Tale of spin-offs as Alice turns 150
Print Edition
As the celebrated children’s book of Britain’s Victorian era turns 150, an exhibit in Texas traces its history to show how “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” adapted and transformed through now-familiar concepts of merchandising and multimedia.
The Lewis Carroll book swept children’s literature when it was published in 1865, and the popular work was soon adapted for the theater, Alice-themed toys and eventually films during the early days of the industry.
“The book did not have a conventional moral. Carroll played with standard moral tales of his day and turned them on their heads,” said Danielle Brune Sigler, the curator who helped put together the exhibit that opens tomorrow at the University of Texas in Austin.
The exhibit, at the Harry Ransom Center, a global leader in its holdings of manuscripts and original source materials, contains more than 200 items, including rare publications, drawings and letters and photographs by Carroll, the pen name for Charles Lutwidge Dodgson.
The exhibit shows how Dodgson, the University of Oxford mathematician who composed the story for the daughters of his Oxford dean, tried to balance his life in academics with his alter ego as the author of a widely popular book.
The exhibit shows how Dodgson, at times, grew weary of Alice as its popularity grew. He reportedly often would not answer letters addressed to Lewis Carroll.
While Carroll may have grown tired, he was also involved in marketing his product, creating an Alice-themed stamp case and helping bring a production of “Alice in Wonderland” to the stage.
Meanwhile, weak copyright protection led to unauthorized publications of Alice to pop up in the United States. As the times changed, so did representations of Alice, who is seen as a flapper in a 1929 version of the book in the exhibit and a psychedelic icon in a 1960s coloring book.
“A lot of people have absorbed Alice through films, through toys and through condensed versions but have not necessarily read the original,” said Sigler, the curator. “These adaptations have been so popular, that they have often supplanted Lewis Carroll’s story.”
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