"Alice's Adventures in Wonderland," a movie directed by Tim Burton and starring Mia Wasikowska as Alice and Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter, opened on March 5.
A variety of editions of the classic tale by Lewis Carroll are available for those who would rather read the book than see a movie.
For those interested in the history of the book, The Mystery of Lewis Carroll: Discovering the Whimsical, Thoughtful, and Sometimes Lonely Man Who Created "Alice in Wonderland" by Jenny Woolf (St. Martin's Press, February 2010, $27.99) will provide plenty of background. It relies on new sources and sheds new light on rumors about the author.
Lewis Carroll is the nom de plume of mathematician and author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson.
It's long been rumored that Dodgson was in love with 11-year-old Alice Liddell, who inspired his Alice in Wonderland. She was the daughter of his dean at Oxford.
Woolf uses Carroll's accounts ledger and his unpublished correspondence with Alice Liddell's family to flesh out her book.
Woolf tries to dispel some of the worst rumors about Carroll - that he was repressed, in love with adolescent girls and had affairs with married women. She covers his love of photography and penchant for taking nude photographs of the children of friends - a common practice during the Victorian age rather than an indication of pedophilia. There's no evidence that he harmed any children, although some say he wanted to marry 11-year-old Alice Liddell. Four lost volumes of his 13-volume personal diaries might tell more about that rumor, if they're ever found.
Woolf found Dodgson's personal bank account, forgotten and unnoticed in an archive for over a hundred years. Once transcribed and interpreted, it revealed much about him.
Woolf uses other documents and family letters from archives all over the world to piece together Carroll's life.
Reference: http://southernreviewofbooks.blogspot.com/2010/04/biographer-says-alice-in-wonderlands.html
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