Alice beyond Wonderland explores the ubiquitous power of Lewis Carroll's imagined world. Including work by some of the most prominent contemporary scholars in the field of Lewis Carroll studies, all introduced by Karoline Leach's edgy foreword, Alice beyond Wonderland considers the literary, imaginative, and cultural influences of Carroll's 19th-century story on the high-tech, postindustrial cultural space of the twenty-first century.
As the critics in this volume attest, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland has sparked the imagination of countless children and adults alike, and has served as an influence to storytellers the world over. The critical essays in this volume reflect a variety of schools of criticism accompanied by notes on the contributing critics. Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is an essential resource for those interested in the interpretations of top scholars in the literary field.
Donald Rackin's study of Carroll's masterpieces examines how, in addition to being classic works of entertainment and imagination, the Alice books address issues that concerned mid-Victorians on the brink of the modern era. In chapters that explore the historical context, critical reception and interpretation of the Alice books, Rackin demonstrates how Carroll used fantasy and "nonsense".
Includes relevant chapter: "'The Queen Had Only One Way of Settling All Difficulties... "Off with his head!"': Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and the Anti-Gallows Movement"
Robert Douglas-Fairhurst illuminates two entangled lives: the Oxford mathematician Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) and Alice Liddell, the child for whom he invented the Alice stories. This relationship influenced Carroll's imaginative creation of Wonderland--a sheltered world apart during the stormy transition from the Victorian to the modern era.
In this volume, Jan Susina examines the importance of Lewis Carroll and his popular Alice books to the field of children's literature. From a study of Carroll's juvenilia to contemporary multimedia adaptations of Wonderland, Susina shows how the Alice books fit into the tradition of literary fairy tales and continue to influence children's writers.
Analysing Lewis Carroll's Alice books in the context of children's literature from the seventeenth through the nineteenth century, Ronald Reichertz argues that Carroll's striking originality was the result of a fusion of his narrative imagination and formal and thematic features from earlier children's literature. Drawing examples from a wide range of children's literature Reichertz demonstrates that the Alice books are infused with conventions of and allusions to earlier works.