After watching the newest film version of Alice In Wonderland I got to thinking of the real Alice without whom we would never have had this story. Alice Pleasance Liddell was born in 1852 and was the second daughter of Dean Liddell of Christ Church Oxford. It was to her and her two sisters that Lewis Carroll (real name Charles Dodgson, a professor of Mathematics at Oxford) told the original story on a boat trip up the Isis river. Alice begged Carroll to write the story down and it was eventually published. However the long friendship between Carroll and the Liddells was broken in 1863 under mysterious circumstances. Speculation has been that Carroll asked for permission to court either Alice or her elder sister Lorina but that Mrs. Liddell refused seeking higher class matches for her daughters or that Carroll was using his friendship with the Liddells to pay court to the girls’ governess. Whatever the reason the friendship was over. Alice later married Reginald Hargreaves and had three sons, two of whom were killed in World War I. Due to expenses in mainting her home she had to sell her original copy of Alice’s Adventures Under Ground (as the story was first called). Alice died in 1934 and has forevermore been known as Alice In Wonderland.
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Fairy Tales
While vampires are the most popular supernatural creatures in books these days, fairies are becoming a close second. Lately I’ve read quite a few young adult books about fairies that I really enjoyed. The Faerie Path is a series about a young girl named Anita who discovers that she is really Tania the seventh daughter of King Oberon and Queen Titania of the Realm of Faerie. So far the series comprises six books chronicling Tania’s adventures in Faerie and the Mortal Realm – The Faerie Path, The Lost Queen, The Seventh Daughter, The Immortal Realm and The Enchanted Quest with a seventh book The Charmed Return to follow sometime in the future. Another enjoyable book is Wings by Aprilynne Pike which is about how Laurel discovers she is a plant fairie when wings start growing out of her back. The sequel Spells will be published in May. Then there is Wonderous Strange and its sequel Darklight by Lesley Livingston which tells about aspiring actress Kelley who discovers that she is a fairy when she meets Sonny a changeling who guards the gate between the fairie and mortal worlds. And I just finished reading How To Ditch Your Fairy by Justine Larbalestier which takes place in an alternate world in which many people have a personal fairy to work for them. Charlie, the heroine of this book, is not happy with having a parking fairy and would prefer a clothes shopping fairy or an every boy likes you fairy and so she has to figure out what to do to bring this about. So if you’re tired of vampires why not try some fairy tales?
Pamela’s Picks: We Two: Victoria And Albert: Rulers, Partners And Rivals by Gillian Gish
Before going to see the movie Young Victoria I decided to read up on the life of Queen Victoria. I checked out the new book We Two: Victoria and Albert: Rulers, Partners and Rivals by Gillian Gish and found it a very interesting read. Victoria and Albert married for love which was uncommon for royals in the nineteenth century when most marriages were arranged for dynastic reasons. As Victoria was Queen when she decided to get engaged to her cousin Albert she had to do the proposing. Theirs was a loving but complicated relationship. Albert was in the awkward position of being a subject to his wife but also a husband who was supposed to be the dominant partner in the relationship. Victoria adored Albert but struggled trying to be the submissive wife her society expected her to be with her own strong will to have her own way plus her role as Queen. They had nine children whose descendants are still on some of Europe’s thrones today. Albert died young of typhoid and Victoria spent the next forty years mourning him. She kept his bedroom just as it was when he died, expected all her male descendants to have the name Albert and commemorated him by numerous monuments. A sad ending for one of history’s greatest love stories.