In Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, Lewis Carroll created fantastic worlds that continue to delight and trouble readers of all ages today. What is often overlooked, however, is that Carroll conceived his Alice books during the 1860s, a moment of intense intellectual upheaval, as new scientific, linguistic, educational, and mathematical ideas flourished around him, in Oxford, and far beyond. Alice in Space reveals the contexts within which the Alice books first lived, bringing back the zest to jokes lost over time and poignancy to hidden references.
Gillian Beer explores Carroll’s work through the speculative gaze of Alice, for whom no authority is unquestioned and everything can speak. Parody andPunch, evolutionary debates, philosophical dialogues, educational works for children, math and logic, manners and rituals, dream theory and childhood studies—all fueled the fireworks. While much has been written about Carroll’s biography and his influence on children’s literature, Beer convincingly shows him at play in the spaces of Victorian cultural and intellectual life, drawing on then-current controversies, reading prodigiously across many fields, and writing on multiple levels to please children and adults at once and in different ways.
With a welcome combination of learning and lightness, Beer reminds us that Carroll’s books are essentially about curiosity, its risks and pleasures. Along the way, Alice in Space shares Alice’s exceptional ability to spark curiosity in us, too.
Lewis Carroll conceived his Alice books during a time (the 1860s) of intense intellectual upheaval, as new scientific, linguistic, educational, and mathematical ideas flourished around his Oxford home and far beyond. This book by the distinguished scholar Gillian Beer reveals the zest and freedom with which Carroll played across those ideas in Alice’sAdventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. In a series of lively chapters that mirror the picaresque nature of Alice’s travels, Beer brings to the surface much contextual knowledge that has been mislaid over time and places the Alice books in apposition to other works and inquiries contemporary with Carroll. The topics Beer addresses include time, games, mathematics and arguments about space, puns,Punch, philosophical dialogue, taxonomies and classification, naming and the question of Alice’s identity, growing and eating, dreaming, and issues of justice. Writing with a combination of learning and lightness, Beer reminds us that the Alice books are essentially about curiosity, its risks and pleasures, and they have an extraordinary capacity to spark curiosity in us too.
