Happy Belated Anniversary Alice

My heart leaped out of my chest as I walked past the magazine aisle. The headline? “Alice in Wonderland: Her Immortal Adventures—75 Years.” Wow, an entire magazine about Lewis Carroll’s “Alice”. I had to read it.**

At first, I thought it was the 75th-year celebration of the book I had on my shelf, but I was having a math moment and the “Disney” word was tiny and hiding underneath "75". Turns out it was the anniversary of Alice’s screen debut by Walt Disney. Let down, I ordered “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland: 150th Anniversary Edition” with artwork by Salvador Dalí.

My first exposure to the imaginative world of Lewis Carroll’s Alice was in 1960. The book (pictured above) was from one of my cousins for Christmas that year. Beat up and battered, written in and dog-eared, it still occupies a place of honor on my bookshelf. Oh well, while I wait, let's see what the magazine is all about.

As I began reading the first article about the history of how this Alice was born, I realized how much I didn't know about this pivotal book. I also realized I identified with her more than any other Alice figure or cartoon. As a teenager, the song that echoed in my ears was written by Grace Slick and inspired by the waistcoat-wearing rabbit from Lewis Carroll's 1865 novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. I digress! From the magazine article by Eileen Daspin, “Falling for Alice”:

In the hands of any other 19th-century author, such a pretty youngster would likely have been pious, cautious, mindful of her elders. If not, she would have been punished. Carroll leans the other way. His hero is mouthy and sometimes rude. She is curious and independent. She challenges authority and is a stickler for syntax. . . . By following her impulses instead of curbing them, Alice earns a journey of self-discovery.

While I didn’t consider myself pretty and endeavored to not be mouthy or rude—as the preacher’s eldest daughter I took my role as a good girl seriously—I was curious, independent, and embarked on many journeys of self-discovery as a child, and again later in adulthood. Incidentally, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, Lewis Carroll’s birth name, was also a preacher’s kid.

It was a trip in a rowboat with Reverend Robinson Duckworth and the three daughters of Henry Liddell, Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, where Dodgson and Duckworth worked as professors, that Dodgson’s story of Alice began. Alice was one of the girl’s names. She wanted a story while they were in the boat, so Dodgson began telling them a tale of an Alice who fell down a rabbit hole. (Magazine article by Steve Rushin, “The Talented Mr. Lewis Carroll”.)

Our Charles was a preacher, math teacher, budding photographer, storyteller, and a magazine publisher all before he wrote his famous book paving the way for “portal fiction”. Think of the Wizard of Oz, Peter Pan, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Where the Wild Things Are, the Harry Potter series. They are all about normal human life turned upside down as the characters open doors, leap through mirrors, or step into a magical wardrobe. The Tardis transports us to alien worlds the minute Dr. Who steps through the door revealing a much larger space than a normal telephone booth.

The significant dates in the birth of the Alice in Wonderland books listed in the Lewis Carroll Society are:

• 1862 (July 4):Lewis Carroll first told the story during a boat trip on the Thames to young Alice Liddell and her sisters.

• 1864 (November 26): Carroll gave Alice Liddell the hand-written and hand-illustrated manuscript titled Alice’s Adventures Under Ground.

• 1865 (November): The expanded and revised official book, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland with illustrations by John Tenniel, was published.

   (https://lewiscarrollsociety.org.uk/publishing-of-alice/)

Celebrating the 160th anniversary of Alice in Wonderland’s birth and Disney’s 75th anniversary of the film’s debut in 1951 is a worthy celebration, considering how much Charles Dodgson contributed to today’s culture. Happy belated Anniversary Alice!

Today, going down a rabbit hole has a completely new meaning. I’m intimately aware of this meaning because, in my need to hide myself, I literally commandeered rabbit holes to escape people’s emotions and endless innuendos. I also used them to follow a curiosity until I either got tired, or another curiosity took its place. They served me well when researching anything or finding the answers I needed until it didn’t serve me anymore. At some point, I had to face why I spent so much time in rabbit holes hiding from everyone, or why I needed rabbit holes to research topics.

I found out that while alternate realities were endlessly entertaining, it wasn’t interfacing well with real life. My first book is all about this realization and what I did to face reality without losing my curiosity or love of using my imagination. Just who was I? Authenticity wasn’t possible, though, until I began remembering who I was. Like Lewis Carroll’s Alice, I discover the key to opening the door, but instead of landing in a beautiful garden, I remember who I am and discover a path full of all the emotions I held inside. Carroll's Alice followed her impulses and “earns herself a journey of self-discovery.” I followed my heart and earned myself a whole new person who was finally and authentically herself.

To be clear, one doesn’t suddenly become authentically oneself. It’s a gradual unveiling of who I always was, a return to the very sensitive, wildly creative, curiosity-driven person I remember being before safety dictated who I needed to be. That is the journey we can all take as we turn inward and find the incredible person we actually are.

The magazine ends with a paragraph about the phrase “Down the Rabbit Hole” and the words Carroll introduced into our lives. (I’m not sure who wrote this paragraph as there is no credit given.)

One expression is so embedded in our vocabulary today, it practically defines the modern era: down the rabbit hole. Carroll used the expression literally and metaphorically . . . when Alice follows the White Rabbit down under, entering an alternate reality. Today, those four little words have morphed to mean getting fixated on a topic, especially online, whether Googling the weather, following a loopy Reddit thread, or doing a deep dive . . . on Amazon. A different kind of alternate reality, but one that might make Carroll chortle in appreciation.

I like to think Carroll would have also delighted in the game my father and I played when I was very young, usually while waiting to eat. He would start with a made-up word, or a word I didn’t know. We would take turns responding with whatever word, real or not, entered our heads. In no time at all, we were laughing uncontrollably. I like to think Lewis Carroll had a hand in this curious game just as much as his incredible contributions to literature had a hand in shaping who I was and am today.

** All articles referenced and quoted are from LIFE: Alice in Wonderland: Her Immortal Adventures, a magazine published on July 26, 2026, celebrating 75 years of Walt Disney’s film, Alice in Wonderland. The Disney animated film classic was released on July 26, 1951, in London and July 28, 1951, in New York. The magazine is a Meredith Special and printed by People Inc.