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, together with the whole family, they holidayed on the west coast of north Wales in country house Penmorfa, 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. main character very much resembled Alice (and not only in name), and some minor characters- 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. New version Dodgson's books were presented 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.

In August 1865, Alice in Wonderland was first published, a book that brought its author worldwide fame. Why then did the mother of Alice Liddell, who served as the prototype for the main character, burn all of Lewis Carroll's letters to her daughter? Our traditional publication on Thursday will be devoted to solving this mystery.

Dodgson

He became Lewis Carroll as an adult, and was born as Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. This happened on January 27, 1832 in the village of Daresbury in Cheshire. No one around him could say exactly what little Dodgson should do or who he should become; one thing was certain for everyone: this boy was simply a genius. And the passion for analysis that distinguished him soon found application: young Charles Dodgson entered Oxford to study mathematics.

Charles Dodgson second from right

Life at Oxford was as saturated with loneliness as a blotter with ink. Spiritual attachments generally bypassed him. Neither indoor plant, no cats, no canaries, only endless arithmetic calculations, geometric graphs, logic games, chess problems written from the first to the last move. He became a professor. His office was filled almost to the ceiling with books on natural science, philosophy, magic, the occult...

The women never had a chance to cross the threshold of this strange house. This is not to say that its owner did not love them. He was simply extremely shy in communication and had a strong stutter. This speech defect of Dodgson strangely disappeared in the presence of little girls. A fixed idea settled in his mind - female creatures are good only up to a certain point, or rather, until about 18 years of age. When girls become women, the absurdity of everyday life and the traditions of society turn them into boring wives and matrons.

And the professor simply adored those under 18 years old. He loved to invite people to visit him and tell different stories. And sometimes take pictures. Sometimes naked. At the same time, no one doubted that until the end of his life he remained a virgin. At one time, rumor attributed him to an affair with actress Ellen Terry, whom he first saw on theater stage, when she was 8 years old and he was 24. But Ellen spoke evasively about the nature of their relationship in her autobiography: “He treated me exactly the same as he treated any other female person over 10 years old.”

Few people knew that the writer Carroll was also a good photographer

It is clear that almost all of Dodgson’s life he was haunted by rather unpleasant rumors regarding his love for little girls. To be frank, Dodgson was considered by many to be a dirty man. However... In a letter to one of his Oxford friends, he wrote: “As for rumors, I can only say that in relation to these lovely creatures I always remain a gentleman...” And indeed, he never crossed the dangerous line beyond which simple admiration for young beauty develops into pedophilia. Moreover, he always asked the parents for permission to kiss their daughter or sit her on their lap.

Nevertheless, for all his gallantry and observance of decency, he was excommunicated from some families; for example, the mother of his favorite, Alice Liddell, burned all the professor’s letters to her daughter and refused him the house. At the same time, it was rumored that Alice Liddell was the only one to whom he proposed marriage. However, I would really not like the reader to perceive Charles Dodgson’s love for “young enchantresses” as an unforgivable vice. Rather, it was a source of inspiration rather than a criminal passion.

Alice

When the professor had just turned thirty years old, he was already a master, the author of several books on algebraic geometry and trigonometry, and a teacher of mathematics at the famous Oxford University. Moreover, just recently he accepted ecclesiastical rank. However, all this seriousness did not in the least deter the daughters of Rector Liddell from him. On the contrary, the professor was a frequent guest in their house and loved the rector’s little daughters, especially ten-year-old Alice. Not at all in the spirit of Humbert from Nabokov’s “Lolita,” but in a British way, decorous and decorous.

So, in July 1862, Professor Dodgson, along with the Liddell sisters and a young colleague, mathematics teacher Robin Duckworth, went on a picnic in the vicinity of Oxford. First, they took a boat down the Charwell River, and when they got a little hungry, they moored to the shore and had a break with tea. The weather was beautiful... And since the Liddell girls knew about the mathematics professor’s remarkable ability to come up with ideas on the fly magical stories, then this time he failed to get out.

With the Liddell family. Later he will be refused his home

Dodgson did not have to suffer for long - fertile material was at hand. He borrowed the name from his favorite Alice Liddell and sent her to the underground Wonderland, where he introduced her to the White Rabbit and other very strange inhabitants. The girls froze with delight. And the professor himself did not understand where all these monstrous, completely illogical creatures came from in his head. In the evening, when the story was told to the end, the real Alice asked to write it down, which the professor did - he couldn’t refuse his favorite. He gave her this manuscript with his own drawings a month later, entitled “Alice's Adventures Underground.”

Then, in 1862, its creator did not even think about taking the manuscript to the publishing house. “I had no thought of publication when I wrote this story,” he recalled in the preface to the 1886 facsimile edition. There are two versions of what is happening. According to one of them, the idea to publish “Alice’s Adventures Underground” was given to Dodgson by his friend - children's writer George MacDonald. According to another, the “culprit” turned out to be the writer Henry Kingsley. One day he went to visit Rector Liddell and on the table in his office he accidentally saw a handwritten book that Dodgson gave to Alice. Opening it at random, he was amazed and then, without looking up, read it from beginning to end.

Later, a completely shocked Kingsley and Liddell spent a long time trying to persuade Dodgson to publish “Alice...”. Which happened in the summer of 1865, exactly three years after the significant tea party on the banks of the Charwell River. A transformation also occurred with its author: after long linguistic experiments, Professor Dodgson turned into Lewis Carroll.

Lewis Carroll defeats Dodgson

But in the life of the writer Lewis Carroll, everything was not easy. Just as Vladimir Nabokov was obsessed with his poor Lolita, Lewis Carroll couldn’t imagine himself without the girl Alice. But if Nabokov felt a sense of painful paternal tenderness for Lolita, then for Carroll Alice was a “bud of life,” the embodiment of the most wonderful and fleeting time of human existence. Because the girl Alice was growing up, it was impossible to keep her the way she first appeared before him, she was leaving his life, he was losing her... and with her he was losing his support...

Alice Liddell on the right, photograph by Carroll

And in this strange love of an adult man for unripe beauty lurked the fear not so much of death as of old age - the gradual dying of body and spirit. It was not for nothing that the shelves in the professor’s house were crowded with books that were far from theological doctrines. These books promised their readers the sacred secrets of longevity, and the boldest of them - eternal youth...

Six years after the wonderful summer morning of 1862 on the banks of the Charwell River, Lewis Carroll, having already given up on himself, went to his uncle in London. Among the cheerful crowd of children, he saw a little girl, who, lo and behold, was also called Alice, only her last name was Reike. Carroll called her over. First, as befits an English gentleman, he confessed his love to her, and then asked a riddle: he gave the girl an orange, led her to a tall mirror in the living room and asked: “Which hand is your orange in?”

“On the right,” answered the girl.

- And the girl in the mirror, who looks so much like you, has an orange in which hand?

- On the left.

- How do you understand this? - asked Carroll, who was very fond of riddles.

– If I were standing on the other side of the mirror, he would be in my right hand, - the quick-witted Alice was found.

Carroll and the "first" Alice

The seven-year-old girl gave him back everything that he had so rapidly lost. And the second rebus book was born about Alice’s adventures through the looking glass. In this last book about Alice, the writer appears in the image of the White Knight - perhaps the only good creature in the entire "Alice". “Of all the wonders that Alice saw in her wanderings through the looking glass, she remembered this most clearly. Many years later, this scene stood before her, as if it all happened just yesterday: the gentle blue eyes and soft smile of the Knight, the setting sun tangled in his hair, the dazzling shine of his armor... She remembered everything, everything to the smallest detail.” .

The writer in the guise of the White Knight leads his favorite Alice to victory - the cherished stream, overcoming which she becomes the Queen. In life, on the contrary, Alice led her “father-creator” to glory and reconciliation with himself...

Professor's glory

When, from 1865 to 1889, the first part of “Alice...” went through 30 reprints, Dodgson constantly heard congratulations addressed to him, in response to which he calmly replied that he had nothing to do with this “writing.” Fans shrugged their shoulders in bewilderment, and Professor Dodgson tried to lead his old lifestyle.

Photos of Carroll

In the end, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson came to terms with the status quo. Book Alice had long belonged not only to him; she was adored by children and adults all over the world. Her prototype, Alice Liddell, to his great regret, grew up, got married, and became a good wife and mother. Professor Dodgson's "double" - Lewis Carroll - in essence turned out to be not so bad person, although he led a more free lifestyle.

He had no children, but he had numerous brothers and sisters, who divided his literary heritage among themselves. Mathematician, photographer, logician, theologian, writer, multifaceted, wise, talented, but not the most happy man Charles Lewis Dodgson-Carroll passed away on November 14, 1898...

Kristina Frantsuzova-Janusz, Story magazine

Alice Pleasance Liddell (English: Alice Pleasance Liddell; May 4, 1852 - November 16, 1934) - the prototype of the Alice character from the book “Alice in Wonderland” (as well as one of the prototypes of the heroine in the book “Alice Through the Looking Glass”).

Date of Birth:
May 4, 1852
Place of Birth:
Westminster, London, England, British Empire
A country:
Great Britain
Date of death:
November 16, 1934 (age 82)
A place of death:
Westerham, Kent, England, British Empire
Father:
Henry George Lidell
Mother:
Lorina Hannah Lidell (Reeve)
Spouse:
Reginald Jervis Hargreeves
Children:
Alan Niveton Hargreaves
Leopold Reginald "Rex" Hargreeves
Caryl Liddell Hargreaves

Biography

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. Parents considered the name "Alice" more suitable.

Alice at age 8, 1860, photo by Lewis Carroll

Alice had two older brothers, Edward Harry (6 September 1847 – 14 June 1911) and James Arthur Charles (28 December 1850 – 27 November 1853, died of scarlet fever), and an older sister, Lorina Charlotte (11 May 1849 – 29 October 1930). ). After Alice, Henry and Lorina had 6 more children:

Edith Mary (1854 – June 26, 1876);
Rhoda Caroline Ann (1859 – May 19, 1949);
Albert Edward Arthur (1863 – 28 May 1863);
Violet Constance (10 March 1864 – 9 December 1927);
Frederick Francis (June 7, 1865 – March 19, 1950);
Lionel Charles (22 May 1868 – 21 March 1942).
Alice was very close to Edith and Frederick. After Alice's birth, her father, who had previously been headmaster of Westminster School, was appointed dean of Christ Church College, 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 mainly in the company of Lorina and Edith. On 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 John Ruskin gave her painting lessons. famous artist and the most influential English art critic XIX 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 belongs 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 youth Alice and her sisters went to travel around Europe and on this trip they met Prince Leopold, youngest son Queen Victoria when he lived at 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 (although Leopold named his first daughter Alice). 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)).

On 15 September 1880, at Westminster Abbey, Alice married the cricketer Reginald Hargreaves (13 October 1852 – 13 February 1926), who was a pupil of Dr Dodgson. From him she gave birth three sons- Alan Niveton Hargreaves (October 25, 1881 - May 9, 1915), Leopold Reginald "Rex" Hargreaves (January 1883 - September 25, 1916) and Caryl Liddell Hargreaves (1887 - November 26, 1955) (there is a theory that he was named after Carroll , but the Liddells denied this). Alan and Leopold died during the First World War during battles in France: Alan died on the battlefield and was buried in Flerbes, Reginald died from his wounds and was buried in Gilmont. In her marriage, Alice was an ordinary housewife and became the first president of the Women's Institute in the village of Emery-Don.

She last met Charles Dodgson in 1891, when she and her sisters visited him in Oxford.

Following her death, Alice's body was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium and her ashes were buried in the churchyard of St Michael's and All Angels' Church, Lyndhurst in Hampshire.

The plaque next to Alice Liddell Hargreaves' real name is forever engraved with "Alice from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland."

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 a hundred years old, are still popular today.

After the death of her husband in 1926, Alice, in order to pay the utility bills of her house, auctioned off a handwritten copy of Alice's Adventures Underground (the original title of the tale) that Dodgson had given her. Sotheby's auction estimated its value at £15,400 and it was eventually sold on the centenary of Dodgson's birth at Columbia University to one of the founders of the Victor Talking Machine Company, Eldridge R. Johnson (80-year-old Alice was personally present at this ceremony). After Johnson's death, the book was purchased by a consortium of American bibliophiles. Today the manuscript is kept in the British Library.

Alice Pleasence Liddell was born on May 4, 1852. It was she who became the prototype for the character Alice from the book “Alice in Wonderland” (as well as one of the prototypes for the heroine in the book “Alice Through the Looking Glass”).

Alice or Marina?

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, and his wife Lorina Hannah Liddell (née Reeve). 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 younger siblings, including younger sister Edith (born 1854), with whom she was very close.

Meeting with Charles Lutwidge Dodgson

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 Lutwidge Dodgson, who encountered her family on April 25, 1856, while photographing the cathedral. He became a close family friend in subsequent years.

Lewis Carroll was a bachelor. In the past, it was believed that he was not friends with members of the opposite sex, making an exception for actress Ellen Terry.

“Carroll’s greatest joy was his friendships with little girls. “I love children (not boys),” he once wrote. ...Girls (unlike boys) seemed amazingly beautiful to him without clothes. Sometimes he drew or photographed them naked - of course , with the permission of the mothers. ... Carroll himself considered his friendship with the girls to be completely innocent; there is no reason to doubt that it was so. Moreover, in the numerous memories that his little girlfriends later left about him, there is not a hint of any or violation of decency,” Martin Gardner said about it.

In Victorian England late XIX centuries, girls under 14 were considered asexual. Carroll's friendship with them was, from the point of view of the morality of that time, a completely innocent quirk. On the other hand, being too close to a young woman (especially in private) was strictly condemned. This could have caused Carroll to declare his acquaintances women and girls to be little girls, and to underestimate their age.

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.

The history of the creation of "Alice in Wonderland"

On Friday 4 July 1862, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson and his friend Robinson Duckworth took a boat up the Thames in the company of the three daughters of Oxford University Vice-Chancellor Henry Liddell: thirteen-year-old Lorina Charlotte Liddell, ten-year-old Alice Pleasence Liddell and eight-year-old Edith Mary Liddell. This day, as the English poet W. Hugh Auden would later say, “is as memorable in the history of literature as the 4th of July in the history of America.”

The walk started from Folly Bridge near Oxford and ended five miles later in the village of Godstow with a tea party. Throughout the journey, Dodgson told his bored companions the story of a little girl, Alice, who went in search of adventure.

The girls liked the story, and Alice asked Dodgson to write the story down for her. Dodgson began writing the manuscript the day after the trip. He subsequently noted that the journey down the rabbit hole was improvisational in nature and was, in essence, “a desperate attempt to come up with something new.”

Alice Liddell wrote: "I think Alice's story begins on that summer day when the sun was so hot that we landed in a clearing, abandoning the boat for shade. We sat down under a fresh haystack. The whole trio was there." started the old song: “Tell a story” - and so began a delightful fairy tale.”

On June 17, 1862, Dodgson, in the company of his sisters Fanny and Elizabeth, Aunt Lutwidge and the girls, again went for a walk on another boat to Nunham. That day it started to rain and everyone got very wet, which became the basis for the second chapter - “Sea of ​​Tears”. During this walk, the writer developed the plot and story of Alice in more detail, and in November Carroll began seriously working on the manuscript.

To make the story more natural, he researched the behavior of the animals mentioned in the book. According to Dodgson's diaries, in the spring of 1863 he showed the unfinished manuscript of the story to his friend and adviser George MacDonald, whose children greatly enjoyed it. MacDonald, like his other friend Henry Kingsley, would later advise publishing the book. Carroll included his own sketches in the manuscript, but used illustrations by John Tenniel in the published version.

On November 26, 1864, Dodgson gave Alice Liddell his work entitled "Alice's Adventures Underground", with the subtitle - "A Christmas Present to the Dear Girl in Memory of Summer Day”, consisting of only four chapters, to which I attached a photograph of Alice at the age of 7.

In the preface to his translation of Carroll’s tale, B. Zakhoder cites an excerpt from “a letter from Lewis Carroll theater director, who decided to stage the fairy tale about Alice on stage":

"...What kind of person did I see you, Alice, in my imagination? What are you like? Loving is, first of all: loving and tender; gentle, like a doe, and loving, like a dog (forgive me for the prosaic comparison, but I don’t know purer and more perfect in the land of love); and also - polite: polite and friendly with everyone, with great and small, with the mighty and funny, with kings and worms, as if you yourself were a royal daughter in an embroidered golden outfit. And also - trusting, ready to believe in the most impossible fable and accept it with the boundless trust of a dreamer; and, finally, curious, desperately curious and cheerful with that cheerfulness that is given only in childhood, when the whole world is new and beautiful and when grief and sin are just empty words sounds that don't mean anything!

As time passed, in 1928 Alice Liddell was forced to sell the manuscript at Sotheby's for £15,400. The book was purchased by the American collector A. S. Rosenbach. In 1946, the handwritten fairy tale again went up for auction, where it was valued at 100 thousand dollars. At the initiative of Library of Congress employee L. G. Evans, a collection of donations was announced to fund the purchase of the book. In 1948, when the required amount was raised, a group of American philanthropists donated it to the British Library as a sign of gratitude for the role of the British people in the Second World War, where it is kept to this day.

"Alice in the Wonderland"

"Alice Through the Looking Glass" is a children's book by English mathematician and writer Lewis Carroll, written in 1871 as a sequel to the book "Alice in Wonderland." In this case, Alice has not one, but two prototypes with that name. The first prototype was the same Alice Liddell; the second prototype, related to the role of Alice, is unfortunately unknown.

Artist Alice, model Alice

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 belongs to the golden age of English photography.

Myths about Alice: marry Lewis Carroll or Prince Leopold?

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.

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.

Marriage and children

On September 15, 1880, Alice married Mr. Reginald Hargreaves, who was a student of Dr. Dodgson. From him she gave birth to three sons - Alan Niveton Hargreaves, Leopold Reginald "Rex" Hargreaves (both died in the First World War) and Caryl Liddell Hargreaves (there is a version that he was named after Carroll, but the Liddells themselves deny this), and one daughter - Rose Liddell Hargreaves.

Last meeting

She last met Charles Dodgson in 1891, when she and her sisters visited him in Oxford. 7 years later, on January 14, 1898 in Guildford, Surrey, Charles Dodjohnson died. Alice Liddell herself died on November 15, 1934 at the age of 82.

Planet Liddell

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. This 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.

The minor planet 17670 Liddell is named in honor of Alice 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 was given painting lessons by John Ruskin, a famous artist and the most influential English artist. critic XIX 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.