The Story of Alice
Episode 2 of 5

Where did Alice stop and 'Alice' begin?

Wonderland is part of our cultural heritage - a shortcut for all that is beautiful and confusing; a metaphor used by artists, writers and politicians for 150 years.

But beneath the fairy tale lies [bad word] history of the author and his subject. The story of Charles Dodgson the quiet academic, and his second self Lewis Carroll - storyteller, innovator and avid collector of child-friends. And also of his dream-child Alice Liddell, and the fictional alter ego that would never let her grow up.

This is their secret history - one of love and loss, of innocence and ambiguity, and of one man's need to make Wonderland his refuge in a rapidly changing world.

Drawing on previously unpublished material, Robert Douglas-Fairhurst traces the creation and influence of the Alice books against a shifting cultural landscape - the birth of photography, changing definitions of childhood and uality, and the tensions inherent in the transition between the Victorian and modern worlds.

Read by [bad word] Beale
Produced by Joanna Green
Pier production for BBC Radio 4.

First broadcast: 07 Apr 2015 (b05qsylm) [bad word]  [bad word] wall-84750475_131