“O frabjous day”
Hard to believe, but the author of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland had a reputation for being dull and uninspiring at his day job: Mathematics Lecturer at Oxford University. But when Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, born on January 27, 1832, mathematician, took on the pen name “Lewis Carroll,” he dreamed up fantastical stories that charmed children and adults alike. Preferring the company of little girls throughout his adult life—a fact that has perplexed and concerned his critics—Dodgson wrote playful nonsense to delight young readers. Among his best-loved works are Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and its sequel, Through the Looking Glass (1871). Are you growing “curiouser and curiouser” about the Wonderland Carroll created? Then follow Alice down the rabbit hole and take this quick quiz adapted from Don’t Know Much About Literature.
1. Was Alice based on a real person?
2. Who says the famous line, “Off with her head!”?
3. Which Wonderland character can vanish as he pleases, leaving his grin to disappear last?
4. Which poem, included in Through the Looking Glass, introduced invented words like brillig, slithy, wabe, and mimsy?
5. In Through the Looking Glass, what nonsensical poem do Tweedledum and Tweedledee sing?
6. What Woodstock-era rock song used characters and symbols from Carroll’s Alice books to describe the psychedelic effects of drugs like LSD?
The non-profit Lewis Carroll Society offers online links to FAQs, research and events.
Answers
1. Though the stories were clearly works of imagination, their heroine was inspired by Alice Liddell, the daughter of one of Dodgson’s Oxford colleagues.
2. The Queen of Hearts—a playing card come to life in Alice’s Adventures.
3. The Cheshire Cat.
4. “Jabberwocky.” Humpty Dumpty explains these foreign words to Alice.
5. “The Walrus and the Carpenter.”
6. White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane. The line “Go ask Alice” later became the title of an 1971 book, allegedly the diary of an anonymous teenage drug addict.
