'.where is the use of a book' thought Alice, 'without pictures or conversations?'

13 September 2005 :: Posted by Victoria Main

On 21 September 2005, the original manuscript of Alice’s Adventures Under Ground, one of the world’s most popular and well known children’s books, will be available to internet users for the first time. This latest addition to the British Library’s Turning the Pages™ is a fully digitised version of the original manuscript containing 90 pages and 37 illustrations. Its pages can be ‘virtually’ turned and viewed on-line on the British Library’s website, in the Treasures Gallery of the British Library and on a new CD-ROM.

Written by Lewis Carroll, the pen-name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, an Oxford mathematician, Alice’s Adventures Under Ground later published as Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, was a gift to Alice Liddell. Carroll befriended Lorina, Alice and Edith Liddell, the young daughters of the Dean of his college, Christ Church, while taking photographs in the Deanery garden. One summer’s day in 1862 he entertained them on a boat trip with a story of Alice’s adventures in a magical world entered through a rabbit-hole. The children adored the story and the 10-year old Alice implored Carroll to write it down for her. It took Carroll until February 1863 to write out the whole text in neat ‘manuscript print’. When the text was completed Carroll added his illustrations and eventually presented Alice with the book in November 1864 with the inscription ‘A Christmas Gift to a Dear Child, in Memory of a Summer Day’.

Encouraged by friends and family, Carroll went on to rewrite and enlarge the story for publication in 1865. John Tenniel was commissioned to provide the illustrations, several of which were based on Carroll’s original sketches in the manuscript.

In 1928 Alice Liddell was forced to sell her original manuscript at auction. It was bought by an American collector, but returned to England some 20 years later in 1948 when a group of American benefactors, led by the Librarian of Congress, presented it to the British Library in appreciation of the British people’s role in the Second World War.

The original text contains the sole surviving drawing of Alice Liddell. At the end of his manuscript, Carroll drew a pencil portrait of the ‘real’ Alice, copied from a photograph he had taken of her aged seven. Unhappy with the illustration, he pasted a photograph of Alice over it. The hidden drawing was discovered in 1977 by the Canadian scholar and, later, biographer of Carroll, Morton Cohen.

The British Library’s award-winning Turning the Pages™ technology allows users to browse the handwritten pages of Alice’s Adventures Under Ground and magnify full lines of text as well as Carroll’s original illustrations. Three-dimensional animation mimics the action of turning each page which, can be done by using a mouse or scrolling through each page individually. An accompanying text transcription and voiceover by Miriam Margolyes is also included. A series of features unique to this manuscript include a rotate function that allows you to turn Carroll’s illustrations so that they appear in landscape format and on the final page of the text users will be able to lift the photograph of Alice Liddell to reveal Carroll’s sketch underneath.

The CD-ROM version also includes a new ‘Read the book to me feature’ where the pages of the manuscript are turned automatically with voiceover by Miriam Margolyes. A bookmark system will enable listeners to save their place and return at a later time. A short film entitled The Original Alice also provides historical background on the creation of Alice’s Adventures Under Ground and how the original manuscript came to be in the British Library.

The original manuscript is currently on display in The Sir John Ritblat Gallery: Treasures of the British Library.

There will be a press view of Alice’s Adventures Under Ground Turning the Pages™ at 10.30am – 12.30pm on 21st September 2005. Chris Fletcher from the British Library’s Manuscripts Department will be available to speak about the original manuscript and its history. Clive Izard and Rachel Savory from the Creative Services Department are able to discuss the production of Turning the Pages ™ and Colin Wight will be available to demonstrate the web based version.

For further information and images, contact Victoria Main at the British Library Press Office: + 44 (0)20 7412 7112 or Victoria.Main@bl.uk.

Notes for editors

Alice’s Adventures Under Ground Turning the Pages CD-ROM is published by the British Library, from 22 September 2005 price £14.95 ISBN 0712305254. The CD-ROM is available from the British Library Bookshop (tel: +44 (0)20 7412 7735, fax +44 (0)20 7412 7624, e-mail: bl-bookshop@bl.uk).

The British Library is the national Library of the United Kingdom. It provides world class information services to the academic, business, research and scientific communities and offers unparalleled access to the world’s largest and most comprehensive research collection. Further information is available on the Library’s website.

Turning The Pages now includes pages from 14 books and manuscripts of world importance: The Diamond Sutra, The Luttrell Psalter, Jane Austen’s History of England, The Leonardo Notebook, The Lindisfarne Gospels, Vesalius’ De Humani Corporis Fabrica, The Golf Book, Sultan Baybars’ Qur’an,Elizabeth Blackwell’s A Curious Herbal, The Golden Haggadah, The Sforza Hours, The Sherborne Missal and The Mercator Atlas of Europe. Internet users can visit the site at: www.bl.uk/turningthepages.

The British Library would like to thank the following who have given their support to this project: The Nicholas Bacon Charitable Trust, The BAND Trust and The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation.

This important project was supported by two of our Library Patrons. The Patrons Programme is a high-level membership initiative designed to bring supporters closer to the cultural and intellectual life of the British Library. Patrons enjoy unparalleled behind-the-scenes access to the collections and our curators. For more information, please contact the Patrons Manager on +44 (0)20 7412 7238, patrons@bl.uk or visit www.bl.uk/patrons.

Turning the Pages™ is developed in partnership with Armadillo Systems, a new media communications agency based in London.