Alice from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is one of the most iconic figures to emerge from 19th century children's literature, and one who is instantly recognized by her attire.[1] Although many artists have depicted Alice in many different ways, the original illustrations by John Tenniel have become iconic through their subsequent repetition (with generally minimal alterations) in most published editions and film adaptations.[2]
Alice's sense of agency is further conveyed by her dress... Little girls' dresses in mid- to late nineteenth-century Europe were, even with certain restrictions, slightly more practical than adults', and the dress Alice wore in Tenniel's illustrations was a fashion current to the time of the book with a faint hint of the practical future ... Both the character and dress of Alice thus point out that she is neither assertive nor passive but is rather positioned comfortably in between the two.[2]
Lewis Carroll gave directions to Tenniel over some aspects of the dress. Tenniel's first design was intended to give Alice the look of a chess piece.[6][7][8] However, Caroll instructed Tenniel not to give it "so much crinoline",[6][7][8][9] a common component of women's dresses at the time.[10] Tenniel also changed the dress from book to book. In Through the Looking Glass, he gave Alice striped horizontal stockings and her (now eponymous) headband.[11] For The Nursery "Alice", he re-drew twenty of the illustrations, and brought Alice into line with contemporary fashion.[12][13] He not only coloured the dress yellow (discussed in detail later) but added a second bow to Alice's hair, a bow to the apron, and pleats.[12]
The colour of Alice's dress
An Alice in Wonderland costume based on the design from the 1972 film Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. This is an example of the most well-known depiction of Alice's dress.
Neither the wording nor illustrations to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland indicated the colour of her clothes.[14] In a popular stage version of the story, staged by Henry Savile Clarke in 1886–87, Alice's costume was white (a decision endorsed for the next production by Lewis Carroll).[15]
The first colourised versions of Tenniel's images were created for The Nursery "Alice", coloured under his supervision. In this edition, Alice's dress was yellow.[13]
Subsequent colourised versions of Tenniel's illustrations created for editions of the Alice books after Charles Dodgson's death and without the involvement of Tenniel have dressed Alice in different colours, including red,[14] orange, and chartreuse.[16] DeLoss McGraw's illustrations used a range of colours.[17]
One of the earliest editions, Macmillan's 1903 "Little Folks" edition, had her in a blue dress.[16] Macmillan's deluxe 1911 edition, which featured colour plates based on Tenniel's illustrations painted by artist Harry Theaker, again had Alice in a blue dress.[16] Other illustrators also retained the blue colour scheme, including Helen Oxenbury.[17]
The blue dress later became the most common and well-known version of Alice's dress, showing up often in print and filmed adaptations that take their inspiration from Tenniel's original illustrations (including Paramount's 1933 movie, Disney's 1951 movie,[18] and the 1972 movie). Although some adaptations have chosen different colour schemes (for example, orange in the 1985 Irwin Allen production, yellow in the BBC's 1972[19] and 1986[20] adaptations as well as the 1999 Hallmark movie and lilac in The Royal Ballet'sAlice's Adventures in Wonderland),[21] the blue version has remained the most iconic version.
It became fashionable for young girls to dress up as Alice when wearing fancy dress around the 1880s, by which time the fashion for everyday girls' dresses had changed enough that Alice's attire as depicted in the books had come to seem distinctive.[22]
Dresses explicitly inspired by Alice's were a recurrent feature of the range of the clothes makers Joseph Love, Inc. from the 1930s to the 1960s.[23] The style became especially popular in the USA when the Disney movie was released in 1951.[24]
More subtly, Alice's dress has been seen as an influence on Japanese dress styles, exhibited in music videos by, for example, Mizuki Alisa (in the video for her 1991 "Town of Eden"), Kawase Tomoko ("Bloomin'!", 2002) and Kimura Kae ("Snowdome", 2007).[25][26][27]
Nichols, Catherine (2014). Alice's Wonderland: A Visual Journey Through Lewis Carroll's Mad, Mad World. Race Point Publishing. ISBN9781937994976.
Vaclavik, Kiera (2014). "The Dress of the Book: Children's Literature, Fashion and Fancy Dress". In Carrington, Bridget; Harding, Jennifer (eds.). Beyond the Book: Transforming Children's Literature. Newcastle Upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars' Publishing. pp.62–76.
Myers, Kali (2016). "Alice in transnational perspective and through the history of replication: an exploration of adult play in Australian art and Japanese shōjo culture". International Journal of Play. 5 (3): 292–305. doi:10.1080/21594937.2016.1217587. S2CID152235341.
Brooker, Will (2005). Alice's Adventures: Lewis Carroll in Popular Culture. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN9780826417541.
Sir John Tenniel was an English illustrator, graphic humourist and political cartoonist prominent in the second half of the 19th century. An alumnus of the Royal Academy of Arts in London, he was knighted for artistic achievements in 1893, the first such honour ever bestowed on an illustrator or cartoonist.
"Jabberwocky" is a nonsense poem written by Lewis Carroll about the killing of a creature named "the Jabberwock". It was included in his 1871 novel Through the Looking-Glass, the sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865). The book tells of Alice's adventures within the back-to-front world of the Looking-Glass world.
The Annotated Alice is a 1960 book by Martin Gardner incorporating the text of Lewis Carroll's major tales, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking-Glass (1871), as well as the original illustrations by John Tenniel. It has extensive annotations explaining the contemporary references, mathematical concepts, word play, and Victorian traditions featured in the two books.
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is an 1865 English children's novel by Lewis Carroll, a mathematics don at Oxford University. It details the story of a young girl named Alice who falls through a rabbit hole into a fantasy world of anthropomorphic creatures. It is seen as an example of the literary nonsense genre. The artist John Tenniel provided 42 wood-engraved illustrations for the book.
Alice is a fictional character and the main protagonist of Lewis Carroll's children's novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and its sequel, Through the Looking-Glass (1871). A child in the mid-Victorian era, Alice unintentionally goes on an underground adventure after falling down a rabbit hole into Wonderland; in the sequel, she steps through a mirror into an alternative world.
The Hatter is a fictional character in Lewis Carroll's 1865 book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its 1871 sequel Through the Looking-Glass. He is very often referred to as the Mad Hatter, though this term was never used by Carroll. The phrase "mad as a hatter" pre-dates Carroll's works. The Hatter and the March Hare are referred to as "both mad" by the Cheshire Cat, in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in the sixth chapter titled "Pig and Pepper".
The March Hare is a character most famous for appearing in the tea party scene in Lewis Carroll's 1865 book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
Alice in Wonderland is a 1951 American animated musical fantasy comedy film produced by Walt Disney Productions and released by RKO Radio Pictures. It is based on Lewis Carroll's 1865 novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its 1871 sequel Through the Looking-Glass. The production was supervised by Ben Sharpsteen, and was directed by Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson, and Hamilton Luske. With the voices of Kathryn Beaumont, Ed Wynn, Richard Haydn, Sterling Holloway, Jerry Colonna, Verna Felton, J. Pat O'Malley, Bill Thompson, and Heather Angel, the film follows a young girl Alice who falls down a rabbit hole to enter a nonsensical world Wonderland that is ruled by the Queen of Hearts, while encountering strange creatures, including the Mad Hatter and the Cheshire Cat.
The Caterpillar is a fictional character appearing in Lewis Carroll's 1865 book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
The Nursery "Alice" (1889/90) is an abridged version of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) by Lewis Carroll, adapted by the author himself for children "from nought to five". It includes 20 of John Tenniel's illustrations from the original book, redrawn, enlarged, coloured – and, in some cases, revised – by Tenniel himself. The book was published by Macmillan a quarter-century after the original Alice. It featured new illustrated front and back covers in full colour by E. Gertrude Thomson, who was a good friend of Dodgson. The book was 'engraved and printed' by the famous colour printer Edmund Evans.
Lewis Carroll's books Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking-Glass (1871) have been highly popular in their original forms, and have served as the basis for many subsequent works since they were published. They have been adapted directly into other media, their characters and situations have been appropriated into other works, and these elements have been referenced innumerable times as familiar elements of shared culture. Simple references to the two books are too numerous to list; this list of works based on Alice in Wonderland focuses on works based specifically and substantially on Carroll's two books about the character of Alice.
A New Alice in the Old Wonderland is a fantasy novel written by Anna M. Richards, illustrated by Anna M. Richards Jr., and published in 1895 by J. B. Lippincott of Philadelphia. According to Carolyn Sigler, it is one of the more important "Alice imitations", or novels inspired by Lewis Carroll's Alice books.
Theophilus Carter was an eccentric British furniture dealer who may have been an inspiration for the illustration by Sir John Tenniel of Lewis Carroll's characters the Mad Hatter in his 1865 novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Hatta in the 1871 sequel Through the Looking-Glass.
The Ugly Duchess is a satirical portrait painted by the Flemish artist Quentin Matsys around 1513.
The White Knight is a fictional character in Lewis Carroll's 1871 book Through the Looking-Glass. He represents the chess piece of the same name. As imagined in John Tenniel's illustrations for the Alice stories, he is inspired by Albrecht Dürer's 1513 engraving "Knight, Death and the Devil."
"You Are Old, Father William" is a poem by Lewis Carroll that appears in his 1865 book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. It is recited by Alice in Chapter 5, "Advice from a Caterpillar". Alice informs the Caterpillar that she has previously tried to repeat "How Doth the Little Busy Bee" and has had it all come wrong as "How Doth the Little Crocodile". The Caterpillar asks her to repeat "You Are Old, Father William", and she recites it.
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland retold in words of one syllable is a retelling by Mrs. J. C. Gorham of Lewis Carroll's 1865 novel, written in 1905 and published by A. L. Burt of New York. It is part of Burt's Series of One Syllable Books, which was "selected specially for young people's reading, and told in simple language for youngest readers". The series included such works as Aesop's Fables, Anderson's Fairy Tales, Bible Heroes, Grimm's Fairy Tales, The Life of Christ, Lives of the Presidents, Pilgrim's Progress, Reynard the Fox, Robinson Crusoe, Sanford and Merton, and Swiss Family Robinson.
Alice in Wonder Underground is the twenty-sixth single released by the Japanese Rock band Buck Tick, released on August 8, 2007 by BMG Japan.
There are more than 100 illustrators of English-language editions of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking-Glass (1871), with many other artists for non-English language editions. The illustrator for the original editions was John Tenniel, whose illustrations for Alice and Looking Glass are among the best known illustrations ever published.
Mark Burstein is an author, book editor and expert on the works of Lewis Carroll. He is a lifelong Carrollian and has been a key figure in the Lewis Carroll Society of North America (LCSNA).
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