Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

15 Feb, 2024 800 Literature, rhetoric and criticism

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Lewis Carroll’s book which first appeared in print in 1865 with illustrations by John Tenniel. It has since become one of the best known works in English, captivating readers who follow young Alice as she chases a white rabbit, pink eyed, in a waistcoat with pocket watch, down a rabbit hole that becomes a well and into wonderland. There she meets the Cheshire Cat, the Hatter, the March Hare, the Mock Turtle and more, all the while growing smaller and larger, finally outgrowing everyone at the trial of Who Stole the Tarts from the Queen of Hearts and exclaiming ‘Who cares for you? You’re nothing but a pack of cards!’

→ Play on BBC Sounds website

Guests

  • Franziska Kohlt 2 episodes
    Leverhulme Research Fellow in the History of Science at the University of Leeds and the Inaugural Carrollian Fellow of the University of Southern California
  • Kiera Vaclavik No other episodes
    Professor of Children's Literature and Childhood Culture at Queen Mary, University of London
  • Robert Douglas-Fairhurst No other episodes
    Professor of English Literature at Magdalen College, University of Oxford

Reading list

  • Alice: Curiouser and Curiouser
    Kate Bailey and Simon Sladen (eds) (V&A Publishing, 2021)
  • Alice in Space: The Sideways Victorian World of Lewis Carroll
    Gillian Beer (University of Chicago Press, 2016) Google Books →
  • Alice's Adventures: Lewis Carroll and Alice in Popular Culture
    Will Brooker (Continuum, 2004)
  • Secret Gardens: A Study of the Golden Age of Children's Literature
    Humphrey Carpenter (Faber and Faber, 2009) Google Books →
  • The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition
    Lewis Carroll (introduced by Martin Gardner) (W. W. Norton & Company, 2000) Google Books →
  • Alice in Wonderland Through the Visual Arts
    Gavin Delahunty and Christoph Benjamin Schulz (eds) (Tate Publishing, 2011) Google Books →
  • The Story of Alice: Lewis Carroll and the Secret History of Wonderland
    Robert Douglas-Fairhurst (Harvill Secker, 2015) Google Books →
  • Fairy Tale Fashion
    Colleen Hill (Yale University Press, 2016) Google Books →
  • Alice through the Wonderglass: The Surprising Histories of a Children's Classic
    Franziska Kohlt (Reaktion, forthcoming 2025)
  • Alice: Through the Looking-Glass: A Companion
    Franziska Kohlt and Justine Houyaux (eds.) (Peter Lang, forthcoming 2024)
  • Lewis Carroll: Formed by Faith
    Charlie Lovett (University of Virginia Press, 2022) Google Books →
  • The Field of Nonsense
    Elizabeth Sewell (Dalkey Archive Press, 2016) Google Books →
  • Listening to the Alice books
    Kiera Vaclavik (Journal of Victorian Culture, Volume 26, Issue 1, January 2021)
  • Lewis Carroll's Photography and Modern Childhood
    Diane Waggoner (Princeton University Press, 2020) Google Books →
  • The Man and his Circle
    Edward Wakeling (IB Tauris, 2014) Google Books →
  • The Photographs of Lewis Carroll: A Catalogue Raisonne
    Edward Wakeling (University of Texas Press, 2015) Google Books →

Related episodes

Programme ID: m001w7f9

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001w7f9

Auto-category: 800 (Literature)

Hello (First sentence from this episode) Hello. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland first appeared in print in 1865.