On August 2, 1865, Macmillan published the first edition of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
SmartNews decided to choose the 5 most interesting facts related to this famous fairy tale.
hatter
There is a character in the tale called the Hatter or the Mad Hatter. The name Mad Hatter owes its origin to the English proverb "mad as a hatter". The appearance of such a proverb is due to the fact that in the 19th century, craftsmen who made hats often suffered from excitability, impaired speech, and trembling hands. The health disorder of the hatters was caused by chronic mercury poisoning. A solution of mercury was used to process hat felt. As you know, toxic mercury vapor affects the central nervous system.
Cheshire Cat
The Cheshire Cat was not in the original version of the tale. This character was added to the tale in 1865. The enigmatic smile of the Cheshire Cat is attributed by some to the then-popular saying "smiles like a Cheshire cat." Some researchers believe that the famous Cheshire cheese was given the appearance of a smiling cat. According to another version, Carroll was inspired to come up with this character by a sandstone cat figure, which was installed near the church of St. Wilfrid in the village of Grappenhall.
Dormouse Mouse
The character of the Dormouse Mouse in the book "Alice in Wonderland" was periodically in the teapot. This can be explained by the fact that children at that time kept dormouse as pets in teapots. The kettles were filled with grass and hay.
Turtle Quasi
The Quasi Turtle character in Lewis Carroll's book often cries. This is due to the fact that sea turtles often have tears. They help turtles remove salt from the body.
About creating the book:
· Many scenes of the fairy tale have been analyzed by scientists and researchers of various fields of knowledge. So, in the episode when Alice falls into a hole, she asks questions of logical positivism. And cosmologists saw in the scenes of increasing and decreasing Alice the impact of a theory that tells about the expansion of the Universe. Also in the fairy tale they saw a hidden satire on Darwin's theory of evolution and the theory of natural selection (episodes with a sea of tears and running in circles).
· The book contains 11 poems, which were a kind of parody of the moralizing songs and poems of that time. Their perception is difficult for the modern reader, it is especially difficult to understand the writer's skillful play on words in the book's translations.
· Early reviews of the book were more negative than positive. One of the magazines in 1900 called the tale too unnatural and overloaded with oddities, calling Carroll's work a fairy tale-dream.
· The book contains a huge number of mathematical, philosophical and linguistic allusions, so not every adult can understand all the subtleties of the book. This work is considered the best example of the absurd genre in literature.
· Mad characters Hatter and March Hare were borrowed by Carroll from English proverbs: "crazy as a hatter" and "crazy as a March hare". This behavior of hares can be easily explained by the mating season, and the hatter's madness is due to the fact that in ancient times mercury was used to make felt, and mercury poisoning causes mental disorders.
· In the original version of the tale, the Cheshire Cat was absent. Carroll added it only in 1865. Many are still arguing about the origin of this character’s mysterious smile: some say that at that time the saying “smiles like a Cheshire cat” was very popular, others are sure that this is due to the fact that the look of a smiling cat was once given to the famous Cheshire cheese.
· In honor of most of the names that were associated with the book (including the prototype of the main character - Alice Liddell), and the names of the characters themselves, minor planets were named by astronomers.
· The original book "Alice in Wonderland" had the title "Alice's Adventures Underground" and was personally illustrated by the author. Lewis Carroll is the pseudonym of Charles Ludwidge Dodgson. He was a professor of mathematics at Oxford.
Movie:
· There are many parallels to Alice in Wonderland in The Matrix, including some that can only be seen by reading the script. Offering two pills of Neo's choice, Morpheus says, "Choose the red one, you'll stay in Wonderland, and I'll show you how deep that rabbit hole goes." And when Neo makes the right choice, the face of Morpheus "appears the smile of the Cheshire cat."
In the film Resident Evil, the director used a lot of analogies of the film with the fairy tales of L. Carroll: the name of the main character, the name of the computer "Red Queen", the white rabbit, on which the effect of the T-virus and antivirus was tested, the passage to the "Umbrella Corporation" through mirror, etc.
In Tideland, Jeliza-Rose reads to her father excerpts from Alice in Wonderland, and reminiscences from Alice run throughout the film: bus ride, falling into a hole, a rabbit, Dell acting like the Duchess from Wonderland, like the White Queen from Through the Looking-Glass), etc.
Film by Tim Burton:
· In Tim Burton's film "Alice in Wonderland" Alice is already 19 years old. Randomly, she returns to Wonderland where she was thirteen years ago. She is told that she is the only one who can kill the Jabberwock, a dragon under the control of the Red Queen.
· An amazing coincidence - Tim Burton's London office is located in a house that once belonged to Arthur Rackham, the famous English artist, author of the legendary color illustrations for the 1907 edition of Alice in Wonderland.
Almost Alice - While working on the film "Alice in Wonderland" (Tim Burton), two music albums were born: the soundtrack to the film with music by Danny Elfman and "Almost Alice" (Almost Alice), a collection of 16 songs, which included the composition Avril Lavigne's "Alice (Underground)", played over the end credits of the film, as well as songs by other musicians inspired by the film. The title of the album is a quote from the movie. The entire Underground eagerly awaits Alice's return, but when she returns, no one - including Alice herself - believes that she is the correct Alice they once knew. In the end, the wise caterpillar Absolem concludes that in front of them is Almost Alice.
· Portraits of Johnny Depp - Actor Johnny Depp always prepares hard for every role, and the Mad Hatter is no exception. Long before filming began, the actor began painting watercolor portraits of the Mad Hatter. Later it turned out that his vision of the character largely coincides with the director's vision of Tim Burton.
· Mad Hatter Mood Indicator - The Mad Hatter is a victim of mercury poisoning. Unfortunately, in the old days, such incidents were a frequent occurrence among hatters, since chemistry was an invariable attribute of their craft. Depp and Burton found an original way to emphasize the Hatter's madness: he is like a mood ring; the slightest change in his emotional mood is instantly reflected not only on his face, but also in his clothes and appearance.
Changes - In real life, the height of Mia Wasikowska, who plays Alice, is 160 cm, but Alice's height changes more than once during her wanderings in Wonderland: from 15 cm to 60 cm, then up to 2.5 m, or even up to 6 meters! The filmmakers tried very hard to use practical methods on set rather than special effects. Sometimes Alice was placed on a box to make her appear taller than the others.
Drink Me - The Elixir that Alice drinks to shrink herself is called Pishsolver. The cake she eats to grow up is called Rastibulka (Upelkuchen).
Sour and sweet - Actress Anne Hathaway, who plays the White Queen, decided that her character would not be flawlessly white and fluffy. The White Queen shares the same bloodline as her sister, the evil Red Queen, which is why Hathaway calls her "a punk-rock pacifist and vegetarian". When creating this look, she was inspired by Blondie, Greta Garbo, Dan Flavin and Norma Desmond.
· Jig-how? - Jiga-Dryga (Futterwacken) is a term for a dance of unbridled joy performed by the inhabitants of the Underground. When it came to composing the music for this dance, composer Danny Elfman was puzzled. He wrote 4 different versions, each of which was funny, unique and, according to Elfman himself, "teetered on the edge of propriety."
· Twins - Actor Matt Lucas was cast as Tweedledum and Tweedledum, chubby twin brothers who constantly quarrel among themselves and whose ramblings are incomprehensible to anyone but themselves. However, Lucas (for some reason) could not portray both Tweedledum and Tweedledum at the same time. Help was sought from another actor, Ethan Cohen, who stood next to Lucas on set. However, it will not appear on the screen.
· Fitting and Fitting - Costume Designer Colleen Atwood worked tirelessly on Alice's costumes for Mia Wasikowska. After all, the heroine is constantly changing in size and often changes outfits, including a dress made from the curtains of the Red Queen's castle, and even knightly armor. Atwood had to find special fabrics for each size and tailor the costumes in such a way as to emphasize Alice's unexpected changes in height.
Leave his head! Crispin Glover plays Stein, the Knave of Hearts in the movie, but on screen we only see his head. The body of this 2.5-meter character is drawn on a computer. On the set, Glover moved around in a green suit and on stilts to appear taller. In addition, he was heavily made up (an eye patch and a scar complete the image). Stein's torso, armor and even his helmet were created using computer animation. The actor owns only the face.
Leave her face! - Helena Bonham Carter endured 3 hours every morning while makeup artists turned her into the Red Queen. During this time, the actress was sprinkled with white powder, blue shadows were applied to her eyes, her eyebrows and lips were painted in the shape of a perfect scarlet heart. After filming, special effects specialists enlarged the actress's head in the frame, completing the final image of the Red Queen.
Surprise soles - Costume designer Colleen Atwood painted scarlet hearts on the soles of the Red Queen's shoes. They can be seen when the royal person puts her feet on a live pig-stand.
Stilt Trouble - Crispin Glover spent most of his filming time on stilts. Once he fell off them and twisted his leg, after which stuntmen in green suits followed him around the site to catch him in the event of a new fall.
Bunny Friends - Tim Burton wanted the animals to appear on screen as real, not cartoon characters. Therefore, before starting work on the White Rabbit, the animators spent the whole day in a shelter for abandoned rabbits, watching the animals. They filmed a whole photo shoot to capture the finest nuances of rabbit facial expressions.
· From 2D to 3D - Director Tim Burton made the decision to shoot the film in a conventional, two-dimensional format and then convert it to 3D. The 3D conversion of his film The Nightmare Before Christmas made such an impression on Burton that he decided to follow the same path with Alice.
· Super Special Effects Specialist — Tim Burton turned to legendary special effects guru Ken Ralston and Sony Imageworks to help create Wonderland and its wondrous inhabitants. Ralston (who is responsible for the first Star Wars trilogy, as well as Forrest Gump and The Polar Express) and his team created over 2,500 visual effects shots. The film did not use "motion capture" technology; instead, the creators developed a combination of game scenes, animation and a whole range of other technical effects.
· All in Green - To represent the characters that would later be created by the animators, cardboard silhouettes, full-length models, or people in green with eyes glued to different parts of the body were used on set to help the actors choose the right direction of gaze.
· Caterpillar hair - While examining enlarged photographs of real caterpillars, the animators discovered that the caterpillars are hairy. Therefore, Absolem was provided with a beautiful animated head of hair.
· Handcrafted - Very few actual sets were built for Wonderland. Only three interiors of the Round Hall (where Alice falls down the rabbit hole) and the Red Queen's dungeons were built on the site. Everything else is computer generated.
· Mirror of the Soul - The Mad Hatter's eyes are slightly enlarged: they are 10-15% larger than Johnny Depp's eyes.
· Surf the Web - When the animators started working on the Dodo, the first thing they did was to search for its images in the Google search engine, and then in the London Natural History Museum.
Big Head - The Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter) was filmed using a special high resolution camera called the Dulsa, which allowed the character's head to be doubled in size without any loss in image quality.
Alice and Carroll:
Alice Liddell was the daughter of the dean of Christ Church College, Oxford, where the young writer Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) studied and later taught mathematics. Dodgson got to know their family and interacted with Alice over the years.
· The original version of his fantastic story, inventing on the go, the writer told the three Liddell sisters during a boat trip on the Thames. The main character was very similar to one of the girls, and the rest of the sisters were assigned secondary roles.
· Listening to Alice's requests, Carroll put his story on paper. In the same year, he gave the girl the first handwritten version of a book called Alice's Adventures Underground. After 64 years, after losing her husband, 74-year-old Alice auctioned a valuable gift and received £15,400 for it. After this event, a copy of the book was resold several times and found its rest in the British Library, where it can now be found.
· Carroll's literary character - the main character Alice - could have received a different name. At the birth of the girl, the parents thought for a long time whether to call her Marina. However, the name Alice was considered more appropriate.
Alice was a well-bred and gifted child - she was seriously engaged in painting. John Ruskin himself, the famous English painter of the 19th century, gave her lessons and found her paintings talented.
· In 1880, Alice married a student of Lewis Carroll - Reginald Hargreaves. One of the three sons was named Caryl by the young parents, probably in honor of the "procurer".
This year marks the 150th anniversary of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
Of course, now there are already and there will be many more publications on this topic, and each gives his own idea of the fantastic events in the life of Alice or Carroll.
Before breakfast, Alice said, there are six impossible things; but I offer you seven real things: little-known ideas in this special combination of madness and sanity, maturity and childhood of Alice in Wonderland.
The original title of the tale was Alice's Adventures Underground, and it would seem that our heroine was supposed to meet the Queen of Moles and not the Queen of Hearts.
Luckily, Carroll was self-critical enough to offer several options to his friend, writer and editor Tom Taylor.
Some titles, such as Alice in Among the Goblins, were even worse, but luckily Taylor helped with the selection and Carroll settled on the Wonderland we have today.
He called himself too cumbersome. Charles submitted four drafts to his editor for his consideration: Edgar Cuthwellis, Edgar U. C. Westhill, Louis Carroll, and Lewis Carroll.
2. Alice's story started on the same day.
It is not always possible to pinpoint the origin of a book in a single day, month or year, but with Alice we have that luxury thanks to the author's extensive notes.
On July 4, 1862, Carroll took little Alice Liddell and her sisters Laurina and Edith for a boat ride. To entertain the girls, he fashioned - seemingly out of thin air - a series of adventures in an unknown land in which Alice became the heroine.
(Lorina and Edith were given less glamorous roles: Laurie and Eaglet).
Enthralled by the stories, the girls asked Carroll to write down the tales. Two and a half years passed and Carroll completed the manuscript as a Christmas present in 1864.
3. Complex mathematics and Christian secret symbols in Alice's Adventures.
Carroll's father, a clergyman and later archdeacon, instilled in his eldest son a passion for mathematics and a strict adherence to Anglican doctrine.
Some critics, for example, saw the tale as Carroll's rebellion against the restraining socio-religious context of Victorian England.
Alice "fought", after all, against quirky characters who impose strict, nonsensical rules.
They wrote that the book refers to popular mathematical discoveries.
The Caterpillar, the Hatter and the Hare became irrational proponents of the new in mathematics, and the Cheshire Cat delighted the emissaries of Euclidean geometry, his smile is the shape of an ellipse.
4. Carroll's attitude towards Alice may not have been platonic.
Great book 150th anniversaries tend not to focus on negative stories, but Carroll's tale has a sinister side to it.
Although his recordings brought him fame, Carroll's main artistic preoccupation was the photography he produced.
Often his models were scantily clad girls. In fact, he wrote in his letters, "I don't think he would agree that girls' uniforms should ever be closed." (Recent biographers have attempted to normalize this behavior in the eyes of society and clear their name.)
The exact nature of their relationship is murky - his diaries from April 1858 to May 1862 are missing - but Alice played at least the problematic role of Carroll's little muse. (He was 20 years older than her).
In Alice's writings on this subject, no hints of sexual relations are found, but there is something clear in the photographs.
5. Alice has since become a muse for generations of artists and writers after Carroll - including Vladimir Nabokov.
Virginia Woolf: "Alice is not a children's book," she once said. "They are the books with which we become children."
Wolfe meant that these fairy tales restore the ability to think creatively. They remind adult readers how even the dystopian world of the heartless Queen of Hearts can become a series of delightful games.
The surrealists André Breton and Salvador Dali also took a particular interest in Wonderland.
Other writers were struck by the dark side of the tale. Vladimir Nabokov, who translated Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in Russia, was heavily influenced by Carroll's books when he wrote his classic Lolita.
6. There are about 20 first editions of the book - and only one original manuscript.
7. Alice's pictures can be even more important than her words.
Illustrations are secondary to most authors, but, as the Morgan exhibition highlighted, this is not Carroll's case. He made 37 pen and ink sketches for the original manuscript.
Although he had the eye of a photographer, he lacked the talent of a draftsman.
He invited Sir John Tenniel to make illustrations for Alice. Tenniel, as we know, is the first illustrator of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, whose illustrations are considered canonical today.
Lewis Carroll is nothing more than a pseudonym. Charles Dodgson did his best to distance himself from his alter ego, sending back letters from Alice fans marked "addressee unknown." But the fact remains: the books he created about Alice's travels brought him much more popularity than all his scholarly works.
1. Difficulties in translation
The book has been translated into 125 languages of the world. And it wasn't that easy. The thing is that if you translate the fairy tale literally, then all the humor and all its charm disappears - there are too many puns and witticisms based on the peculiarities of the English language. Therefore, it was not the translation of the book that enjoyed the greatest success, but the retelling of Boris Zakhoder. In total, there are about 13 options for translating a fairy tale into Russian. Moreover, in the first version, created by an anonymous translator, the book was called "Sonya in the Kingdom of the Diva." The next translation appeared almost 30 years later, and the cover read "Ani's Adventures in the World of Wonders." And Boris Zakhoder admitted that he considered the name “Alice in Wonderland” to be more appropriate, but decided that the public would not appreciate such a title.
Alice in Wonderland has been filmed 40 times, including animated versions. Alice even appeared on the Muppets show - where the role of the girl was played by Brooke Shields.
3. The Mad Hatter was not in the first edition of the book.
Yes, don't be surprised. The tactless, absent-minded, eccentric and extravagant Hatter, so brilliantly played by Johnny Depp, did not appear in the first version of the tale. By the way, in the translation by Nina Demiurova, recognized as the best of all existing ones, the character's name is Hatter. The fact is that in English hatter meant not only “hatter”, as they called people who do everything wrong. Therefore, we decided that our fools would be the closest analogue in Russian. So the Hatter became the Hatter. By the way, his name and character originated from the English saying "Mad as a hatter". At that time, it was believed that workers who create hats could go crazy due to exposure to mercury vapor, which was used to process felt.
By the way, the Hatter was not the only character who was not in the original version of Alice. The Cheshire cat also appeared later.
In fact, if we talk about illustrations, it is easier to name those who in their work bypassed the motives of "Alice". The most famous are the drawings of John Tenniel, who created 42 black and white illustrations for the first publication of the book. Moreover, each drawing was discussed with the author.
Fernando Falcon's illustrations leave an ambiguous impression - seemingly cute and childish, but it seems to be like a nightmare.
Jim Minji created illustrations in the best traditions of Japanese anime, Erin Taylor drew an African-style tea party.
And Elena Kalis illustrated Alice's adventures in photographs, transferring the events to the underwater world.
Salvador Dali painted 13 watercolors for different situations from the book. Probably, his drawings are not the most childish and not even the most understandable for an adult, but they are delightful.
Well, this is just not surprising. The whole Wonderland is a world of absurdity. Some vicious critics even called everything that happened in the book nonsense. However, we will ignore the attacks of too mundane personalities, alien to fantasy and devoid of imagination, and turn to the facts from the field of medicine. And the facts are as follows: among the mental disorders of a person there is micropsia - a condition when a person perceives objects and objects proportionally reduced. Or enlarged. Remember how Alice grew and then decreased? So here. A person with Alice in Wonderland syndrome can see an ordinary doorknob as if it were the size of the door itself. But much more often people perceive objects as if from afar. What is most terrible, a person in this state does not understand what really exists, and what only seems to him.
There are references to the work of Lewis Carroll in many books and films. One of the most famous implicit quotes is the phrase "Follow the white rabbit" in the science fiction action movie The Matrix. A little later in the film, another allusion pops up: Morpheus offers Neo two pills to choose from. By choosing the right one, Keanu Reeves' character finds out "how deep that rabbit hole goes." And on the face of Morpheus there is a smile of the Cheshire cat. In "Resident Evil" there is a whole bunch of analogies, ranging from the name of the main character - Alice, to the name of the central computer - "Red Queen". The action of the virus and antivirus was tested on a white rabbit, and to get into the corporation, one had to go through a mirror. And even in the horror movie "Freddie vs. Jason" there was a place for Carroll's heroes. One of the victims in the movie sees Freddy Krueger
Released in 1856, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was a success. In the story, the author fascinatingly combines the meaninglessness in children's literature.
Below are a few facts you may not have known about Alice and its author, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (better known as Lewis Carroll).
1 The Real Alice Was The Daughter Of Executive Carroll
The real Alice, who lent her name to the story, was the daughter of Henry Liddell, Dean of Sunday School at Oxford College, where Lewis Carroll worked as a math teacher. Everyone who worked at the school lived on campus. At the moment, there is an exhibition dedicated to "Alice" and her heroes.
It was here that Carroll met the sisters of the real Alice and got to know her entire family.
2. The Mad Hatter might not exist at all without the persistence of children.
When Carroll began telling a fantasy tale to the Liddell sisters in the summer of 1862 while walking along the Thames, he had no idea of being a children's writer. Little girls all the time demanded the continuation of an interesting story, so the author began to write "Adventures" in a diary, which, in the end, turned into a written novel. Such a gift was presented by Carroll to Alice for Christmas in 1864. By 1865, he had self-published the final version of Alice's Adventures, which doubled in length and added new scenes, including the Mad Hatter and the Cheshire Cat.
3. The illustrator hated the first edition
Carroll approached renowned English illustrator John Tenniel to create drawings for the story. When the author saw the first copy of the book, he was very indignant at how poorly the illustrator reflected his intentions. Carroll tried to buy up the entire print run with his small salary, so that he could then reprint it. However, Alice sold out quickly and was an instant success. The book was also released in a limited edition in America.
4. Alice in Wonderland was first filmed in 1903
Some time after Carroll's death, directors Cecil Hepworth and Percy Stowe decided to turn the story into a 12-minute movie. At the time, it became the longest film made in the UK. Hepworth played the Frog Footman himself in the film, while his wife became the White Rabbit and the Queen.
5. Carroll almost titled the story "Alice's Clock in Elvengard"
Riding on the Thames for the afternoon, Carroll decided to write a continuation of the story of Alice for the Liddell sisters. He came up with several titles for his story. The original text of the tale, submitted by 10-year-old Liddell, was called Alice's Underground Adventure. However, since its publication, Carroll has decided that he can call it "Alice's Clock in Elvengard". There have also been thoughts of calling the story "Alice Among the Fairies". However, he settled on the "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" option.
6. Ridicule of newfangled mathematical theories
Scientists have suggested that Carroll in his story ridiculed mathematical theories, innovative for the 19th century, in general, as well as imaginary numbers. For example, the riddles that the Mad Hatter asked Alice were a reflection of the increasing abstraction that was taking place in mathematics in the 19th century. This assumption was put forward by mathematician Keith Devlin in 2010. Carroll was very conservative; he found the new forms in mathematics that came out in the mid-1800s to be absurd compared to algebra and Euclidean geometry.
7. The original illustrations were carved into wood.
Tenniel was a well-known illustrator by that time, it was he who took up Alice in Wonderland. He was also known for his political cartoons. His drawings were originally printed on paper, then carved on wood, then became metal reproductions. They were used in the printing process.
8. Miracles didn't seem so absurd to the real Alice.
Some things that seem like nonsense to us made some sense to the Liddell sisters. Remember, Turtle says in the book that he gets drawing lessons, sketching and "fainting rolls" from an old sea eel who comes once a week. The sisters probably saw in him their own tutor, who gave the girls lessons in drawing, drawing and oil painting. Most of the nonsense from the book, as well as the characters, have real prototypes and stories.
9. Dodo bird - the prototype of Carroll
In the book, Carroll repeatedly alludes to a tour of the Thames with the girls, which inspired him to create this masterpiece. Perhaps the Dodo bird became the prototype of Lewis himself, whose real name is Charles Dodgson. According to one version, the author suffered from stuttering. Perhaps this is what prevented him from becoming a priest, directing his fate into a mathematical direction.
10. The original manuscript almost never leaves London.
The original illustrated manuscript, titled Alice's Underground Adventures, was given by Carroll to Alice Liddell. Now the book is an exhibit of the British Library, very rarely leaves the country.
11. Alice's Adventures is a kind of pioneer in the field of licensing
Carroll was an experienced marketer of his story and characters. This is perhaps the main reason why the story is so famous today, even for those who have not read the book. He designed a postage stamp with images of Alice, these pictures adorn cookie cutters and other products.
For readers wishing to learn more about the origins of the book, he has produced a facsimile of the original manuscript. He later created an abridged version of the book for even the youngest readers.
12. The book has not been published for a long time - this is a fact
The work has been translated into 176 languages. All parts of the book were sold out within seven weeks of publication.
