The Modern Library Children's Classics

by Kenneth Grahame

  Surely your gladness need not be the less for the thought that you will one day see a brighter dawn than this——when lovelier sights will meet your eyes than any waving trees or rippling waters——when angel-hands shall undraw your curtains, and sweeter tones than ever loving Mother breathed shall wake you to a new and glorious day——and when all the sadness, and the sin, that darkened life on this little earth, shall be forgotten like the dreams of a night that is past!

  Your affectionate friend,

  LEWIS CARROLL

  EASTER, 1876

  CHRISTMAS GREETINGS.

  [From a Fairy to a Child.]

  Lady dear, if Fairies may

  For a moment lay aside

  Cunning tricks and elfish play,

  ’Tis at happy Christmas-tide.

  We have heard the children say—

  Gentle children, whom we love—

  Long ago, on Christmas-Day,

  Came a message from above.

  Still, as Christmas-tide comes round,

  They remember it again—

  Echo still the joyful sound,

  “Peace on earth, good-will to men!”

  Yet the hearts must child-like be

  Where such heavenly guests abide;

  Unto children, in their glee,

  All the year is Christmas-tide.

  Thus, forgetting tricks and play

  For a moment, Lady dear,

  We would wish you, if we may,

  Merry Christmas, glad New Year!

  Christmas, 1887.

  NOTES

  Frequently cited sources:

  Cohen, Morton N. Lewis Carroll: A Biography. New York: Vintage Books, 1996.

  Gardner, Martin. The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition. New York: W. W. Norton, 2000.

  Green, Roger Lancelyn. The Story of Lewis Carroll. New York: Henry Schuman, 1950.

  Haughton, Hugh, ed. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There. Centenary Edition. New York: Penguin USA, 1998.

  Although Charles Lutwidge Dodgson was scrupulous in separating his persona as Lewis Carroll from his life as an Oxford mathematician, for ease in reading, I will consistently refer to Dodgson as “Lewis Carroll.” Dodgson’s pen name was constructed by Latinizing his first two given names, translating them back into English, and then reversing them. The first piece to be published under this pseudonym was a serious poem published in 1856 entitled “Solitude.”

  —Lynne Vallone

  ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND

  “ALL IN THE GOLDEN AFTERNOON”

  1. The poem refers to a July 4, 1862, rowing party up the Thames River enjoyed by Lewis Carroll, his friend Robinson Duckworth, and three of Dean Henry George Liddell’s daughters, Lorina, Alice, and Edith. At this time, Carroll enjoyed a close relationship with the daughters of the dean of his fashionable Oxford college, Christ Church. During this expedition, Carroll was prevailed upon to tell a story. He began a nonsense tale that featured a seven-year-old Alice (Alice Liddell herself was ten years old in 1862 and thirteen in 1865, when the novel was published, exactly three years to the day after their river excursion) and her experiences with the creatures who live below ground. Alice begged that the story be written down for her and Carroll obliged, presenting his illustrated manuscript Alice’s Adventures Under Ground to Alice as a Christmas gift in 1864, two and a half years after the excursion and eighteen months after a rift between the Liddells and Carroll that served to keep them apart. Others urged Carroll to publish his story: most significantly, his friend George MacDonald, the poet and novelist, whose children also read the draft with enthusiasm. Carroll documented his relationship with the Liddell family and his beloved Alice in his diaries, which ultimately filled thirteen octavo volumes. However, some of the volumes of the diary have been lost or destroyed, including those covering the period between mid-April 1858 and May 1862, important years in the relationship between Carroll and the Liddell family. Since Stuart Dodgson Collingwood, Carroll’s nephew and first biographer, quotes briefly from the lost volumes in his treatment of his uncle’s life, it is clear that the diaries went missing some time after The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll appeared in 1898. The exact reason for this break between the Oxford don and the dean and his family has never been discovered, but theories explaining the rupture abound. Most center on Mrs. Liddell—a mercurial, socially conscious matron who indulged and rejected Carroll by turn. Was she afraid of the close relationship between her young daughter and the mathematician twenty years her senior? Did Carroll (as Cohen conjectures; see 101–1.3) suggest that he would like to court Alice when she was older, thus alarming Mrs. Liddell’s protective, if not ambitious, maternal nature? Whatever the reason, the forced physical separation between Carroll and his most treasured child friend profoundly impacted Carroll’s life.

  2. little: Gardner notes that Carroll puns on the last name of his three young companions—Liddell, which was pronounced to rhyme with “fiddle”—three times in the first stanza (p. 9, n. 2).

  3. Prima … Secunda … Tertia: refers to the birth order of the Liddell sisters: Lorina was the oldest, Alice next, Edith last. The eldest Liddell child was a son, Edward Henry (Harry). Two additional sisters, Rhoda and Violet, were born after Edith.

  CHAPTER I DOWN THE RABBIT-HOLE

  1. Antipathies: Antipodes, a group of New Zealand islands so named for their location on the globe directly opposite Greenwich, England. Geography would have constituted a significant part of Alice’s education.

  2. Dinah: name of the Liddell family’s tabby cat.

  3. nice little stories: The narrator is referring—rather tongue-in-cheek—to stories such as the enduringly popular didactic (and grim) The History of the Fairchild Family (three volumes, 1818–47) by Mary Sherwood (1775–1851), which was read by children into the twentieth century. One episode of this long tale recounts the story of young Augusta Noble, who is punished for her disregard of her parents’ rules about lighted candles by dying “in agonies” from burns suffered when her dressing gown catches on fire. This event stands as a lesson to the Fairchild children (and the reader), who are given the following hymn to learn: “Let children that would fear the Lord / Hear what their teachers say, / With rev’rence meet their parents’ word / And with delight obey.” The History of the Fairchild Family (New York: Garland, 1977), p. 161.

  CHAPTER II. THE POOL OF TEARS

  1. Fender: low metal guard set in front of an open fireplace to protect the floor and carpeting from burning embers.

  2. Ada: In the manuscript Alice’s Adventures Under Ground, Carroll used the names of two of Alice’s cousins here. He later changed the names so as not to embarrass the Liddell family.

  3. “How doth the little crocodile”: parody of a well-known didactic poem by Isaac Watts (1674–1748) entitled “Against Idleness and Mischief” and generally assigned for memorization. The first stanza reads, “How doth the little busy bee, / Improve each shining hour, / And gather honey all the day / From every opening flower!”

  4. bathing machines: First invented in the mid-eighteenth century, the bathing machine was a common sight on Victorian resort beaches. It consisted of a tiny wheeled house used as a changing room and as cover for the modest bather. Once the intrepid bather had changed into his or her bathing costume, the machine would be drawn by horses into the water and the bather would exit from a door facing the sea.

  5. A mouse: Carroll comments here on the differences between the education of boys and girls: Alice can only peek into her brother’s Latin text. Gardner quotes Selwyn Goodacre’s belief that Alice’s confusion was perhaps the result of mistaking the Latin musa (or “muse”) for mus (“mouse”), the declining of which can be found in The Comic Latin Grammar (1840). Carroll owned a first edition of this book (p. 26, n. 8).

  6. William the Conqueror: former duke of Normandy who came over from France, killed Harold (earl of Wessex and king) at Hastings, and was crowned king in his
place (r. 1066–1087). In addition to quelling Anglo-Saxon rebellions against his Norman reign (and introducing Norman French at court, which influenced the development of the English language), William I ordered the first survey and census of England (1085–86). Called the Domesday (or “Doomsday”) Book, portions survive today.

  7. Duck and a Dodo, a Lory and an Eaglet: playfully refers to the members of the July 4, 1862, boat trip and an earlier excursion to Nuneham that took place on June 17. Reverend Duckworth is the Duck, Lorina is the Lory (an Australian parrot), and Edith is the Eaglet. Carroll may have called himself the Dodo because of his stammer (“Do-Do-Dodgson”); however, contemporaries who refer to Carroll’s manner of speech sometimes remarked that his impediment was an inability for sound to come out rather than inadvertently repeated syllables. (See Cohen, p. 290, for a child friend’s description of Carroll’s impediment.) As an adult, Carroll sought treatment for his stammer from Dr. James Hunt, a famous speech correctionist. Carroll may also have styled himself as the extinct dodo bird as a joke upon his own eccentric or unusual character.

  In Alice’s Adventures Under Ground, Carroll included a number of personal jokes for the Liddell family that he removed before he published the expanded version. For example, in the manuscript story, after the animals are frightened away by Alice’s description of Dinah, Alice regrets their departure: “I do wish some of them had stayed a little longer! And I was getting to be such friends with them—really the Lory and I were almost like sisters, and so was that dear little Eaglet!” (see Green, p. 58). When the manuscript was published in facsimile in 1886, Carroll inscribed a copy to Reverend Duckworth as “The Duck from the Dodo.”

  CHAPTER III. A CAUCUS-RACE AND A LONG TALE

  1. Mouse: A number of critics have suggested that the Mouse represents Miss Prickett, the Liddell daughters’ governess. Although she did not attend the outing on July 4, she would have been a “person of authority” who would read aloud from works of history.

  2. William the Conqueror, whose cause … insolence of his Normans: Green, in his edition of The Diaries of Lewis Carroll (2 volumes, 1953; quoted in Gardner, p. 30, n. 1), attributes these passages to Havilland Chepmell’s Short Course of History (1862).

  3. Caucus-race: This scene was added to the published version of Alice’s story. In England, political parties were organized according to a system of committees. Gardner surmises that “Carroll may have intended his caucus-race to symbolize the fact that committee members generally do a lot of running around in circles, getting nowhere, and with everybody wanting a political plum” (p. 31, n. 2). The Caucus-race may also be interpreted, Richard Kelly contends, “as a metaphor for the entire story, indeed, for life itself. Many authors, including Saint Paul, have compared life to a race.” Richard Kelly, ed., Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press, [2000]), p. 22.

  4. comfits: hard candy containing a nut or piece of fruit.

  CHAPTER IV. THE RABBIT SENDS IN A LITTLE BILL

  1. Mary Ann: a typical servant’s name, according to Green and others.

  2. cucumber frame: small greenhouselike structure used to maximize solar energy in growing cucumbers.

  3. apples: Pat’s brogue reveals his Irish background—which accounts for both the White Rabbit’s superior attitude toward him (as well as Pat’s deference) and his defense that he is “digging for apples.” “Irish apples” was a slang term referring to potatoes (Gardner, p. 41, n. 8).

  4. puppy: Many critics have noted that the terrier puppy is the only creature in Wonderland that does not speak to Alice.

  5. hookah: a water-pipe used for smoking tobacco (especially), hashish, or opium. The smoke is drawn through a thin, flexible hose and then cooled in the jar of water.

  CHAPTER V. ADVICE FROM A CATERPILLAR

  1. “You are old, Father William”: parody of a poem by Robert Southey (1774–1843) entitled “The Old Man’s Comforts and How He Gained Them.” The first two stanzas are indicative of the entire poem:

  “You are old, Father William,” the young man cried,

  “The few locks which are left you are gray;

  You are hale, Father William, a hearty old man;

  Now tell me the reason, I pray.”

  “In the days of my youth,” Father William replied,

  “I remember’d that youth would fly fast,

  and abus’d not my health and my vigour at first,

  That I never might need them at last.”

  CHAPTER VI. PIG AND PEPPER

  1. livery: formal uniform worn by a nobleman’s servants.

  2. Cheshire cat: To “grin like a Cheshire Cat” was a well-known saying in Carroll’s time, although its origin is unknown. Debate between scholars over the meaning behind this enigmatic figure continues to this day.

  3. Speak roughly to your little boy: parody of a poem of unclear origin entitled “Speak Gently.” It has been attributed to both G. W. Langford and to David Bates, an American broker and poet, whose book of verse, The Eolian, published in 1849, included a poem that contained the stanza, “Speak gently to the little child! / Its love be sure to gain; / Teach it in accents soft and mild, / It may not long remain.”

  4. March Hare: “Mad as a hatter” and “mad as a march hare” were conventional sayings in Carroll’s day. Hatters often “went mad” as a result of mercury poisoning received in the process of curing the felt used in making hats. Gardner notes that there is no scientific evidence to support the common belief that hares act erratically in the month of March due to the mating season (as a hare’s mating season lasts for eight months), and that “mad as a marsh hare” (a phrase by Erasmus) may have changed over time to “march” hare (p. 66, n. 8).

  CHAPTER VII. A MAD TEA-PARTY

  1. Dormouse: a furry-tailed, nocturnal, and hibernating rodent that resembles a small squirrel; currently an endangered species in Britain.

  2. raven like a writing-desk: Carroll wrote that he originally did not intend for this riddle to contain an answer; however, he later offered the following solution in the preface to the 1897 edition of Alice’s Adventures: “Because it can produce a few notes, though they are very flat; and it is never put with the wrong end in front!” Numerous solutions have been advanced over the years.

  3. The fourth: In chapter VI, Alice hopes that the March Hare will not be “raving mad” since the month is not March but May. In her conversation with the Hare and Hatter she reveals the date to be the fourth. Thus, Alice’s adventure takes place on May 4, Alice Liddell’s birthday.

  4. Twinkle, twinkle, little bat!: parody of “The Star,” a poem by Jane Taylor (1783–1824) widely known as a nursery song today. The “bat” refers to Professor Bartholomew Price of Oxford, nicknamed “The Bat” by his students.

  5. Elsie, Lacie, and Tillie: another playful reference to the Liddell sisters: “Elsie” stands for “L. C.,” the initials of Lorina Charlotte; “Lacie” is an anagram of “Alice”; and “Tillie” is a shortening of Edith’s nickname, Matilda.

  6. treacle: molasses.

  7. ‘much of a muchness’: colloquial British saying to mean that little difference exists between two rather mediocre things.

  CHAPTER VIII. THE QUEEN’S CROQUET-GROUND

  1. a red rose-tree: In the English war of succession known as the War of the Roses (1455–85), dramatized by Shakespeare in the three parts of King Henry VI and in Richard III, the competing houses descended from Edward III—York and Lancaster—were each represented by a rose: the Lancastrians by the red rose and the Yorks by the white rose.

  2. Knave of Hearts: Jack of Hearts in a deck of cards.

  3. croquet: Carroll loved to play croquet with his own family, the Liddells, and others. He invented his own version of the game and called it “Croquet Castles.”

  4. “A cat may look at a king”: sixteenth-century proverb illustrating that the lower orders have some rights when in the company of superiors.

  CHAPTER IX. THE MOCK TURTLE’S STORY


  1. camomile: bitter medicine, used today in herbal teas.

  2. barley-sugar: brittle candy molded into the form of twisted sticks or different shapes. Nineteenth-century dietary rules for children strictly limited sweets.

  3. sounds will take care of themselves: play on a British proverb about frugality, “Take care of the pence and the pounds will take care of themselves.”

  4. Mock Turtle Soup: soup generally made with veal in imitation of turtle soup. Thus Tenniel draws the head, legs, and tail of the Mock Turtle to resemble a calf (see this page).

  5. Gryphon: in classical mythology, a beast that combines the body of a lion with the head and wings of an eagle; also “griffin.”

  6. school: In this chapter, through a series of puns such as “reeling and writhing,” Carroll pokes fun at the subjects and system of educating middle- and upper-class children of his day. The Mock Turtle and Gryphon act as “old boys” reminiscing about their school days.

  7. ‘French, music, and washing—extra’: refers to the end of a school bill, indicating that charges for laundry service were not included in school fees. Typical “extras” would have included lessons in French, German, art, and dancing.

  8. conger-eel: At this time the Liddell family’s drawing-master was the distinguished art critic John Ruskin (1819–1900).

  CHAPTER X. THE LOBSTER QUADRILLE

  1. Lobster Quadrille: The quadrille was a difficult kind of square dance that the Liddell daughters were taught in their dancing lessons.