West Coast of Llandudno in North Wales.
Many wonderful artists studied with Alice's father, and he was a friend of the royal family. Alice's adolescence and youth coincided with the heyday of the creativity of the Pre-Raphaelites (predecessors of Art Nouveau). She studied drawing and was given painting lessons by John Ruskin, the famous artist and the most influential English art critic of the 19th century. Ruskin found great abilities in her; she made several copies of his paintings, as well as paintings by his friend William Turner, the great English painter. Later, Alice posed for Julia Margaret Cameron, a photographer also close to the Pre-Raphaelites, whose work dates back to the golden age of English photography.
According to some reports, Mr. Dodgson approached Alice's parents with a request to allow him to ask for her hand when she grew up. However, there is no exact data about this. It is quite possible that this is part of the “Lewis Carroll and Alice myth” that arose later. On the page dedicated to the writer, you can read more about the myth. Another “myth” is also known: in her youth, Alice and her sisters went to travel around Europe and on this trip they met Prince Leopold, the youngest son of Queen Victoria, when he lived in Christ Church. According to the "myth" Leopold fell in love with Alice, but the evidence for this fact is weak. The fact that the Liddell sisters dated him is real, but modern biographers of Leopold believe that there is a high probability that he was infatuated with her sister Edith. In any case, Leopold was among Edith's pallbearers at her funeral on June 30, 1876 (she died on June 26 from measles or peritonitis (surviving data varies)).
After her death, Alice's body was cremated and her ashes were buried in the churchyard of St Michael and All Angels Cathedral Church in Lyndhurst in Hampshire.
Acrostic poem “ALICE PLEASANCE LIDDELL” from “Alice Through the Looking Glass”
A boat beneath a sunny sky,
L ingering onward dreamily
I n an evening of July -
C hildren three that nestle near,
E ager eye and willing ear,
P leased a simple tale to hear -
L ong has paled that sunny sky:
E chooses fade and memories die.
A utumn frosts have slain July.
S till she haunts me, phantomwise,
A lice moving under skies
N ever seen by waking eyes.
C hildren yet, the tale to hear,
E ager eye and willing ear,
L ovingly shall nestle near.
I n a Wonderland they lie,
D reaming as the days go by,
D reaming as the summers die:
E ver drifting down the stream -
L ingering in the golden gleam -
L ife, what is it but a dream?
- In the poem at the conclusion of Through the Looking Glass, one of Carroll's finest works of poetry, he recalls a boat ride with the three Liddell girls when he first told Alice in Wonderland. The poem is written in the form of an acrostic: the first letters of each line spell out the name - Alice Plaisnes Liddell.
The making of "Alice in Wonderland"
- In the science fiction pentalogy Riverworld by writer Philip José Farmer, a character named Alice Liddell Hargreeves is introduced. The text of the first novel of the pentalogy mentions that at the age of eighty she was awarded a Certificate of Honor from Columbia University for the important role she played in the creation of Mr. Dodgson's famous book. These are real facts from the life of Alice Liddell Hargreaves.
- In the novel “Maximus Thunder. Escape from Eden" by Lilia Kim, one of the main characters is Alice Liddell, an agent of the Information Security Bureau.
- Minor planet named after Alice Liddell
“I adore all children,” Carroll once said, “except boys.” He met Alice Liddell, daughter of the Dean of Christ Church, in Oxford while he was looking for young models for photographs. It was a pastime for her during the summer of 1862 while Carroll worked on one of his most remarkable linguistic inventions. Even when she became an adult, the memory of their friendship continued to haunt him: Carroll had a way with children, as he could make them remain still for the duration of the exposure, i.e. 45 seconds. In this portrait, the most famous of Carroll's images, this effect is emphasized by the stillness of the figure in the small "Pre-Raphaelite" space and the suspicion in Alice's eyes that she is the victim of a dark adult joke. Later, Alice served as the prototype for the most Pre-Raphaelite portraits of J.M. Cameron.
Alice as a beggar
More than 140 years have passed since the publication of Alice in Wonderland, but historians and writers have not been able to understand what role the life of its author, Charles L. Dodgson, actually played in the writing of this masterpiece of world literature and the life of its author. better known to everyone under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll, the real Alice is Alicia Liddell. Very few true facts have been preserved, and therefore the relationship between Carroll and Alice became the object of idle fiction and speculation. Carroll's muse is compared with Dante's Beatrice and Lolita, who seduced Humbert Humbert in Nabokov's Lolita. In the published “Diaries” of Carroll there is no description of precisely that period that became a turning point in the life of both the author himself and his heroine. Evidence of the relationship between Alice Liddell and Lewis Carroll that has survived to this day allows us to divide their entire acquaintance into three periods.
Alicia Liddell
Years of intimacy. The story began in 1855, when Henry George Liddell was appointed dean at Christ Church, where the young Dodgson was already working. The new dean arrived accompanied by his wife and four small children: Harry, Lorina, Alicia and Edith. Dodgson, who was very fond of small children, very soon became friends with the girls and became a frequent guest in the Liddell house. The restraint with which Carroll describes his meetings with Alice is extremely surprising, and yet on April 25, 1856, a record appears that the writer went for a walk with his three sisters.
Alice (right) with her sisters
By that time, Carroll was already acquainted with the eldest of the Liddell sisters, the youngest at that time was only two years old, and therefore it is logical to assume that the writer was amazed precisely by the meeting with four-year-old Alice, whom he had never seen before. But the name of this girl did not appear in Carroll's diary entries until May 1857, when the writer gave Alice a small present for her fifth birthday. Rumors spread around the college where Dodgson taught about his relationship with the governess of the Liddell children, after which the writer noted in his diary that “from now on, when in society, I will avoid any mention of girls, except in those cases when it is not will arouse no suspicion." Beginning in November 1856, Carroll began to experience hostility towards himself from Mrs. Liddell. From the writer’s diary, apparently, the entries dedicated to the period from April 18, 1858 to May 8, 1862, disappeared forever, namely, it formed the basis of the masterpiece created somewhat later - “Alice in Wonderland.” The famous summer boat ride took place on July 4, 1862.
Alicia Liddell
Alice Plaisnes Liddell was not an “ordinary girl” at all. She was the daughter of the rector of Christ Church College, Oxford University, many wonderful artists studied with her father, and he was a friend of the royal family. Alice's adolescence and youth coincided with the heyday of the creativity of the Pre-Raphaelites (predecessors of Art Nouveau), and she herself was, so to speak, a girl of the Pre-Raphaelite circle. She studied drawing and was given painting lessons by John Ruskin, the famous artist and the most influential English art critic of the 19th century (once a student of Rector Liddell). Ruskin found great abilities in her; she made several copies of his paintings, as well as paintings by his friend William Turner, the great English painter. Later, Alice posed for Julia Margaret Cameron, a photographer also close to the Pre-Raphaelites, whose work dates back to the golden age of English photography. (By the way, in his letters Carroll often mentions Dante Gabriel Rossetti, the leader of the Pre-Raphaelites.) In general, Mr. Dodgson guessed Alice correctly
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson was very shy, which made his life very difficult. Besides, he stuttered. In the presence of children - especially Alice - both shyness and stuttering disappeared. He often went to the rector's house to play with Alice and her two sisters (of course, having previously received an invitation from Mrs. Liddell); the girls came to visit him (with their mother’s permission, of course); they walked together, went boating, went out of town (of course, in the presence of the governess Miss Prickett - and it turned out that most often the five of them). During one of these walks, as is known, he composed a fairy tale for her, which later became famous.
Alicia and Lorina Liddell
Conflict with the Liddells. Mrs. Liddell's dissatisfaction with the relationship between Carroll and her daughters grew more and more. In 1864, she completely banned any walks and meetings between the writer and the girls and destroyed all the letters Alice received from Carroll. And the writer himself, apparently, tore out from his diaries that have reached us, pages that mention precisely this period of the break in relations with the Liddells.
Regarding the existing hypothesis that Dodgson asked for Alice's hand in marriage from the Liddells, the writer's biographer, Morton Cohen, writes: “I changed my point of view on Carroll’s relationship with Alice when, in 1969, I came across a photocopy of the diary entries. writer. As I began to read them - and we are talking specifically about the complete diary entries given to me by Carroll's family, and not about those published excerpts from which twenty-five to forty percent of the original text was removed - I discovered countless fragments and passages of great significance. It was these details that the writer’s family wanted to hide from prying eyes. (Most of the photographs Carroll took were destroyed, and none of the nude photographs survived. In reality, Carroll gradually unmasked his models, and finally, in 1879, he began taking photographs of girls “in the costume of Eve,” as he himself wrote about it in diary: “naked girls are completely pure and delightful,” he writes to one of his friends, “but the nakedness of boys must be covered” - approx.).
Alicia Liddell
The publisher of the published Diaries, Roget Lancelot Grewn, never even saw these lines written by Carroll, because he worked only with a typewritten copy of the diary entries. When I first encountered the unpublished pages of the diary, I noticed that there was another dimension to Lewis Carroll’s “romanticism.” It is certainly difficult to reconcile with the idea that a strict, well-known clergyman of the Victorian era could have liked little girls, and liked them to such an extent that he had a desire to ask for the hand of one or even several of them.
Now it seems to me that he asked the hand of Alice Liddell from her parents. Of course, he did not say: “I would like to marry your eleven-year-old daughter” or anything like that; but perhaps asked “can I hope that, after six or eight years, if I still have the same feelings for your daughter, our union will be possible?” I think that later he considered the possibility of marrying other girls several more times, and he should have gotten married. I am firmly convinced that he would have been happier in marriage than if he had remained single, and it seems to me that the tragedy of his life was precisely that he could not marry.”
Alicia Liddell
Cooling in relationships. Carroll's subsequent meetings with the prototype of the heroine of his books were extremely rare and unnatural. After one of them, in April 1865, he wrote: “Alice has changed a lot, although I strongly doubt that for the better. She may be entering puberty." The girl was twelve years old at that time. In 1870, Carroll took the last photograph of Alice, then a young woman, who came to meet the writer, accompanied by her mother. Two meager notes, made by Carroll in old age, tell about the writer’s sad meetings with the one who was once his muse.
One of them took place in 1888, and Alice was accompanied by her husband, Mr. Hargreaves, who was once a student of Dodgson himself. Carroll makes the following entry: “It was not easy to put together in my head her new face and my old memories of her: her strange appearance today with the one who was once so close and beloved “Alice”.”
Edith, Lorina and Alice Liddell
Another passage tells of the meeting of the almost seventy-year-old Carroll, who could not walk due to problems with his joints, with Alice Liddell:
“Like Mrs. Hargreaves, the real “Alice” was now sitting in the dean’s office, I invited her to tea. She could not accept my invitation, but was kind enough to come to see me for a few minutes in the evening along with her sister Rhoda.”
[In Carroll's memoirs, these two scenes are presented as a kind of triangle of images - the awkward presence of the husband, the imprint of time on the woman's face, and the ideal girl from the memory. Nabokov in his “Lolita” combines these two scenes into one, when the desperate Humbert meets for the last time with the matured Lolita, living with some vulgar type].
Rhoda was the youngest of the Liddell daughters; Carroll cast her as Rose in the Flower Garden in Alice Through the Looking Glass, and Alice came to Oxford on the occasion of her father's retirement.
Alicia Liddell
Carroll's invitation letter to an old acquaintance contains a professional reference to the linguistic concept of the dual meaning of words:
“You may prefer to come accompanied by someone; I leave the decision up to you, only noting that if your spouse is with you, I will accept it with great (crossed out) great pleasure (I crossed out the word “great” because it is ambiguous, I’m afraid, like most words). I met him not long ago in our break room. It was hard for me to come to terms with the fact that he was the husband of the one whom I still, even now, imagine as a seven-year-old girl.”
Dodgson suffered from insomnia: he spent nights trying to find solutions to complex mathematical problems. He worried that no one remembered his scientific works, and at the end of his days, tired of Carroll’s fame, he even said that “he had nothing to do with any pseudonym or book published under my real name.”
Alicia Liddell
Nabokov's novel gave names to this brand of eroticism. Only here we can probably talk about eroticism, perhaps platonic. Apparently, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson could only possess a woman - or more precisely, a little girl - only in his imagination. And even then only in those moments while the photography lasted (the words “forty-two seconds” run through the book about Alice in Oxford like an obsessive motif). And it looks like the author of "Alice" died a virgin. (As young Chukovsky wrote in his Diary, old maids and old virgins are the most unhappy people in the world.)
It's amazing that much of Alice's time has survived to this day. The elm planted by Alice on the wedding day of the Prince of Wales lived until 1977 (then, like many of his neighbors in the alley, he fell ill with fungal elm disease, and the trees had to be cut down). The famous Punch magazine (where Teniel, the first Alice illustrator, worked) closed just this year. But the devils, rabbits and gargoyles that decorate the windows of the Oxford University Museum are there forever.
In Lewis Carroll's book "The Logical Game", where he teaches the art of reasoning logically, drawing correct conclusions from - not exactly incorrect, but unusual premises - there is the following problem: "No fossil animal can be unhappy in love. The oyster is unhappy in love." love." The answer is also the conclusion: “The oyster is not a fossil animal.”
Lorina Liddell
Alice Liddell was the fourth child of Henry Liddell, a classical philologist, dean of one of the colleges at Oxford and co-author of the famous Liddell-Scott Greek dictionary. Alice had two older brothers who died of scarlet fever in 1853, an older sister Lorina and six other younger brothers and sisters.
After Alice's birth, her father was appointed dean of Christ Church, and in 1856 the Liddell family moved to Oxford. Soon Alice met Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. He became a close family friend in subsequent years.
Alice grew up in the company of two sisters - Lorina was three years older, and Edith was two years younger. On holidays, together with the whole family, they vacationed on the west coast of north Wales in a country house, now the Gogarth Abbey Hotel.
Many wonderful artists studied with Alice's father, and he was a friend of the royal family. Alice's adolescence and youth coincided with the heyday of the creativity of the Pre-Raphaelites (predecessors of Art Nouveau). She studied drawing, and painting lessons were given to her by John Ruskin, the famous artist and the most influential English art critic of the 19th century. Ruskin found great abilities in her; she made several copies of his paintings, as well as paintings by his friend William Turner, the great English painter. Later, Alice posed for Julia Margaret Cameron, a photographer also close to the Pre-Raphaelites, whose work dates back to the golden age of English photography.
According to some reports, Mr. Dodgson approached Alice's parents with a request to allow him to ask for her hand when she grew up. However, there is no exact data about this. It is quite possible that this is part of the “Lewis Carroll and Alice myth” that arose later. On the page dedicated to the writer, you can read more about the myth.
Alice married Mr Reginald Hargreaves.
Afterwards she met with Charles Dodgson several times, they remained friends.
The making of "Alice in Wonderland"
On July 4, 1862, while out on a boat, Alice Liddell asked her friend Charles Dodgson to write a story for her and her sisters Edith and Lorina. Dodgson, who had previously had to tell stories to the Liddell children, making up events and characters as he went along, readily agreed. This time he told his sisters about the adventures of a little girl in the Underground Country, where she ended up after falling into the White Rabbit's hole. The main character very much resembled Alice (and not only in name), and some of the secondary characters resembled her sisters Lorina and Edith. Alice Liddell liked the story so much that she asked the narrator to write it down. Dodgson promised, but still had to be reminded several times. Finally, he fulfilled Alice's request and gave her a manuscript called "Alice's Adventures Underground." Later the author decided to rewrite the book. To do this, in the spring of 1863, he sent it to his friend George MacDonald for review. New details and illustrations by John Tenniel have also been added to the book. Dodgson presented a new version of the book to his favorite for Christmas in 1863. In 1865, Dodgson published Alice's Adventures in Wonderland under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll. The second book, “Alice Through the Looking Glass,” was published six years later, in 1871. Both tales, which are well over 100 years old, are still popular today, and the handwritten copy that Dodgson once gave to Alice Liddell is kept in the British Library.
In the science fiction pentalogy Riverworld by writer Philip José Farmer, a character named Alice Liddell Hargreeves is introduced. The text of the first novel of the pentalogy mentions that at the age of eighty she was awarded a Certificate of Honor from Columbia University for the important role she played in the creation of Mr. Dodgson's famous book. These are real facts from the life of Alice Liddell Hargreaves.
In the novel “Maximus Thunder. Escape from Eden" by Lilia Kim, one of the main characters is Alice Liddell, an agent of the Information Security Bureau. However, in the next book she becomes a minor character.
