The Controversial Genius Behind Alice In Wonderland | The Secret World Of Lewis Carroll | Timeline 

I'm not sure why anyone would expect the genius behind "Alice in Wonderland" to be anything BUT odd.

If Charles Dodgson was on the autism spectrum, his affinity for puzzles, and for children, is perfectly to be expected. The adult world would have been a bit of a struggle for him, but with children he could have indulged his natural abilities to see the absurd in societal norms. With children, he could have relaxed.

I think it's sooooo interesting how they justify the obvious. Only one person was blatantly honest. There are tons of things in the Victorian age they did to kids that were absolutely horrible. Some things don't need historical context, it's just wrong.

I think the older sister situation checks out. It would have been very scandalous for her virtue to be in question at the time and considering he wasn't of the social rank that her mother approved of along with the letters that were written that created the narrative that he was too close to Alice, I think it's more than likely the case about the older sister. I think little Alice was a spunky little girl who he got much enjoyment out of just like many adults enjoy the wit and humor that children like that can bring.

I would have to say that Alice is not per se a rebel, but the embodiment of curiosity and imagination.

The fact that Alice grew up to name her son Carroll and deny the connection is very similar to when Lefroy named his daughter Jane and then denied it had anything to do with Austen and she was instead named after his mother-in-law. It's just to spare the feelings of the partner/spouse so they can believe their child wasn't named after a lost love their significant other still pines for.

Why would people say that Alice's stories are not for children? Both books are both for children and adults: for children - to develop their imagination and see something beyond, deeper down the surface of the pond of cognition and for adults - to exercise again the pleasure of a child's joy of discovering things despite the rigid boundaries of already conceived and seemingly systemised pieces of knowledge. Thank you so much for this documentary! I really enjoyed it!!!

It was thrilling to see Carroll’s original handwritten text of the book given to Alice Liddell.

I believe in our modern times it’s imperative that we start to normalize separating the art from the artist. Just because you like an author or a musician doesn’t mean you have to defend their terrible and very obvious misgivings.

Familial dynamics in L C childhood are a mystery in that we only know about his stories and above board activities. Crossing the adult to child boundry is catastrophic. That Laurina was NOT HAPPY being exposed before an adult male is obvious in her posture and expression. It doesnt matter in any era what is considered "acceptable" or not, children KNOW THE DIFFERENCE between play and passion.

One of his math book called "pillow problems" suggests his troubled thoughts and starts with an explanation about how it's good to have some wholesome logic/math puzzles to preoccupy one's mind while trying to fall asleep: "There are skeptical thoughts, which seem for the moment to uproot the firmest faith; there are blasphemous thoughts, which dart unbidden into the most reverent souls; there are unholy thoughts, which torture, with their hateful presence, the fancy that would fain be pure. Against all these some real mental work is a most helpful ally."

The British writers, and German too, are the ones who influenced my youth. I grew up in The Netherlands, Spain and Germany where I still live. Of course Jules Verne, Mark Twain, The Brothers Grimm and their books made my day every single time. Alice in Wonderland was one of those classics I will never forget.

Yikes, do these people hear themselves? "Yes, he took naked pictures of little girls, yes he befriended little girls...but that was ok back then! And he was a father figure!" To anybody, it should at least comes off as odd, but it seems they are too blind with admiration. The other gentleman had it right, just because someone makes good art, does not mean they are a good person. And they actually do not show the full picture supposedly of Lorina Lindell...but yes, her lower bits were included! Its super creepy, especially her facial expressions. She looks hurt or scared. Not to mention theres a picture of Alice kissing him on the mouth. While they were explaining about his friendships with the girls, I just couldn't help but think he was grooming them.

I always found these facts interesting... There are at least three direct links to [Alice] Liddell in the two books. First, he set them on 4 May (Liddell's birthday) and 4 November (her "half-birthday"), and in Through the Looking-Glass the fictional Alice declares that her age is "seven and a half exactly", the same as Liddell on that date. Second, he dedicated them "to Alice Pleasance Liddell". Third, there is an acrostic poem at the end of Through the Looking-Glass. Reading downward, taking the first letter of each line, spells out Liddell's full name. The poem has no title in Through the Looking-Glass, but is usually referred to by its first line, "A Boat Beneath a Sunny Sky". A boat beneath a sunny sky, Lingering onward dreamily In an evening of July- Children three that nestle near, Eager eye and willing ear, Pleased a simple tale to hear- Long has paled that sunny sky: Echoes fade and memories die. Autumn frosts have slain July. Still she haunts me, phantomwise, Alice moving under skies Never seen by waking eyes. Children yet, the tale to hear, Eager eye and willing ear, Lovingly shall nestle near. In a Wonderland they lie, Dreaming as the days go by, Dreaming as the summers die: Ever drifting down the stream- Lingering in the golden gleam- Life, what is it but a dream? In addition, all of those who participated in the Thames boating expedition where the story was originally told (Carroll, the Reverend Duckworth and the three Liddell sisters) appear in the chapter "A Caucus-Race and a Long Tale" - but only if Alice Liddell is represented by Alice herself.

The lock of hair is not only a sign of love... Was also a way of remember someone loved but not only in a romantic way... A cousin... A friend... A mother... A father... A little friend... Etc...

That look in the eyes of the pubescent nude girl says more than the whole docu or all the comments. Whoever took that pic was not a good person. That is an embarrassed/hurt person, and whoever is behind the camera doesn't care, their needs, if only to have the pic, superseding empathy.

Alice in Wonderland is certainly an amazing piece of literature. It strikes me that it not only represents how a precocious child might view and react to the world of adults, but it's also something quite personal to Carroll. It seems, to my mind at least, that it represents his desire to flaunt the rules, coupled with the tacit admission that if their were no rules, everything and everybody would be mad. It may be that it's Carroll's internal struggle to conform; he shows some of the same sense of a world gone a little off that one can see in Swift's works. It's fascinating that in both works, the most biting logic and satire are perpetrated by some of the strangest characters - as if only through a little madness can we stand outside the norms and see them in all their ridiculousness. We see here how, in the Victorian era, people are clearly squirming in their 'proper' places. It produces some of most ingeniously bonkers ideas. There is clearly the notion of having a little fun, a little naughtiness, is essential to one's sanity; while at the same time giving every outward appearance of conformity. tavi.

well, that was unexpected. Quote of the day "it's a problem when someone writes a great book but they are not a great person."

In a way (and I say this very loosely) Carroll wasn't completely unlike Michael Jackson. A renowned artist whose relationship with children was obsessive enough to be concerning. Of course we'll never really know, but it feels like there are some similarities there.

So, unlike young Alice Lorina hated having her photo taken, I wonder why.....

When the queen of England read the story of Alice in Wonderland, she found it so wonderful, that she told Dodgson to make sure and give her a copy of his next book. Dodgson complied, giving the queen a copy of a mathematics book !

My parents named me after Alice in Wonderland, we're Russian. It's an incredibly popular book the world over. Very interesting to learn more about the man behind it.

I have some background knowledge on this documentary. The BBC was forced to apologise for lying in it, because they misled the experts in the programme by pretending they'd unearthed the picture too late to show it to them. (you can google the details). In fact this picture is French and had been on the internet since about 2000, and is a well known to experts. The museum that owns the picture doesn't claim it is of Lorina or by Carroll, and you notice they did not defend it as genuine. In fact the photo was bought decades ago from a Parisian dealer in 19th century medical photographs, (which were mostly taken of poor people with various diseases and deformities) and if you look at the full image, which the BBC didn't show in the film, you will see the subject is standing awkwardly and appears lopsided. This whole "controversy" was manufactured, because the programme had to last an hour and they didn't have any material better than what was in the rest of the programme - such as people at village fetes, Martha Kearney's school play, little girls dressed as Alice & Lewis Carroll's utterly dull life as a clergyman and maths tutor.

This was an absolutely first-rate documentary, a really brilliant piece of work.

@33:10 / 33:22 Red Queen confirmed. *The Queen of Hearts,* the supposed villain of the story that *barks orders* at Alice, controls wonderland, and appears as threatening / menacing *is most likely Alice's mother.* This is how Carroll viewed her & her interactions with her daughter.

"I think that's what pedophiles are interested in, is the apparent innocence of children." This guy got it on the dot

I honestly believe that he had a special affinity with children, especially Alice. I think Alice encompassed a child that Lewis had wished to be in his own childhood. Even the drawing of a girl found in his old house looks very much like his drawings of Alice in his handwritten books.

I started reading a chapter of this book to my daughter aged 6 each night when I put her to bed_ she loved it and so did I again.. she has never told me but at 33 she called her second daughter Alice. ❤️

the most interesting part of this is those missing pages...

The narrator lady is creepily fascinated with it .

Well atleast there's two fellow authors who had the conviction to unabashedly call a spade a spade. props to them.

I remember catching this documentary completely randomly one night in my college years and being enthralled. It's stuck with me and is arguably my favourite documentary. Mirkwood is right though there's a lot of sugarcoating going on here but I think it's also obvious that they don't hide from the possibility that Dodgson was a pedophile. We'll unfortunately never know for certain, but it's not looking good, especially with those pictures of Alice and her sisters and him, you know, being a priest.

I was born in 1952 and I can remember that it was considered perfectly okay to take pictures of naked children, and also before puberty it was considered okay to have older men friends with children, whereas as soon as one started to 'develop' all that was then abruptly cut of, and it was made very clear that now your were no longer a little girl and different standards of behaviour were now required.

It's like every ad was timed to start in the middle of each segment's most dramatic statement.

I'm surprised they don't mention the poem which spells out Alice's full name at the start of each line

I wonder what the two sisters of Alice thought about her youngest sister getting such a gift while they did not.

This is a brilliant look at the life of Lewis Carroll, and the depth of inquiry is to be applauded. Whether Carroll ever acted on his obvious attraction to children will likely never be known for a certainty. The sheer volume of children who have met with inappropriate touch or behaviour from adults is far broader than we like to think. It would seem that Carroll was rather stunted in his social maturity, and found himself more at ease with children than with his peers. The power of his writing can be appreciated for itself regardless of the flaws his character may have displayed. The very concept of twelve being the age of consent is appalling to the modern mind, but it truly was a very different time. This documentary has given me much to ponder. Thank you for uploading this kind of quality programming. 🇨🇦

The presenter wears gloves just to look at a negative...then goes on touching originals, like copper plates, with bare hands...

The greatness and uniqueness of Alice In Wonderland lies in its masterly and consummate rendering of childhood innocence. Alice finds herself in a fantastic land with fantastic events and fantastic people talking in a fantastic and illogical way, but Alice deals with all that as if they were natural. In brief, the story reflects the wonderful nature of childhood, when the most ordinary things in life are extraordinary in the eyes of a child. We can't imagine what a child feels when he/she plays with a toy, observes an ant or builds a sand castle on the beach. This lost innocence is maybe the chief thing that makes our sadness and sorrow later when grown up. It's also what the story of Peter Pan hints to;he wishes to stay a child and didn't want to grow up. Also the same idea contained in J K Rawlings's The Yearling, where the boy don't want to grow and is still attached to his fawn. His father urged him to kill it, a symbol of having the courage "to kill" childhood and accept adulthood(maybe for a social purpose, besides being inevitable).

Alice is NOT the first female lead in children's literature, contrary to what Martha Kearney says at 21:44: Before its first edition was published in 1865, in France the Comtesse de Ségur published Les Malheurs de Sophie, in 1858, seven years earlier, the first of a trilogy (followed by Les Petites Filles Modèles and Les Vacances) and a huge success to this day.

They keep talking about him with "young children" but it was only little girls, wasn't it?

If I had a dollar for every time I hear some historian or whatever refer to obviously alarming behaviour as "well it was a different time"...

I was born in the 1950s. A favorite of parents was to pose naked children on bearskin rugs or fleece blankets and photograph them in profile. It was no big deal and some even framed them and hung them on the wall. Things changed sometime in the 60s

Will Self- I appreciate his straight forward take... and I have to agree with him.

43:41 love that guy, couldnt have said it better myself

As I child I felt this book was weird and seemed like someone's fantasy? For fantasy that I could understand and be transported to a place of eventual hope...The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was the book that gave me solace and an appetite for reading...thank you C.S Lewis!!

Lmaoooo say what happen why was he exiled a man hanging with 3 kids everyday and all of a sudden he is exiled wtf you think happened

How very sad about the ending, but an incredible story! Very well done!

The great grand daughter actually resembles Alice a lot

Bizarre views in the 19th century. They used to photograph their dead relatives and felt comfortable with that. Still can't believe that.

As a professional photographer that IS the same girl. Without a doubt. I've had to do many comparison id's like this.

" Now at the very end of our long list I introduce you to two books of which I think you must have already tasted: Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, and the eighth is Alice Through the Looking Glass. Both are nonserious, that’s why I love them. Both are written for children, that’s why I immensely respect them. Both are full of beauty, grandeur, mystery and small parables which can be understood on many many levels. I have always loved one parable, for example.... Alice comes to the King - or perhaps it was the Queen, it does not matter - and the King asks Alice, “Did you meet my messenger coming towards me on the way?” Alice says, “I met nobody, sir.” The King then says, “Then he must have reached here by now.” Alice could not believe her ears, but just out of respect, amazed, Alice still remained silent, quite an English lady. Alice must have been a perfect English lady. Out of formality she did not even giggle. She had said that she had met nobody, and the King thinks that she had met somebody called Nobody. My God, he thinks that Nobody is a man, that Nobody is somebody...! Again Alice says, “Sir, did I not tell you that I met nobody? Nobody is nobody!” The King laughed and said, “Yes, of course nobody is nobody, but why has he not arrived yet?” Such beautiful small parables in both the books, Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass. And the most strange fact to remember is that Lewis Carroll was not the real name...because he was a mathematician and a schoolmaster; hence he used a pseudo-name. But what a calamity, the pseudonym has become a reality to the whole world and the real man is completely forgotten. It is strange that a mathematician and schoolmaster could write such beautiful books. You will wonder why I am including them. I am including them because I want to say to the world that to me, Jean-Paul Sartre’s Being and Nothingness and Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland are all the same. It does not matter. In fact, if I have to choose between the two I will choose Alice in Wonderland and throw Being and Nothingness in the ocean, so far away in the Pacific that nobody will find it again. To me these two small books have great spiritual value. Yes, I’m not joking...I mean it."

0:55 little girl just tells it straight up

Whether one judges Dodson by today's standards or not, one must see that he was obsessed with Alice. Her photos are haunting. As for the photo of Lorena, the implications are clear. Consenting age of 12 (which is a bit misleading having to do with parental marriage arrangements) or not, Mrs. Little would likely taken a dim view of the relationship if the taking of the photo (or rumor of such) were known or suspected.

I’m a fan of the Alice stories. This is really the only documentary I’ve seen about this. Definitely gives credence to the rumors.

Been on RU-vid a long while now and I have to say - the amount of commercials in this video was distracting and a little overkill. The content of the video is good but whatever is triggering commercials every 2 minutes (or so) makes it a chore to watch the whole thing. The original manuscripts and artwork is absolutely stunning. Lewis Carroll has taken on a completely different dimension for me. Excellent presentation, thanks!

Will Self nailed the mystique of Carroll. Great Art isn't necessarily created by great people. Sage observation by another great writer.

"It's a problem when someone writes a great book and they're not a great person." quote time - 44:06 from documentary

When I was little and my sister in the 1960’s, my Australian parents took lots of nude photographs of us scampering about the yard. Today, if they were sent to a lab for processing, I bet a child protective services would pay a Welfare Visit!!!

Commenting on the characters drawn by Lewis Carroll as being mournful one must remember that they were all lifetime prisoners of a Wonderland that was ruled by a capricious and insane Queen. The only creature in Wonderland that could see that things were so topsy-turvy was Alice. Was the Red Queen actually Victoria with all her eccentricities? Were all the creatures that Alice encounters caricatures of prominent personalities of Victorian society? Just a Wonder to me.

Either LSD or mushroom trip. He even has Alice eating mushrooms in the dream. Phenomenal story.

41:00 - no evidence of anything inappropriate - 2 minutes later - children naked for photography. Um.

We cannot apply our current standards to a different time, place and culture. Just wait till we are judged over 120 years ago.

I never liked this story as a child & now I know why. I dont understand how anyone doesn't see that Caroll was anything but a child predator.

Wow, he spent probably hundreds of hours making that book for her.

It remains captivating because as an adult you realize that's what life is horrifyingly like.

When I hear people make excuses for someone that without a doubt was attracted to children just because he wrote a book.... the people on this documentary should surely be thinking how they came across.

I was in shock of Nicholas Shrimpton's response when asked about Lewis's photo's of the nude child: "like many people he thought the human body was a supremely beautiful thing, and he thought the most supremely beautiful form of the human body was the female body before puberty" Wow this guy really is in denial 🙄 They just keep fumbling with their answers.

One of my writing professors in college told me, "if people like your work, then they like you". That statement baffled me then and baffles me now. Carroll's books are fantastic. His use of prose is beyond masterful and the stories themselves are precedent-class. But do I "like" him? No. I don't personally know him (since he died long before I was born) so he and I can't be buddies. I don't hate him either for the same reason. The same goes for living authors such as Neal Stephenson, Stephen King, and JK Rowling (to name a few). They are wonderful authors and their books make my life better but I don't know them so I'm not going to use the completely misused phrases "like" or "love". "Artificial intelligence" is another woefully misused phrase but that's another story. Bottom line: Carroll was obviously waaaayyy into little girls but that doesn't make his writing anything less than superb.

I think the caricature of the red queen looked like the Liddle's Mother ….. and it amazed me that he had a speech impediment and was a teacher and a story teller..... he wrote in a diary every day and yet we feel like much may have been unsaid ….. photography was his outlet / possibly for things he couldn't even write down to himself

The 24-year-old man was close to the girl only 4 years old. They were alone with him in his room. Letters. Pages missing in his diary. Photos collection. Kisses. Magic mushroom. Weird creepy book. - P...

I highly doubt that children would report “inappropriate” behavior to their parents because things WERE different. I don’t think a child in those times would have disclosed anything, specially if they were groomed to think they were willing participants.

I always saw this story as a nightmare

Okay, so now my eyes are open wider than before. Just goes to show that putting people up on a pedestal is a huge mistake. Famous or not; they are no better or worse than any other person can be.

I recommend the Annotated Alice which has detailed footnotes on the entire 2 books, and The Complete Works which includes all his writing as well as his math and logic puzzles. The way Alice moves on the chessboard when she goes through the looking glass go along with actual chess moves, you can play it all out on a board if you’d like. That’s why when she gets to the end of the board she’s crowned Queen 👑

The snippet of conversation from Lorena is actually the clue : "One has to tell them SOMETHING". IOW, she gave an excuse that would not embarrass herself

When I was 5 my mother read a chapter of the unabridged version of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass to me every night at bedtime. I loved the story and still do and still have the book. I loved the illustrations by John Tenniel. To this day my favorite form of illustration is pen and ink.

They should have blurred those pictures esp that last one ffs

I first came across this Alice book as a 7 year old. I couldn't read it because it terrified me, the illustrations mainly. I was an abused child. Maybe I sensed something fundamentally wrong? I cannot help but agree with Will Self.

The look on Alice's face on the questionable photograph says to me, "Can we please hurry this up? I'm tired of standing here."

I expected a nice little documentary on Alice in wonderland, but it some how turned in to a debate about naked child photographs. Sigh.

As a fan of litereture in general, I have over the years read forwards, book reviews, and other articles about books in which I have read about things like the fact that someone once wrote a novel without using the letter "e", and I came across mention af someone once having written a novel based on chess. When I read Alice's Adventure's in Wonderland I realized that it seemed like some of the movements of the characters do echo the moves of chess pieces...I'm guessing Carrol might have invented details about the pieces as he was teaching chess to a child, hoping to make it more interesting--and he may have done the same thing at some point with a card game...

Its odd that if an adult man shows ANY interest in children that instantly makes him a pedophile. These accusations coming from the same people who say they men focus too much on masculinity and dominance. Well yes, they will do when the second they show an amount of love and kindness they're accused of being sexual predators.

5:15 i read A I W at 12 yrs old and was disturbed by the behavior of the adults in the story. I felt vulnerable and afraid. Unfortunately the most important adult relations gave me reason to be afraid. When children behaved like these characters I was mystified

I absolutely loved this book. Alice felt a real child to me. I still remember the "You Are Old Father William" poem and thinking it was so funny.

You can tell more about a person by where they fall on the question on Carroll's relationship with Alice than most anything else. Of course, it doesn't tell you anything about Carroll himself.

Excellent production . Well researched and lovingly presented .

I freaking LOVE this documentary, from the subject, the interviews, locations, music...

Go ask Alice.... I think she'll knooow.....

The pic where the 3 girls are sitting alice was the only one with her dress open and ankles exposed..she was the only one not tucked in her dress like the other 2 girls..I do 1800s living history and know some stuff on 1800s etiquette..and to me this seems odd too

Dear People, please, in the future, when handling a precious manuscript, wear gloves!!! Watching her smear the oil on her fingers all over those pages was just horrifying. Signed, an Antiquarian. :)

"You can't experience heaven on earth unless you can live with the innocence of a child" Adultism is a dis- ease.

I keep coming back to this documentary, its so interesting! And I love the host, she's great

They asked someone in this documentary if any of the mothers ever objected to his relationship with their children, and the man answered no. Actually, I did a research project on this in high school, and there were at least two mothers who became angry with him for "kissing their daughter on the cheek". But I don't think I recall any of the mothers objecting to the nude pictures, which is very strange today but maybe it was ok with the moms then because they never heard of pedophilia and they were present when the pictures were taken. Just a theory.

Fascinating documentary!! Excellent research has been undertaken to produce this, hasn't it.

I had no idea about the history of this author. Pretty disturbing peice of history.

This was done so amazingly!! I love the narrator, she's delightful and excited the whole time she meets people and talks to them!!

Interesting that it takes 43:22 before the P-word even comes up at all. Also, a whole lot of sweeping dirt under the rug at 55:19.

he gives me humbert humbert vibes. alice was his dolores 😖

A picture says a thousand words and Lewis Carroll is talking volumes in his photography.