The secret love of Lewis Carroll, or the real story of "Alice in Wonderland"

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Alice in Wonderland is one of the most famous children's fairy tales in the world. And despite the fact that almost everyone can tell about the events of a fictional story, few people know the true story of this book and the girl in general, who turned the world of mathematics upside down …

It all started with a mathematician at Oxford University named Charles Dodgson. He was photographing the chapel when the Liddell family left the house. Henry Liddell was dean of the University of Oxford at Christ Church and lived on campus with his wife and ten children. On the day he met Dodgson, Mr. Liddell took his three daughters with him - Edith, Loreena and Alice (Alice). Photography was a huge rarity at that time, so the family was very happy that Dodgson took their family portrait.

Dodgson got along well with the children and spent a lot of time in the nursery, playing with the Liddell offspring. He began to entertain the children with a story about a magical place called Wonderland. Alice was then only four years old, but she was the most powerful, confident and adventurous of the three girls. The man was fascinated by the little girl and she became his muse. He eventually wrote down this story of the wizarding world and published Alice's Adventures in Wonderland under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll. In addition, Alice herself asked him to turn this story into a book, because she was fascinated by Wonderland. Dodgson himself could not even imagine that over time his book would become a worldwide phenomenon, and that scientists would analyze his life for many years, revealing those dark secrets that may have been hidden in his tortured mind.

Throughout the year, Dodgson wrote stories and practiced illustrations, drawing real rabbits and trying to copy the faces from his photographs of Alice in meticulous detail. All the faces of his characters looked rather sad, and some believe that the finicky white rabbit was created in the image of the writer. After completing the perfect manuscript, he presented it to Alice Liddell as a Christmas present in a homemade book called Alice's Adventures Under Ground. On the first page was written: "In memory of a summer day."

Through some of his connections at Oxford, he wrote additional chapters to the story and published the book through Macmillan. It became a bestseller almost immediately, but Charles Dodgson wanted to continue his quiet life as an Oxford mathematics professor and keep Lewis Carroll apart from his daily life. Later he was going to publish a sequel called "Through the Looking Glass".

Mental disorder and a genuine interest in children

While Lewis Carroll was a famous author who was loved all over the world, Charles suffered from dyslexia throughout his life, which made it difficult for him to read, and this is probably why he preferred to work with numbers as a mathematician. He also had a speech impediment that caused him to stutter, which is why he never became a full-fledged priest. He could never speak in front of a crowd of adults. But anyway, he had no problem speaking clearly with children. Some people believed that he also had OCD, because in her autobiography, Alice Liddell said that Dodgson always stood completely upright, his clothes never was out of place, and he was very picky about neatness. He also suffered from migraines so severe that he could not even lie down.

He also spent a suspiciously large amount of time with little girls instead of making adult friends. Witnesses said that he made friends, children, whom he met almost everywhere he went, and asked their parents if they could be photographed. This became one of the biggest controversies because he took some pictures of young girls when they were completely naked. It would be illegal today and would quickly lead him to jail. However, it was then considered an artistic expression glorifying childhood innocence, and the parents gave their consent for their child to participate in the photo shoot, and probably stood nearby when it happened. He also wrote letters to Alice, saying that he would like to kiss her and even asked her for a lock of hair, which at that time seemed a very romantic gesture.

As a member of the Christ Church Department of Oxford, he was part of a group of religious scholars who led a celibate life. Although he became a reverend, he was not a priest, and technically he could marry someday if he wanted to. But their academic order taught that sex got in the way of thinking clearly. He was taught to suppress any sexual feelings he might have because they were all considered sinful.

In some of his letters to friends, he said that he loved children, but not boys. And some even suggest that he could be a pedophile. However, the people who defended and defend him argue that these assumptions are mostly taken out of the context of talking about preferences in the photographic art, not about sexual attraction. Plus, there is no conclusive evidence that he ever abused children.

One of the most controversial photographs of Alice Liddell, taken when she was six years old. The photo shows a girl posing as a beggar maid. Her dress is ripped and falls off her shoulders, exposing her breasts. She put one hand on her hip and stared sharply into the camera. Her eyes appear to be much older than those of a young girl. Modern scientists find this photograph unsettling and believe that it suggests Carroll was trying to sexualize it. However, historians say that during the Victorian era, it was completely normal for middle-class children to dress up in costumes and pose for the camera. In fact, Alice wore other costumes that were much more appropriate for her age.

Many scientists agree that he had romantic feelings for Alice, but he tried very hard to suppress them. Reading his diaries, it becomes clear that the days when he saw Alice were much more emotional for him. He often lost sleep. During the interview, Alice Liddell's great-granddaughter, Vanessa Tate, said:. Given that Dodgson was always in the company of her nanny or parents when he saw Alice, it is unlikely that anything inappropriate actually happened. thoughts, he scrolled the numbers in his head. Since he was completely chaste, this could very well be related to sex with adult women, but it was clear from his diaries, letters and publications that he had driven all his feelings deep inside in order to survive.

When rumors of his dark motives behind his friendship with little girls became public, dozens of letters came from the women who grew up around him. They all claimed that he kissed them on the cheek or on the top of the head, and from time to time they sat on his lap, but they never went beyond this action. This kind of relationship was not as strange in the Victorian era as it might seem today.

Alice Liddell's Life Is Not In Wonderland

Years before child stars hit television and movies, Alice Liddell became famous for being the real Alice in Wonderland. Pictures of her were everywhere, so people knew what she looked like and where she lived. She could not calmly go out into the street. After all, people from all sides asked hundreds of questions, commenting on the story.

The older the girl got, the less she wanted to be associated with the sensational character. And when she was eleven years old, her family stopped being friends with Charles, but he still somehow managed to photograph her when she was eighteen years old. It is easy to see in the photo that she looks very unhappy and very constrained. It could also be due to the fact that it was shortly after the death of her sister Edith. Life was no longer the magical place where it was once a little girl. For most of her adult life, she tried to move on and live by her own rules, raising a family in the English countryside.

But in her eighty years, Alice seemed to perceive the association with this character much more, comparing some moments in life with that very girl from Wonderland. And even when she died, the story of Alice did not leave her, for centuries frozen with the inscription on the gravestone "Alice in Wonderland".

Drugs or mental disorder

Since Alice in Wonderland is a very strange story filled with surreal and even frightening imagery of colorful imagination, there are many people who suggest that Lewis Carroll must have been high when he wrote these books. At the very least, they believe that hints of psychedelic are scattered throughout the pages.

According to people, this story is full of mind-altering drugs, and the caterpillar must have been smoking opium as it was virtually legal at the time. The pieces of mushrooms could be a reference to the Solasiban mushrooms, and the bottles of mysterious liquids that Alice drinks could be a medicinal tincture of laudanum. However, Professor Dr. Heather Worthington of Cardiff University believes that the notion that there are hidden messages about drugs comes from the hippie culture of the 1960s, and that people are imposing their modern feelings on the past.

There are several parts of this story that have cocky political comments or jokes that are meant to be understood by adults. For example, the Cheshire Cat engages Alice in a semi-intellectual philosophy talk that was to be an inside joke for his friends at Oxford. It is possible that he also included some hidden drug reports, but there is no evidence that this was his intention.

Today, medical discoveries have revealed details of a neuropsychological condition called Todd's syndrome. It is caused by severe migraines. People who suffer from this have an idea that objects are getting larger or smaller. They know it's not real, but it's a visual hallucination. For some people who suffer from these hallucinations, this can occur during childhood and eventually disappear when their brains are fully developed. This is exactly what happens in the stories of Lewis Carroll. Alice drinks a mysterious liquid from a bottle, and it gets bigger and smaller as the objects around her change. This is why Todd's Syndrome is better known by the nickname "Alice in Wonderland Syndrome".

Is this a coincidence, or was Lewis writing about his own personal experience? There is already evidence that he suffered from severe migraines, and Alice in Wonderland Syndrome is actually a migraine aura phenomenon. Some modern theorists question whether the scenes in this story are a way for the author to explain his real experiences in a context where it was not seemingly so insane. If he wrote about this in the story through the character Alice, he would finally be able to express to the world what his childhood was like.

Lewis is known to have drunk laudanum, which is suspected to be the contents of a small bottle that Alice drinks in the story. Laudanum was part of opium, morphine, and codeine. It was used to treat pain during the Victorian era, but it was highly addictive. It might also contribute to his list of medical and personal concerns.

John Tenniel

When Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was to be published by Macmillan, Lewis had to work with one of the finest children's illustrators of the day, John Tenniel. Several new chapters were added to the book that never existed in the version given to Alice, including the Mad Tea Party, which eventually became one of the most iconic scenes in history. Without Tenniel's help, this story might not have captured the imaginations of so many people if they had preserved Carroll's original drawings.

Since all these creatures existed in Lewis's mind, he had to try to explain some rather strange concepts to Tenniel. For example, such as playing cards that could walk and talk, and creatures that simply did not exist in reality, like the Jabberwock in Through the Looking Glass and what Alice discovered there. Whenever the illustration did not match what Carroll imagined, he sent it back and asked Tenniel to repeat it all over again. One can only imagine how frustrating it was for an artist accustomed to receiving a lot of praise for his work. There was one chapter in this story that caused John so much grief that he apparently told Lewis to get rid of it. It was the scene where Alice meets Wasp, who used to have blonde curly hair. But she went bald so she had to wear a ridiculous looking wig. The artist apparently told Carroll:. But nevertheless, despite his words, a sketch of the Wasp in a wig still exists.

Friendship is over

One day in 1863, the friendship between the Liddell family and Charles broke up. He carefully wrote down his daily life in a diary and for five months did not mention the Liddells at all until he saw them at a Christmas party in December of that year. He wrote that he had to hide in order not to run into them. They eventually met for tea, but it was excruciatingly awkward and it was clear that friendship could not be restored. When he died, his nieces inherited his diaries. They decided to cut pages from what happened that day, hiding evidence that everyone believed would damage their family's reputation. To this day, the exact details of the reason for the end of their friendship remain a mystery. As if the truth behind this case was so traumatic that his nieces preferred it never to be associated with the memory of their uncle.

In a letter that Carroll's niece wrote to a friend, she says that the cut-out pages from the diary explain that Mrs. Liddell was plotting to set him up with the children's governess, Mary Prickett. Obviously, the assumption that he was trying to court Mary Prickett was the only reason a grown man was allowed to spend so much time with his children in the nursery. In middle-class families, it was the mother's job to ensure that the nanny of her children found a suitable husband. However, Lewis would never have married Mary. He actually based the evil Red Queen's character on her because she always snapped at the kids when they misbehaved. Mrs Liddell also apparently allowed him to court Alice's older sister, Loreena. Then she was fourteen years old. At the time, the age of consent was only twelve years old, so it was considered normal for a mother seeking to marry her daughters, whereas today it would be considered child abuse. Some people believe that he may have replied to Mrs Liddell that if he ever married any of the girls, he would rather wait a year to marry Alice, who was eleven at the time. This, of course, is only an assumption, but in his diaries it is clear that he had some kind of feelings for her.

According to Alice's great-great-granddaughter Vanessa Tate, Alice's mother was very chic and arrogant. She wanted her daughters to marry royalty, and people like Charles would never be good enough for Alice. As the most beautiful and intelligent daughter of all three, she would most likely marry royalty. Tate believes that even if he never actually asked her to marry Alice, Mrs. Liddell did her best to break off their friendship and prevent any chance of romance between them.

After a mysterious quarrel, Mrs. Liddell burned all the letters Alice received from Dodgson. Even as a reverend, Charles could marry and have children like his own father. However, he never found another woman with whom he would like to spend the rest of his life. In one of his diary entries, he wrote:. But the great writer-mathematician died a bachelor, never connecting his life with Alice …

As it turned out, passions are raging not only around writers and their muses, whose works, causing many questions, grow into real detective stories.