'Curiouser and Curiouser!': Exploring Wonderland with Alice

Curated by Juli McLoone, Outreach Librarian & Curator, Special Collections Library (jmcloone@umich.edu) and Jo Angela Oehrli, Children's Literature Librarian, Shapiro Undergraduate Library (jooehrli@umich.edu).

Introduction

Now long-established as a classic, translated into more than 170 languages, and continually re-interpreted for new generations of readers, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland has become a touchstone of childhood in the modern imagination. In celebration of 150 years with Alice, we invite you to explore the curious creatures and landscapes of Wonderland through a selection of Alice editions and other related materials.  

"Curiouser and Curiouser!": Exploring Wonderland with Alice

Charles Dodgson (better known as Lewis Carroll, the author of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland) was the eldest son and the third..

In Conversation with Earlier Genres

George Herbert’s (1593-1633) most influential work The Temple was published posthumously in 1633 and contains two of the most famous..

Literary Fairy Tales in the 19th Century

In the early to mid-19th century, much children's literature consisted of heavily didactic informational essays and accounts of exemplary children..

Publishing the First Edition

Lewis Carroll presented the 90-page manuscript of Alice’s Adventures Under Ground to Alice Liddell on November 26, 1864, more than two..

Playful Parodies: "How Doth the Little Crocodile"

In Alice, Carroll satirizes the moralizing texts commonly provided to children during the Victorian Age.  In this 1980s-era, comic book..

Playful Parodies: "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Bat"

Children were expected to memorize many different poems during the Victorian era.  Carroll builds on these poems by refashioning them..

The Mouse's Tail/Tale

Foreshadowing the nonsense trial at the end of the book, The Mouse’s Tale describes why the Mouse that Alice meets..

Interpretive Illustrations

Although Sir John Tenniel’s illustrative decisions are often taken as cannon, the text of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland offers few explicit descriptions..

Interpretive Translation

Lewis Carroll’s Alice is unmistakably rooted in the trappings of upper-middle-class Victorian England, with its tea parties, croquet matches, and..

Alice Products: The Wonderland Postage-Stamp Case

Alice Products: An Alice Card Game

Marketing Alice

Published together with Peter Pan, this abridged version of Alice typifies how the story has been revised for children through..

Interpreting Alice for Today

Alice as Inspiration

Lewis Carroll acknowledged the temptation to continue Alice’s story when he wrote his own sequel, Through the Looking-Glass, and What..

Down the Rabbit Hole

Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is considered one of the first portal fantasies, a genre that presents the reader with a completely..