Alice in Wonderland real life. Interesting facts about Alice in Wonderland. The real Alice was the daughter of Chief Carroll

Lewis Carroll is nothing more than literary pseudonym. Charles Dodgson tried his best to distance himself from his alter ego, sending back letters that came to him from Alice fans with the note “addressee unknown.” But the fact remains: the books he created about Alice’s travels brought him much more popularity than all his scientific works.

1. Lost in translation

The book has been translated into 125 languages ​​of the world. And it wasn't that easy. The whole point is that if you translate the fairy tale literally, then all the humor and all its charm are lost - there are too many puns and witticisms based on the peculiarities of English language. That's why greatest success It was not the translation of the book that was used, but the retelling by Boris Zakhoder. In total, there are about 13 options for translating the fairy tale into Russian. Moreover, in the first version, created by an anonymous translator, the book was called “Sonya in the Kingdom of the Diva.” The next translation appeared almost 30 years later, and the cover read “Anya’s Adventures in the World of Wonders.” And Boris Zakhoder admitted that he considered the name “Aliska in Wonderland” to be more appropriate, but decided that the public would not appreciate such a title.

Alice in Wonderland has been filmed 40 times, including animated versions. Alice even appeared in the Muppet show - where the role of the girl was played by Brooke Shields.

3. The Mad Hatter was not in the first edition of the book

Yes, yes, don't be surprised. The tactless, absent-minded, eccentric and extravagant Hatter, so brilliantly played by Johnny Depp, did not appear in the first version of the fairy tale. By the way, in Nina Demiurova’s translation, recognized as the best of all currently existing, the character’s name is Hatter. The fact is that in English hatter meant not only “hatter”, it was the name given to people who do everything differently than they should. Therefore, we decided that the closest analogue in the Russian language would be our fools. So the Hatter became the Hatter. By the way, his name and character originated from the English proverb “Mad as a hatter.” At that time, it was believed that workers creating hats could go crazy due to exposure to mercury vapor, which was used to treat felt.

By the way, the Hatter was not the only character who was not in the original version of Alice. The Cheshire cat also appeared later.

Actually, if we talk about illustrations, it’s easier to name those who bypassed the “Alice” motifs in their work. The most famous are the drawings of John Tenniel, who created 42 black and white illustrations for the first publication of the book. Moreover, each drawing was discussed with the author.

Fernando Falcon's illustrations leave a dual impression - they seem cute and childish, but they also seem like a nightmare.

Jim Min Ji created illustrations in best traditions Japanese anime, Erin Taylor painted an African-themed tea party.

And Elena Kalis illustrated Alice’s adventures in photographs, transferring the events to the underwater world.

Salvador Dali painted 13 watercolors for different situations from the book. Probably his drawings are not the most childish and even not the most understandable for an adult, but they are delightful.

Well, this is not surprising at all. The whole Wonderland is a world of absurdity. Some malicious critics even called everything that happened in the book nonsense. However, we will ignore the attacks of overly mundane personalities, alien to fantasy and devoid of imagination, and turn to facts from the field of medicine. And the facts are: among mental disorders a person has micropsia - a condition when a person perceives objects and items proportionally reduced. Or enlarged. Remember how Alice grew and shrunk? So it is here. A person with Alice in Wonderland syndrome may see a regular doorknob as if it were the size of the door itself. But much more often people perceive objects as if from afar. The worst thing is that a person in such a state does not understand what actually exists and what only seems to him.

There are references to Lewis Carroll's work in many books and films. One of the most famous implicit quotes is the phrase “Follow the white rabbit” in the science fiction action film “The Matrix.” A little later in the film, another allusion emerges: Morpheus offers Neo two pills to choose from. Having chosen the right one, Keanu Reeves' character finds out "how deep this rabbit hole goes." And the smile of the Cheshire cat appears on Morpheus’s face. In "Resident Evil" there is a whole pack of analogies, starting from the name of the main character - Alice, to the name of the central computer - "Red Queen". The effect of the virus and antivirus was tested on a white rabbit, and to get into the corporation, you had to go through a mirror. And even in the horror film “Freddy vs. Jason” there was a place for Carroll’s heroes. One of the victims in the film sees Freddy Krueger

· Many scenes of the tale have been analyzed by scientists and researchers in various fields of knowledge. So, in the episode when Alice falls into the hole, she asks questions of logical positivism. And cosmologists saw in the scenes of Alice's increase and decrease the impact of the theory that talks about the expansion of the Universe. Also seen in a fairy tale hidden satire on Darwin's theory of evolution and the theory of natural selection (episodes with a sea of ​​tears and running in circles).

· The book contains 11 poems, which were original parodies of moralizing songs and poems of that time. Their perception is difficult for modern reader, it is especially difficult to understand the writer’s clever wordplay in translations of the book.

· The first reviews of the book were more negative than positive. One magazine in 1900 called the tale too unnatural and overloaded with oddities, dubbing Carroll's work a dream-tale.

· The book contains a huge number of mathematical, philosophical and linguistic allusions, so not every adult can understand all the intricacies of the book. This work is considered the best example the genre of absurdity in literature.

· The mad characters The Hatter and the March Hare were borrowed by Carroll from English sayings: “mad as a hatter” and “mad as a March hare.” This behavior of hares can easily be explained by the mating season, and the madness of the hatter is due to the fact that in ancient times Mercury was used to make felt, and mercury poisoning causes mental disorders.

· In the original version of the tale, the Cheshire Cat was absent. Carroll only added it in 1865. Many still argue about the origin mysterious smile this character: some say that at that time the saying “smiles like Cheshire cat“, others are sure that this is due to the fact that the appearance of a smiling cat was once given to the famous Cheshire cheese.

· In honor of most of the names that were associated with the book (including the prototype of the main character - Alice Liddell), and the names of the characters themselves, astronomers named minor planets.

· The original book "Alice in Wonderland" was titled "Alice's Adventures Underground" and was personally illustrated by the author. Lewis Carroll is the pen name of Charles Ludwidge Dodgson. He was a professor of mathematics at Oxford.

Movie:

· The film "The Matrix" has many parallels with "Alice in Wonderland", including some that can only be noticed when reading the script. Offering two pills to Neo to choose from, Morpheus says, "If you choose the red one, you stay in Wonderland, and I'll show you how deep this rabbit hole goes." And when Neo does right choice, Morpheus's face "appears with a Cheshire cat smile."

· In the film “Resident Evil” the director used a lot of analogies of the film with L. Carroll’s fairy tales: the name of the main character, the name of the computer “Red Queen”, white rabbit, on which the effects of the T-virus and antivirus were tested, access to the Umbrella Corporation through a mirror, etc.

· In the film Tideland, Jeliza-Rose reads passages from Alice in Wonderland to her father, and throughout the film there are reminiscences from Alice: the bus ride, the fall in the hole, the rabbit, Dell acting like the Duchess from Wonderland, then like the White Queen from Through the Looking Glass), etc.

Tim Burton film:

· In Tim Burton's film "Alice in Wonderland" Alice is already 19 years old. Randomly she returns to Wonderland, where she was thirteen years ago. She is told that she is the only one who can kill the Jabberwocky, a dragon under the control of the Red Queen.

· An amazing coincidence - Tim Burton's London office is located in the house that once belonged to Arthur Rackham, the famous English artist, author of the legendary color illustrations for the 1907 edition of Alice in Wonderland.

· Almost Alice - While working on the film "Alice in Wonderland" (Tim Burton), two music album: Film soundtrack featuring music by Danny Elfman and "Almost Alice", a collection of 16 songs that includes Avril Lavigne's "Alice (Underground)", which plays over the film's end credits, as well as songs by other musicians inspired by the film. The album title is a quote from the film. The entire Dungeon eagerly awaits Alice's return, but when she returns, no one - including Alice herself - believes that she is the true Alice they once knew. In the end, the wise caterpillar Absolem concludes that this is Almost Alice.

· Portraits of Johnny Depp - Actor Johnny Depp always prepares intensely for every role, and the Mad Hatter is no exception. Long before filming began, the actor began drawing watercolor portraits Mad Hatter. It later turned out that his vision of the character largely coincides with the director's vision of Tim Burton.

· Mad Hatter - Mood Indicator - The Mad Hatter is a victim of mercury poisoning. Unfortunately, in old times such incidents were common among hatters, since chemistry was an invariable attribute of their craft. Depp and Burton found original way emphasize the madness of the Hatter: he is like a mood indicator ring; the slightest changes in his emotional mood are instantly reflected not only on his face, but also in his clothes and appearance.

· Changes - B real life The height of Mia Wasikowska, who plays Alice, is 160 cm, but Alice’s height changes more than once during her wanderings through Wonderland: from 15 cm to 60 cm, then up to 2.5 m, or even up to 6 meters! The filmmakers were very careful to use practical techniques on set rather than special effects. Sometimes Alice was placed on a box to make her seem taller than the others.

· Drink Me - The elixir that Alice drinks to shrink is called Pishsolver. The cake she eats to grow is called Rastibuchen (Upelkuchen).

· Sour and Sweet - Actress Anne Hathaway, who plays the White Queen, decided that her character would not be perfectly white and fluffy. The White Queen has the same heritage as her sister, the evil Red Queen, which is why Hathaway calls her a "punk rock pacifist and vegetarian." When creating this image, she was inspired by the group Blondie, Greta Garbo, Dan Flavin and Norma Desmond.

· Jig-how? — Jig-Dryga (Futterwacken) is a term denoting a dance of unbridled joy performed by the inhabitants of the Dungeon. When it came to composing the music for this dance, composer Danny Elfman was puzzled. He wrote 4 different options, each of which was funny, unique and, in Elfman's own words, "teetering on the edge of decency."

· Twins - Actor Matt Lucas has been cast as Tweedledum and Tweedledee, chubby twin brothers who constantly quarrel with each other and whose incoherent chatter is incomprehensible to anyone but themselves. However, Lucas (for some reason) couldn't portray both Tweedledum and Tweedledum at the same time. They turned to another actor for help, Ethan Cohen, who stood next to Lucas on film set. However, it will not appear on the screen.

· Fitting and Fitting - Costume designer Colleen Atwood worked tirelessly on Mia Wasikowska's Alice costumes. After all, the heroine is constantly changing in size and often changes outfits, including a dress made from the curtains of the Red Queen’s castle, and even knight’s armor. Atwood had to find special fabrics for each size and sew the costumes in such a way as to highlight the unexpected changes in Alice's growth.

· Leave his head! — Crispin Glover plays Stane, the Knave of Hearts, in the film, but we only see his head on screen. The body of this 2.5-meter character is drawn on a computer. On set, Glover wore a green suit and walked on stilts to make himself appear taller. In addition, he was heavily made up (an eyepatch and a scar complete the image). Stein's torso, armor, and even his helmet were created using computer animation. The actor only owns the face.

· Leave her face! — Helena Bonham Carter endured 3 hours every morning while makeup artists turned her into the Red Queen. During this time, the actress was sprinkled with white powder, blue shadows were applied to her eyes, and her eyebrows and lips were drawn in the shape of a perfect scarlet heart. After filming, special effects specialists enlarged the actress’s head in the frame, completing the final image of the Red Queen.

· Surprise Soles – Costume designer Colleen Atwood created scarlet hearts on the soles of the Red Queen's shoes. They can be seen when the royal lady places her feet on a live pig stand.

· Trouble with Stilts - Crispin Glover most of spent his filming time on stilts. One day he fell from them and twisted his leg, after which stuntmen in green suits followed him around the site to catch him in case of another fall.

· Bunny Friends - Tim Burton wanted the animals to appear alive and real on screen, rather than cartoon characters. Therefore, before starting work on the White Rabbit, the animators spent a whole day in a shelter for abandoned rabbits, watching the animals. They filmed a whole photo shoot to capture the finest nuances rabbit facial expressions.

· From 2D to 3D - Director Tim Burton made the decision to shoot the film in conventional 2D format and then convert it to 3D. The 3D translation of his film The Nightmare Before Christmas impressed Burton so much that he decided to follow the same path with Alice.

· Super Special Effects Specialist - For help in creating Wonderland and its wonderful inhabitants, Tim Burton turned to legendary special effects guru Ken Ralston and Sony Imageworks. Ralston (who is responsible for the first trilogy " Star Wars", as well as "Forrest Gump" and "The Polar Express") and his team created over 2,500 visual effects shots. The film did not use motion capture technology; instead, the creators developed a combination of game scenes, animation and a whole range of other technical effects.

· All in Green - To represent the characters that would later be created by the animators, cardboard silhouettes, models in full height or people in green with eyes glued to different parts bodies - to help actors choose the correct direction of gaze.

· Caterpillar Hair - While studying blown-up photographs of real caterpillars, the animators discovered that caterpillars are hairy. Therefore, Absolem was given beautiful animated hair.

· Handmade— Very few actual sets were built for Wonderland. Only three interiors of the Round Hall (where Alice ends up after falling down the rabbit hole) and the Red Queen's dungeons were built on the site. Everything else is created on the computer.

· Mirror of the Soul - The Mad Hatter's eyes are slightly enlarged: they are 10-15% larger than Johnny Depp's eyes.

· Search the web - When the animators started working on the Dodo, the first thing they did was search for images of it on Google, and then at the Natural History Museum in London.

· Big head— A special camera was used to film the Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter) high resolution called “Dulsa”: with its help, the character’s head could subsequently be doubled in size without the slightest loss of image quality.

Alice and Carroll:

· Alice Liddell was the daughter of the dean of Christ Church College, Oxford, where the young writer Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) studied and then taught mathematics. Dodgson met their family and communicated with Alice for many years.

· The original version of your fantastic story, making it up as he went along, the writer told the three Liddell sisters during a boat trip on the Thames. The main character was very similar to one of the girls, and the other sisters were given secondary roles.

· Having listened to Alice's requests, Carroll put his story on paper. In the same year, he gave the girl the first handwritten version of a book called “Alice's Adventures Underground.” 64 years later, having lost her husband, 74-year-old Alice put the valuable gift up for auction and received £15,400 for it. After this event, a copy of the book was resold several times and found peace in the British Library, where it can be found at the moment.

· Literary character Carrolla - the main character Alice - could have received a different name. At the birth of the girl, the parents debated for a long time whether to name her Marina. However, the name Alice was considered more suitable.

· Alice was a well-educated and gifted child - she was seriously involved in painting. John Ruskin himself, the famous English artist XIX century, gave her lessons and found her paintings talented.

· In 1880, Alice married Lewis Carroll's student Reginald Hargreaves. The young parents named one of their three sons Caryl, probably in honor of the “pimp.”

1. On July 4, 1862, a professor of mathematics at one of Oxford colleges, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (real name of Lewis Carroll), his colleague Duckworth and the three young daughters of the rector Liddell went on a boat trip along the Thames. Throughout the day, while the walk lasted, Dodgson, at the request of the girls, told them a story he made up as he walked. Its characters were the participants of the walk, including the professor’s favorite, 10-year-old Alice Liddell. She liked the story so much that she begged Dodgson to write it down, which he did the very next day.
2. However, it took the busy professor two and a half years to fully record the story. He gave the green leather book with neat handwritten text to Alice as a Christmas present in 1864. The story was called "Alice's Adventures Underground" and contained only four chapters. Today it is kept in the British Library in London.
3. Chance meeting visiting with the publisher Alexander Macmillan made it possible to realize Dodgson's dream of publishing Alice. However, first of all he needed to find good illustrator. He managed to get the famous John Tenniel. It is his black and white illustrations for “Alice” that are considered classic today, and the image of Alice with long blond hair is canonical.
4. When choosing the color for the cover of Alice, Dodgson chose a clean, bright red. He found it most attractive to children. This color became the standard color for editions of Alice and other books by Carroll in England.
5. Macmillan's publisher, The Claredon Press of Oxford, printed two thousand copies of the book - what we would now call the first printing - but it never went on sale. Illustrator Tenniel was extremely dissatisfied with the quality of the print, and Dodgson made a concession to him. He even recalled with apologies the 50 copies that he managed to send to friends. New edition was printed in another printing house, and this time Tenniel was satisfied. The reprint, however, cost Dojoson a pretty penny - according to his agreement with MacMillan, the author covered all expenses. For a 33-year-old Oxford professor with a modest income, the decision was no easy task.
6. Today any copy of that first edition costs thousands of pounds. The fate of these books, however, is quite vague. Currently, only 23 surviving copies are known, which have ended up in the collections of libraries, archives and private individuals.
7. First Russian edition"Alice in Wonderland" was called "Sonya in the Kingdom of the Diva." It was printed in 1879 in the printing house of A.I. Mamontov in Moscow, without indicating the author or translator. Russian reviewers found the book strange and pointless.
8. There are about 40 film adaptations of the book "Alice in Wonderland". The first film adaptation was staged in 1903. The silent black and white film lasted approximately 10-12 minutes and included special effects, quite high level for that time - for example, Alice shrank and grew while in a dollhouse.
9. One of the first cartoons based on the book is “Alice in Wonderland,” drawn by the Disney studio in 1951. The project was in development for about 10 years, and its production took another five. And for good reason – this colorful and lively cartoon is still popular today. Russian cartoon about Alice, which is in no way inferior in its artistic qualities to the American one, was created at the Kyiv Film Studio of Popular Science Films in 1981 (directed by Efrem Pruzhansky).
10. The last movie today, based on "Alice in Wonderland" - a 2010 film directed by Tim Burton and starring Mia Wasikowska, Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter. This is not a classic production, but rather an interpretation of the book. Modern computer graphics made it possible to create a colorful and frightening Wonderland, almost as absurd as Carroll's.

Exactly 155 years ago - July 4, 1862 - during a picnic, Charles Dodgson took a walk with three Liddell girls. Then an unknown mathematics teacher told them a story about the adventures of a little girl who ran after a rabbit to Wonderland. One of Dean Liddell's daughters, 10-year-old Alice, began to insist that he write down the whole story. Dodgson followed the advice and wrote the book Alice in Wonderland under the name of Lewis Carroll. Thus was born a wonderful fairy tale, on which not a single generation of children grew up.

Here are some interesting facts about the famous book.

Its first edition was completely destroyed, because... the author was not very pleased with her. By the way, many well-loved characters were not originally in “Alice”. One of these is the Cheshire Cat. The working title of the work was “Alice's Adventures Underground.”

The story of Alice's adventures brought him incredible popularity during Lewis Carroll's lifetime. The book has been filmed more than 40 times. In addition, several computer games have been created based on the fairy tale.

The book has been translated into 125 languages ​​of the world. And it wasn't that easy. The thing is that if you translate the fairy tale literally, then all the humor and all its charm are lost - there are too many puns and witticisms based on the peculiarities of the English language. Therefore, the greatest success was not the translation of the book, but the retelling of Boris Zakhoder. In total, there are about 13 options for translating the fairy tale into Russian. Moreover, in the first version, created by an anonymous translator, the book was called “Sonya in the Kingdom of the Diva.” The next translation appeared almost 30 years later, and the cover read “Anya’s Adventures in the World of Wonders.” And Boris Zakhoder admitted that he considered the name “Aliska in Wonderland” to be more appropriate, but decided that the public would not appreciate such a title.

The prototype of the book Alice was Alice Liddell, with whose family Carroll communicated. This fact is indicated on her memorial plaque. She lived a long and happy life. At the age of 28 she married professional player cricket for Hampshire and gave birth to three sons. Unfortunately, both eldest sons died in the First World War. Alice died at the age of 82.

Was born Dodgson January 27, 1832 in the English village of Daresbury, in Cheshire. He was the eldest child in the family of the parish priest, who besides Charlie had seven more daughters and three sons. All 11 children received home education, the father himself taught them the law of God, literature and the basics of natural sciences, “biography” and “chronology”. Charles, as the eldest, was sent to Richmond Grammar School. After six months of study, Dodgson managed to enter Rugby School, where teachers noticed in the boy a penchant for theology and mathematics.

After 18-year-old Charlie entered Christ Church College, Oxford University, his whole life was connected with Oxford. The young man graduated with honors from the Faculty of Mathematics and the Faculty of Classical Languages, and after graduation he was offered to stay at Oxford and teach. Charles hesitated a little - after all, in those days, to obtain the position of professor, the priesthood was necessary. However, Dodgson quickly resigned himself, and even managed to take the rank of deacon, until university rules changed and taking holy orders became optional.

In Oxford, Dodgson lived in small house with turrets. His rooms were littered with drawings (he drew well and illustrated his own handwritten journals). A little later, he became acquainted with the art of photography and fell in love with the play of light and shadow for the rest of his life. He bought a camera and equipped a real photo workshop in his house.

Dodgson loved children very much. He had 10 younger brothers and sisters to deal with. As a boy, he began to invent small poems and fairy tales for them. Such affection for young children, especially girls, could not help but lead to accusations of pedophilia. Of Dodgson's childhood friends, the most famous were those with whom he had been friends since his youth - these were the children of the dean of his college, Liddell: Harry, Lorina, Alice (Alice), Rhoda, Edith and Violet. He came up with all sorts of funny stories for them and tried in every possible way to entertain his friends. Charles's favorite, of course, was Alice, who became the main character these short stories. One day, Dodgson arranged a boat ride on the Thames for the Liddell girls. This time he told the most amazing and exciting story, and Alice was so delighted with it that she asked to write down the whole adventure on paper. Dodgson added a few more amazing stories and took the book to the publisher. This is how the well-known "Alice in Wonderland". The book was published in 1965, and Lewis Carroll kept coming up with ideas amazing stories about Alice. Six years later (in 1871), the stories accumulated for another book, which was published just in time for Christmas. New fairy tale It was called "Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Seen There". Amazing, philosophical and complex tales about Alice were enjoyed by both children and adults. They are quoted, referred to by philologists and physicists, and studied by philosophers and linguists, psychologists and mathematicians. Many articles have been written about Carroll's tales, scientific works and books, and illustrations for his books were drawn by hundreds of artists, including. Now Alice's adventures have been translated into more than approximately 100 languages.

On the writer's birthday "Evening Moscow" brings to your attention a selection of interesting facts from his biography.

1. After reading “Alice in Wonderland” and “Alice Through the Looking Glass,” Queen Victoria was delighted and demanded that the rest of the works of this wonderful author be brought to her. The queen's request, of course, was fulfilled, but the rest of Dodgson's works were entirely devoted to... mathematics. The most famous books- this is “Algebraic analysis of the fifth book of Euclid” (1858, 1868), “Notes on algebraic planimetry” (1860), “Elementary guide to the theory of determinants” (1867), “Euclid and his modern rivals” (1879), “Mathematical curiosities " (1888 and 1893) and "Symbolic Logic" (1896).

2. In English-speaking countries, Carroll's tales rank third among the most cited books. The first place was taken by the Bible, the second by the works of Shakespeare.

3. The first Oxford edition of "Alice in Wonderland" was completely destroyed at the request of the author. Carroll did not like the quality of the publication. At the same time, the writer was not at all interested in the quality of publication in other countries, for example, in America. In this matter, he completely relied on the publishers.

4. B Victorian England being a photographer was not at all easy. The process of photographing was unusually complex and labor-intensive: photographs had to be taken at extremely high shutter speeds, on glass plates coated with collodion solution. After shooting, the plates had to be developed very quickly. Dodgson's talented photographs remained unknown to the general public for a long time, but in 1950 the book "Lewis Carroll - Photographer" was published.

5. During one of Carroll's lectures, one of the students had an epileptic attack, and Carroll was able to help. After this incident, Dodgson became seriously interested in medicine, and he acquired and studied dozens of medical reference books and books. To test his endurance, Charles attended an operation where a patient's leg was amputated above the knee. His passion for medicine did not go unnoticed - in 1930, the Lewis Carroll Children's Department was opened at St. Mary's Hospital.

6. In Victorian England, a child under 14 was considered asexual and asexual. But communication between an adult man and a young girl could ruin her reputation. Many researchers believe that because of this, girls underestimated their age when talking about their friendship with Dodgson. The innocence of this friendship can also be judged by Carroll’s correspondence with his older girlfriends. Not a single letter hints at any love feelings on the part of the writer. On the contrary, they contain discussions about life and are completely friendly in nature.

7. Researchers cannot say exactly what kind of person Lewis Carroll was in life. On the one hand, he had a hard time making friends, and his students considered him the most boring teacher in the world. But other researchers say that Carroll was not shy at all and consider the writer a famous ladies' man. They believe that relatives simply did not like to mention it.

8. Lewis Carroll loved to write letters. He even shared his thoughts in the article "Eight or Nine words of wisdom about how to write letters." And at the age of 29, the writer started a journal in which he recorded all incoming and outgoing correspondence. Over 37 years, 98,921 letters were registered in the journal.

9. In addition to being accused of pedophilia, Lewis Carroll was a suspect in the case of Jack the Ripper, a serial killer who was never caught.

10. The exact date of that memorable boat ride on the Thames during which Carroll told his story about Alice is unknown. It is generally accepted that “Golden July Noon” is July 4, 1862. However, the Journal of the English Royal Meteorological Society reports that on July 4, 1862, 3 cm of rain fell in 24 hours from 10:00 a.m., with the bulk falling from 2:00 p.m. late at night.

11. To the real Alice Liddell had to sell the first handwritten version of Alice's Adventures Underground for £15,400 in 1928. She had to do this because she had nothing to pay for the house.

12. There is Alice in Wonderland syndrome. During an acute attack of a certain type of migraine, people feel themselves or surrounding objects disproportionately small or large and cannot determine the distance to them. These sensations can be accompanied by a headache or occur independently, and the attack can last for months. In addition to migraines, Alice in Wonderland syndrome can be caused by a brain tumor or taking psychotropic drugs.

13. Charles Dodgson suffered from insomnia. Trying to escape from sad thoughts and fall asleep, he invented mathematical puzzles and solved them himself. Carroll published his “midnight tasks” as a separate book.

14. Lewis Carroll spent a whole month in Russia. He was, after all, a deacon, and at that time the Orthodox and Anglican churches were trying to establish strong contacts. Together with his theologian friend Lyddon, he met with Metropolitan Philaret in Sergiev Posad. In Russia, Dodgson visited St. Petersburg, Sergiev Posad, Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod, and found the journey exciting and educational.

15. Carroll had two passions - photography and theater. He, being famous writer, personally attended the rehearsals of his fairy tales, showing a deep understanding of the laws of the stage.