Rising Tide: Alice Pleasance Liddell

When I first thought about using this short piece as part of a blog I had two concerns: one, that it would be a conceit on my part; after all, tens if not hundreds of thousands of things have been written and said about Lewis Carroll and Alice over the 150 years that have passed since that fateful day in 1862 when Alice’s Adventures Underground were first told to the three little girls in the boat on the Thames; and second, was I to be treading on the toes of Melanie Benjamin, author of the novel detailing Alice’s life, a fictional account but one incorporating all the facts that are actually known? For the various aficionados of math or photography history there is plenty for them in the life and times of Lewis Carroll.

To give just a clue as to the daunting nature of this minor task consider: there have been over 8400 editions of Lewis Carroll’s work, translated into 171 languages, and illustrated by over 1000 artists. This does not mention the dozens of stage, screen, and TV adaptations of the tales.

I decided to take the chance because Benjamin’s recent book is such a good read that it needs the publicity, and, two, most people today don’t realize that “Alice In Wonderland” is no longer children’s fare, children today being so far removed from the Victorian culture in which these stories are steeped. However, it is Alice that draws our attention, not Lewis Carroll. He has plenty of advocates and commentators and needs no more.

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Alice, of ‘Alice in Wonderland’, born in 1852, had an interesting but somewhat mysterious relationship with Lewis Carroll, pen name of the Rev Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. Alice was strictly a product of the upper classes in that Victorian age. Her father, Henry Liddell (rhymes with ‘fiddle’), was the Dean of Christ Church College at Oxford. The family occupied luxurious quarters in the college. He had a lifetime job and was at the highest social level. Christ Church College, in fact, catered to royalty. His wife, Lorina, was the social lion and vigorously managed not only her family with an iron hand but all social engagements for the Dean and the College.

At the age of seven, much too young to have structured feelings, especially concerning sex, Alice knew that this interesting man who told such wonderful stories was very special. She also knew that she was the dominant one of this strange relationship; she owned him, in a sense, and she took pleasure in this knowledge of superiority over him. Her sisters, one older and one younger than she, may have been jealous of this apparent fact. It was Alice at the age of ten who convinced Dodgson to publish the tale that he had told the girls on July 4, 1862 in the boat on the Thames. He produced a handmade leather bound book titled ‘Alice’s Adventures Underground’ complete with his own hand drawn illustrations for her.

With no evidence it is believed that Dodgson may have approached Alice’s mother with the suggestion that he might formally court Alice when she became of age for such activity, 14 in those Victorian times. We do know that Alice’s trove of letters was burned by her mother and the relationship with Dodgson was effectively suppressed. The mother had other ideas for Alice; no impecunious Oxford don with a stammer and strange habits for her daughter. Also, somewhat mysteriously, three of Dodgson’s diaries for that period were destroyed after his death in 1898, presumably by his family.

Alice grew to young womanhood within the confines of the college and eventually at the age of about 17 became an acquaintance of Prince Leopold, Victoria’s youngest son, a hemophiliac. The evidence is entirely circumstantial but very compelling that these two fell madly in love on meeting at formal balls typical of the day. Leopold was a student at Christ Church College at the time. There is strong suspicion that the relationship was ended when Victoria was made aware of Dodgson’s relationship to Alice by either Alice’s mother or her older sister, who was undoubtedly jealous of Alice’s relationship with the very popular Mr. Dodgson. The undeniable support for this imagined series of events lie in the fact that Leopold, married by Royal Decree to a minor continental princess, named his second child, a girl, Alice, and Alice named her second son in her marriage to Reginald Hargreaves, Leopold.

Alice and Reginald lived out most of their lives on his small estate near the New Forest and raised three sons. The youngest, Caryl, was the only one to survive WWI. Until that tragic period Alice was never sure she really loved Reginald even though he was as kind and generous and loving as any husband could possibly be. After their tragic loss Alice realized that she really did love Reginald and that she had been living a fantasy for all the preceding decades.

When Reginald died in 1926 Alice fell on hard times. Servants were not the same and besides she could hardly afford any. The estate had fallen into severe disarray and disrepair. Caryl was of little help, spending most of his time in London. His help consisted of suggesting she open a tea room and capitalize on her name as “Alice” of Wonderland fame. It was then in these desperate times that she chanced onto the little book that had been given her by Lewis Carroll, hand done. She and Caryl took it to Sotheby’s in London and put it up for sale at auction. It brought a fabulous price paid by an American buyer and the proceeds saved the estate and essentially put them back on easy street. That little book, through the generosity of Americans, made its way back to Britain and is now in the British Museum. Actual photographic images of the pages of this book are available on line. It is fascinating to examine Carroll’s style of hand printing and drawing.

The pictures below tell a lot of the story. The first is of Alice at 7, the second at 17 and probably reflecting her mood with the devastating loss of her true adult love, Prince Leopold, and the third of Alice at 80.