Special July 4th Edition: “Begin at the beginning,” the King said, very gravely, “and go on till you come to the end: then stop”*…
July 4 is, of course, a very special anniversary…
On this date in 1862, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, a young Oxford mathematics don, took the daughters of the Dean of Christ Church College– Alice Liddell and her sisters– on a boating picnic on the River Thames in Oxford. To amuse the children he told them the story of a little girl, bored by a riverbank, whose adventure begins when she tumbles down a rabbit hole into a topsy-turvy world called “Wonderland.” The story so captivated the 10-year-old Alice that she begged him to write it down. The result was Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, published in 1865 under the pen name “Lewis Carroll,” with illustrations by John Tenniel.
Readers in or around Oxford can join the celebration.
[The Tenniel illustration above, via]
* Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland