Description

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Alice Pleasance Liddell inspired what is considered today to be the greatest children's story of all time - Alice's Adventures In Wonderland. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland brought Alice Liddell and Lewis Carroll together forever. The story behind this story is a dramatic saga of a very creative, curious, and magnetic young girl who grew up to become a cultural icon and one of the most celebrated women of the last 100 years. It is a story of love, tragedy, duty, courage and loyalty to family and country - that will surprise and deeply move you.
In 2006, award-winning author C.M. Rubin and her daughter, Gabriella Rubin (who are related to the Liddell family), began an incredible journey to create the ultimate book about the original Alice in Wonderland's life. Their grand pictorial, biographic vision for the book involved collecting photographs spanning two centuries, reaching out to many celebrated Alice in Wonderland artists (including Vik Muniz, Annie Liebovitz, Mark Steele, Lizzy Rockwell, Helen Oxenbury, Frances Broomfield, Jeanne Argent, David Cooper, Bruce Fuller, Tatiana Ianovskaia, Jewel, and Tom Otterness), and connecting with museums, libraries and schools around the world. The Real Alice in Wonderland book is told using never before seen pictures along with prominent voices from Alice's lifetime and from the present day. C.M. Rubin and her daughter Gabriella explore the theme of inspiration. Behind every great person there is the person who inspires and believes in him or her. The person who motivates them to realize their dreams. This magnificent cross-atlantic epic will fascinate you -- it will make you think again: what does it mean to inspire?
The Real Alice In Wonderland book is dedicated to all those who inspire the minds and souls of human beings.

Praise For…

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The Real Alice in Wonderland is simply lovely.  The juxtaposed pictures of everything—from Oxford’s scenery to pictures of Alice to a host of story illustrations—captivate readers and drive the storyline.  This is a wonderful treatment of a biography and the format makes it widely accessible. Robbie Flowers - Voya Magazine

Filled with photographs, original artwork, archival material, and set against richly designed pages, this is a browser’s delight that gives both a sense of the times as well as a look at its subjects.  Ilene Cooper - Booklist

Filled with new and archival photos of locations integral to their lives, letters from Dodgson to Alice (and vice versa), much of the art and artistry that inspired and/or became part of the Wonderland universe, and much more, the book manages to not only share this grand adventure, but take you along for the ride as well. - Marc Eastman - "Are You Screaming?"

Readers will follow this title down the rabbit hole to discover the world of the real Alice who inspired Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland.  The book moves seamlessly through the life of Alice Pleasance Liddell from her childhood in the halls of the University of Oxford through her final days as a woman whose name was renowned—yet she had not even considered publishing an autobiography. 

The Real Alice in Wonderland is simply lovely.  The juxtaposed pictures of everything—from Oxford’s scenery to pictures of Alice to a host of story illustrations—captivate readers and drive the storyline.  This is a wonderful treatment of a biography and the format makes it widely accessible.    The information is quite thorough:  the reader is guided through Alice’s family life as a child to her lost love with Prince Leopold and her humanitarian efforts.  This offering paints a full picture of Alice, not only as the child who has captivated literature, but as a woman who was truly ahead of her time.   This is a purchase that will do well with a range of people and should be offered as a standard accompaniment to Alice in Wonderland.  It would do well in a public library as the illustrations and pictures will make it quite popular.

 

-Robbie Flowers

The author''s mother and daughter are descendents of Alice Liddell, the girl who inspired Lewis Carroll to write Alice in Wonderland. When they decided to write a history of both the child and the book, they went all out, and the result is this lovely coffee-table style volume, an inclusive look at all things Alice. Beginning with a family history that takes readers to Oxford, England, where the Liddell family met Carroll (Charles Dodgson), they describe the burgeoning friendship. Although the book never questions the propriety of the relationship between the real Alice and Carroll, it does chronicle its dissolution at the insistence of Mrs. Liddell, though the reasons for her decision are vague. Still, Carroll and his muse stayed in sporadic touch. The lovely Alice caught the eye of many suitors, and after marriage and motherhood, volunteer work was high on her list of activities, using royalties from a new edition of Alice to fund her charities. Filled with photographs, original artwork, archival material, and set against richly designed pages, this is a browser’s delight that gives both a sense of the times as well as a look at its subjects.    
-Ilene Cooper

In the promotional material for their book, authors C.M. Rubin and Gabriela Rubin have put together a list of the Top 10 Things You Didn''t Know About The Real Alice. This list kicks off with the list-defying entry – Alice was inspired by a real girl called Alice Liddell.

I find myself forced to deny the existence of a legitimate proportion of the population at which this entry might aim. Beyond that, a fact you have learned, if you didn''t know it already, before opening the book, you are in store for not simply a history, but a journey. Part historical account, part holiday scrapbook, part family album (the authors are related to Alice), part… school project?, this is a book that is difficult to pigeonhole. A quick glance will likely have people referring to it as a coffee-table book, and rightly so, but the book is also a kind of adventure itself.   Merging the history of Alice Liddell and Lewis Carroll (ok, Charles Dodgson) with the journey the mother-daughter authoring duo went on to learn everything they could, the result is a unique mix of objective interest and personal investment.   Filled with new and archival photos of locations integral to their lives, letters from Dodgson to Alice (and vice versa), much of the art and artistry that inspired and/or became part of the Wonderland universe, and much more, the book manages to not only share this grand adventure, but take you along for the ride as well.   There is bound to be more than enough interest in such a book based on the love of Alice in Wonderland alone, and the recent release of the new film won''t hurt that at all. People have been falling in love with both Alice and her adventures for generations, and anything that so stunningly relates the real world and people that came together to create what has become such a literary and cultural icon doesn''t need an additional "sell."   Nevertheless, as the title suggests, the book has one. Learning the details of the real Alice is obviously of interest, but the question you''re bound to want an immediate answer to is, "Yes, but is she interesting?" Again, the title rather gives it away.   From their first meeting, to the fateful story that Alice insisted he write down, to the difficulties of a falling out between Dodgson and Alice''s mother, it''s all here.   You will pick up this book, if you do, because it has wonderful images of Alice herself, and the places where she grew up. You''ll want to see the actual tree that would become the Cheshire Cat''s, and so forth. You''ll buy it, if you do, because you want to learn more about the little girl who inspired a classic story. But, you will fall in love with it, and you will, because you will fall down the rabbit hole all over gain, with a slightly different Alice, but one you will find you knew pretty well all along.   The title calls her, "A Role Model for the Ages," and I have rather strongly suggested her inspiring nature and/or some level of acceptance of this "role model" status, but I haven''t given you much of an idea why. I leave it to you to venture down that particular rabbit hole for yourself. Mainly, because if Alice (either of them) has taught us anything, it is that no one else can do it for you.
-Marc Eastman