ACHUKA Book of the Day 21 Apr 2025
“. . . probably no city has absorbed an author and his characters and the originals of those characters into the cultural bloodstream than Oxford.” So says Peter Hunt, the author of this absorbing reference title from Bodelian Library Publishing.
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass are two of the most famous fantasies in world literature, and yet their roots are firmly in nineteenth century and the university city of Oxford, England. Oxford’s, streets, colleges and buildings, the River Thames, and the villages on its banks, are imbued with literally hundreds of intricate connections to the books. Their author, Charles Dodgson, aka Lewis Carroll, spent most of his life as an academic at Christ Church, one of the largest and oldest of the Oxford colleges. His muse, Alice Liddell, who is the thinly-disguised Alice of the books, was the daughter of the Dean of Christ Church, and lshe lived there as she was growing up. The ‘Alice’ books began as stories told to Alice and her sisters, and Dodgson incorporated local people, places, and events that they would recognise. But as the books grew, he included a much wider range of satire and caricature, until Oxford itself became an eccentric Wonderland. This book, a guide and a history, explores the city, the colleges, and the river that Alice and Lewis Carroll knew and shared, in all their eccentric and entertaining glory.
This smartly produced, smallform, jacketless hardback (with many John Tenniel illustrations scattered throughout) is designed for the general reader. Alice aficionados, steeped in Dodgson/Carroll lore, may quibble about some of the connections made – it will ever be thus. This book is not intended for them. That being the case it would have been a good thing to have had in the list of Further Reading, alongside other titles exploring the link between Lewis Carroll and Oxford that are included, mention of one or two good general biographies.
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