31st July 2013
In 1862, the eminent Oxford mathematician, Charles Dodgson went in a rowing boat on the river Isis with his friend Robinson Duckworth and the young three daughters of the Dean of his college, (Christ Church Oxford). It was on this trip that Dodgson told the girls, Lorina, Alice and Edith Liddell the story which later developed into Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
The original, handwritten, manuscript for the book, under its original title Alice’s Adventures Underground (1864) contain Dodgson’s own illustrations but Dodgson did not feel that they were adequate for publication, so he instructed John Tenniel to carry out the illustrations for publication. The book was published under the nom de plume Lewis Carroll.
William Morris was a contemporary and colleague of Charles Dodgson’s and William Morris’ inspiration and close friend, John Ruskin, was Alice Liddell’s drawing master. Charles Dodgson moved in the same social circle as the PreRaphaelites and he asked PreRaphaelite painter Henry Holiday to make the illustrations for his book The Hunting of the Snark, (1876).
Posted in William Morris by Laura