"On a summer's day in 1858, in a garden behind Christ Church College in Oxford, Charles Dodgson, a lecturer in mathematics, photographed six-year-old Alice Liddell, the daughter of the college dean, with a Thomas Ottewill Registered Double Folding camera, recently purchased in London. Simon Winchester deftly uses the resulting image--as unsettling as it is famous, and the subject of bottomless speculation--as the vehicle for a brief excursion behind the lens, a focal point on the origins of a classic work of English literature. Dodgson's love of photography framed his view of the world, and was partly responsible for transforming a shy and half-deaf mathematician into one of the world's best-loved observers of childhood. Little wonder that there is more to ""Alice Liddell as the Beggar Maid"" than meets the eye. Using Dodgson's published writings, private diaries, and of course his photographic portraits, Winchester gently exposes the development of Lewis Carroll and the making of his Alice."
By:
Simon Winchester Imprint: Oxford University Press Inc Country of Publication: United States Dimensions:
Height: 214mm,
Width: 147mm,
Spine: 16mm
Weight: 279g ISBN:9780195396195 ISBN 10: 0195396197 Pages: 128 Publication Date:01 June 2011 Audience:
General/trade
,
ELT Advanced
Format:Hardback Publisher's Status: Active
Reviews for The Alice Behind Wonderland
engaging account The Lady sensitive and erudite read Sunday Express Mr Winchester elegantly written study provides a balanced, sympathetic portrait of a complex and gifted man. Wall Street Journal