Alice in Wonderland blog (2024)

This year’s Alice’s Day will be held on the 6th of July in Oxford – and I have been invited to give one of the talks for the Lewis Carroll Society!

Each year around the 4th of July (the day the Wonderland story arose), Alice’s Day is held in Oxford, UK. The whole city celebrates all things Alice in Wonderland, with many activities for both children and adults. On Saturday 6 July 2024 there will be another celebration, and this year’s theme is ‘Fabulous Monsters and Curious Creatures’. Dressing up is highly encouraged!

Activities include playing croquet, making a giant Jabberwock sculpture, Wonderland facepainting, performances, exhibitions, walks, and much more.

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In the UK there is currently an exhibition of Alice in Wonderland illustrations printed directly from the original wood blocks. They are also for sale.

To be able to print John Tenniel’s illustrations, his illustrations were engraved in wood blocks. To avoid wear of these precious wood blocks, they were not used for the actual printing, but as masters from which electrotype copies would be made. (You can read more about this process on my website). The use of electrotypes does result in a slight loss of definition.

In 1981 the original wood engraved blocks were discovered in deed boxes belonging to Macmillan, the original publishers. Jonathan Stephenson at the Rocket Press subsequently printed 250 sets from these blocks – the first and last time that they were used for actual printing.

These prints, for both Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass and what Alice found there, are now exhibited in Adam’s Gallery. You can buy individual prints, as well as complete sets of all engravings in their original boxes.

Date: 4th April to 26th May 2024
Location: Adam’s Gallery, Reigate, UK
More information: https://www.adamsgallery.co.uk/alice-in-wonderland

For the anniversary of the publication of “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”, there is an exhibition of both the original illustrations from John Tenniel as well as a collection of illustrations from three other artists. The exhibition will move from Yokohama to Osaka, Japan.

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The University of Oxford offers a course about Lewis Carroll and his ‘Alice’ books this summer.

The course will explore Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” and “Through the Looking-Glass”, their origins in Oxford – town and gown, architecture, personalities, hidden histories and controversies. It will also cast a look beyond Oxford, to Alice’s further adventures in art and popular culture, science and politics and, finally, take a fresh look at the question of why, 150 years later, Alice is still so fascinating to us.

The course is part of the University of Oxford’s “Inspiring Oxford” summer school and is taught by dr. Franziska Kohlt, a well-known Lewis Carroll scholar.

Date: 14 to 20 July 2024
Location: Oxford, UK
Costs: from £1970
Registration: between 30 January and 1 May. (Don’t wait too long; this course fills up quickly!)
More information: https://www.conted.ox.ac.uk/courses/lewis-carrolls-oxford-and-the-surprising-histories-of-alices-wonderland

A bibliography of all English language editions of “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”, “Through the Looking-Glass and what Alice found there”, “Alice’s Adventures under Ground”, and “The Nursery ‘Alice’” has just been published!

In 2015, after years of work and with contributions from many Carrollians (including me), the three volume publication “Alice in a World of Wonderlands: The Translations of Lewis Carroll’s Masterpiece” was published: an overview of all translations of “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” and “Through the Looking-Glass and what Alice found there” ever published around the world, supplemented with various interesting essays about the works and their translations. A very useful reference work and a wonderful example of what a community can achieve.

Since visitors of my website regularly contact me asking whether I can tell them more about an old edition of an ‘Alice’ book that they have in their possession, I then wondered whether an overview of all English-language editions in the world might also exist. So I asked Jon Lindseth, the project leader of “Alice in a World of Wonderlands”, if he was aware of the existence of such a list. My question apparently stimulated him, because instead of just answering “No, there isn’t one”, he decided to turn this into another project! To make not only an inventory of all English editions of “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” and “Through the Looking-Glass and what Alice found there”, but also of “Alice’s Adventures under Ground” and “The Nursery ‘Alice’”. And I was assigned the task of cataloging all the English-language editions of “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” and “Through the Looking-Glass” that had been released in all non-English-speaking countries of the world.

The project took 7 years, but I’m happy and honoured to now be able to present to you: the two volumes of “Alice in a World of Wonderlands: The English Language Editions of the Four Alice Books Published Worldwide”!

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I am very happy to announce that my book “Alice’s Adventures under Water” is now also available as eBook!

My book came out in 2021 as a paperback and I was regularly asked whether it was also available for eReaders. Well, it finally is!

The story is available in two formats: ePub and Kindle.
The ePub version can be downloaded from my website (cheapest option), Kobo, and Google Books.
The Kindle reader version can be downloaded from Amazon.

It’s out just in time for Christmas, so you can put it on your wish list, buy it as a gift for a fellow Alice in Wonderland lover, or treat yourself to something to read during the holidays!

Karen Gardiner published her thesis called “A New Evaluation: The Theological Influence of F. D. Maurice on the Imaginative Works of Lewis Carroll.”

The thesis explores how the fictional work of Lewis Carroll was influenced by mid nineteenth century eschatological ideas and controversies, particularly in relation to how eternity was understood and explored by F. D. Maurice and other Broad Church theologians who were friends and acquaintances of Carroll.

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