Alice Liddell

Alice Pleasance Hargreaves (née Liddell, /ˈlɪdəl/;[1] 4 May 1852 – 16 November 1934) was an English woman who, in her childhood, was an acquaintance and photography subject of Lewis Carroll.

Soon after this move, Alice met Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll), who encountered the family while photographing the cathedral on 25 April 1856.

One story has it that she became a romantic interest of Prince Leopold, the youngest son of Queen Victoria, during the four years he spent at Christ Church, but the evidence for this is sparse.

However, it is possible Alice was named in honour of Leopold's deceased elder sister instead, the Grand Duchess of Hesse.

[4] Edith died on 26 June 1876,[5] possibly of measles or peritonitis (accounts differ), shortly before she was to be married to Aubrey Harcourt, a cricket player.

Upon Johnson's death, the book was purchased by a consortium of American bibliophiles and presented to the British people "in recognition of Britain's courage in facing Hitler".

[13] After she died in 1934, her body was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium, with her ashes being buried in the graveyard of the church of St Michael and All Angels in Lyndhurst, Hampshire.

On 4 July 1862, in a rowing boat travelling on the Isis from Folly Bridge, Oxford, to Godstow for a picnic outing, 10-year-old Alice asked Charles Dodgson (who wrote under the pen name Lewis Carroll) to entertain her and her sisters, Edith (aged 8) and Lorina (13), with a story.

[17] It has often been stated that Alice was his favourite subject in these years, but there is very little evidence to suggest this; Dodgson's diaries from 18 April 1858 to 8 May 1862 are missing.

There was no record of why the rift occurred, since the Liddells never openly spoke of it, and the single page in Dodgson's diary recording 27–29 June 1863 (which seems to cover the period in which it began) was missing;[18] it has been speculated by biographers such as Morton N. Cohen that Dodgson may have wanted to marry the 11-year-old Alice Liddell, and that this was the cause of the unexplained break with the family in June 1863.

"[20] Clark argues that in Victorian England such arrangements were not as improbable as they might seem; John Ruskin, for example, fell in love with a 12-year-old girl while Dodgson's younger brother sought to marry a 14-year-old, but postponed the wedding for six years.

learns from Mrs. Liddell that he is supposed to be using the children as a means of paying court to the governess—he is also supposed by some to be courting Ina[23]This might imply that the break between Dodgson and the Liddell family was caused by concern over alleged gossip linking Dodgson to the family governess and to "Ina" (both Alice's older sister and her mother were named "Lorina").

In her biography, The Mystery of Lewis Carroll, Jenny Woolf suggests that the problem was caused by Lorina becoming too attached to Dodgson and not the other way around.

"[23] The note, she submits, is a "censored version" of what really happened, intended to prevent Lorina from being offended or humiliated at having her feelings for Dodgson made public.

[25][better source needed] After this incident, Dodgson avoided the Liddell home for six months but eventually returned for a visit in December 1863.

However, the former closeness does not seem to have been re-established, and the friendship gradually faded away, possibly because Dodgson was in opposition to Dean Liddell over college politics.

There was a rumour that Dodgson sent Tenniel a photo of one of his other child-friends, Mary Hilton Badcock, suggesting that he use her as a model,[27] but attempts to find documentary support for this theory have proved fruitless.

Dodgson's own drawings of the character in the original manuscript of Alice's Adventures Under Ground show little resemblance to Liddell.

Alice Liddell (right) with sisters c.1859 (photo by Lewis Carroll )
Alice Liddell at the age of 20, photographed by Julia Margaret Cameron
Alice Hargreaves in 1932, at the age of 80
The grave of Alice Hargreaves in the graveyard of the church of St Michael and All Angels, Lyndhurst, Hampshire
Edith Liddell ( William Blake Richmond , c. 1864)
The fictional character was named after her. (Illustration by Lewis Carroll)
Liddell dressed in her best outfit. Photo by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1858).
John Tenniel 's Alice from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland