Alice’s Adventures Under Ground
Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, and where were the use of a book, thought Alice, without pictures or conversations? So she was considering in her mind, (as well as she could, for the hot day made her feel very sleepy and stupid,) whether the pleasure of making a daisy chain was worth the trouble of getting up and picking the daisies when a white rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her.
There was nothing very remarkable in that, nor did Alice think it so very much out of the way to hear the Rabbit say to itself “Dear, dear! I shall be too late!” (when she thought it over afterward, it occurred to her that she ought to have wondered at this, but at the time it all seemed quite natural); but when the rabbit took a watch out of its waistcoat-pocket, looked at it, and then hurried on, Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket or a watch to take out of it, and, full of curiosity, she hurried across the field after it and was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge. In a moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again.
The rabbit hole went straight on like a tunnel for some way and then dipped suddenly down, so suddenly, that Alice had not a moment to think about stopping herself before she found herself falling into what seemed a deep well. Either the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly, for she had plenty of time as she went down to look about her, and to wonder what would happen next. First, she tried to look down and make out what she was coming to, but it was too dark to see anything: then, she looked at the sides of the well, and noticed that they were filled with cupboards and book-shelves: here and there were maps and pictures hung on pegs. She took a jar down off one of the shelves as she passed: it was labeled “Orange Marmalade,” but to her great disappointment it was empty: she did not like to drop the jar, for fear of killing somebody underneath, so managed to put it into one of the cupboards as she fell past it.
“Well!” thought Alice to herself, “after such a fall as this, I shall think nothing of tumbling downstairs! How brave they’ll all think of me at home! Why, I wouldn’t say anything about it, even if I fell off the top of the house!” (which was most likely true.)
Down, down, down. Would the fall never come to an end? “I wonder how many miles I’ve fallen by this time?” she said aloud, “I must be getting somewhere near the center of the earth. Let me see: that would be four thousand miles down, I think—” (for you see Alice had learned several things of this sort in her lessons in the schoolroom, and though this was not a very good opportunity of showing off her knowledge, as there was no one to hear her, still it was good practice to say it over,) “yes that’s the right distance, but then what Longitude or Latitude-line shall I be in?” (Alice had no idea what Longitude was, or Latitude either, but she thought they were nice grand words to say.)
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Lewis Carroll
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898), better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English author, poet, mathematician and photographer. His most notable works are Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass (1871). He was noted for his facility with wordplay, logic, and fantasy. His poems Jabberwocky (1871) and The Hunting of the Snark (1876) are classified in the genre of literary nonsense.
Carroll came from a family of high-church Anglicans and developed a long relationship with Christ Church, Oxford, where he lived for most of his life as a scholar and teacher. Alice Liddell – a daughter of Henry Liddell, the Dean of Christ Church – is widely identified as the original inspiration for Alice in Wonderland, though Carroll always denied this.
An avid puzzler, Carroll created the word ladder puzzle (which he then called “Doublets”), which he published in his weekly column for Vanity Fair magazine between 1879 and 1881. In 1982 a memorial stone to Carroll was unveiled at Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey. There are societies in many parts of the world dedicated to the enjoyment and promotion of his works.
Early life
Dodgson’s family was predominantly northern English, conservative, and high-church Anglican. Most of his male ancestors were army officers or Anglican clergymen. His great-grandfather, Charles Dodgson, had risen through the ranks of the church to become the Bishop of Elphin in rural Ireland. His paternal grandfather, another Charles, had been an army captain, killed in action in Ireland in 1803 when his two sons were hardly more than babies. The older of these sons, yet another Charles Dodgson, was Carroll’s father. He went to Westminster School and then to Christ Church, Oxford. He reverted to the other family tradition and took holy orders. He was mathematically gifted and won a double first degree, which could have been the prelude to a brilliant academic career. Instead, he married his first cousin Frances Jane Lutwidge in 1830 and became a country parson.
Dodgson was born on 27 January 1832 at All Saints’ Vicarage in Daresbury, Cheshire, the oldest boy and the third oldest of 11 children. When he was 11, his father was given the living of Croft-on-Tees, Yorkshire, and the whole family moved to the spacious rectory. This remained their home for the next 25 years. Charles’ father was an active and highly conservative cleric of the Church of England who later became the Archdeacon of Richmond and involved himself, sometimes influentially, in the intense religious disputes that were dividing the church. He was high-church, inclining toward Anglo-Catholicism, an admirer of John Henry Newman and the Tractarian movement, and did his best to instill such views in his children. However, Charles developed an ambivalent relationship with his father’s values and with the Church of England as a whole.
During his early youth, Dodgson was educated at home. His “reading lists” preserved in the family archives testify to a precocious intellect: at the age of seven, he was reading books such as The Pilgrim’s Progress. He also spoke with a stammer – a condition shared by most of his siblings – that often inhibited his social life throughout his years. At the age of twelve, he was sent to Richmond Grammar School (now part of Richmond School) in Richmond, North Yorkshire.