A few weeks back Maria Tatar had a piece in the New York Times, “No More Adventures in Wonderland” in which she noted that Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Peter Pan were books based on stories created for real children. I have absolutely no wish to reopen the conversation that was the result of this piece, but I do want to point out some recent pieces related to the Alice exhibit opening tomorrow at the Tate Liverpool that do reinforce Tatar’s (and my) point about Alice being created for a particular audience, that is Alice Liddell, one of Carroll’s child friends.
- Richard Jenkyn in “What Alice Did” provides some worthy thoughts on Carroll’s continuing appeal.
- Marina Warner’s take.
- Slideshows from the Guardian, the Independent, and the BBC give a taste of what is in the exhibit.
- The Liverpool Echo has another feature with slideshow.
- Adrian Searle’s Guardian review of the exhibit.