Alice’s Adventures in Oxford – Real people as Wonderland Characters (and some who weren’t!)

Within the imaginative fantasy of Lewis Carroll’s ‘Alice’ books lie many Oxford realities, including a number of real people who feature as ‘Wonderland’ characters.

Many were University acquaintances, but some were townspeople, known to either Lewis Carroll or the real Alice (Alice Liddell, daughter of the Dean of Christ Church). There was ‘one of the thorny kind’, for instance, and an eccentric headgear specialist whose dog Alice remembered fondly even when she was eighty years old.

Additionally, author Lewis Carroll was friendly with many Oxford families after the publication of ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland‘ and ‘Through the Looking-Glass‘. His skill as a photographer and inventor of games made him a popular guest, including at the homes of families whose names live on as the Oxford institutions of Lucy & Co and Mallam, the auctioneers.

Join local historian, guide, and author Mark Davies (a trustee of the Lewis Carroll Society) for a talk which will reveal some pertinent, surprising, and long-lasting aspects of Victorian Oxford through the curious medium of the world’s most famous children’s story.

£5