July 4th: The Day Alice Wandered in Wonderland

The real-life Alice,
photographed by Dodgson in 1858

The White Rabbit. The Mad Hatter. The Queen of Hearts. The grinning Cheshire Cat. And of course, Alice. All these now familiar characters were nonsensical and unheard of until July 4th 1862, when the story of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was told for the first time. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson AKA Lewis Carroll wrote the legendary, entertaining tale of the young girl Alice and her strange experiences in a fairy tale land, shrinking and stretching her as she encounters weird and wonderful characters, and pondering the question 'Why is a raven like a writing desk?'
   On the River Isis near Oxford on July 4th, Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson rowed along with the three daughters of the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University, Henry Liddell. During the five mile journey, Reverend Dodgson told them about a little girl who goes on an adventure in a fantasy world. All three loved the story, especially Liddell's middle daughter of 10 years, Alice.
   On this day in 1862, she begged him to write down the story for her, and he did just that, with Alice's Adventures in Wonderland going into publication on November 26, 1865. A year before the publication, Dodgson gave Alice Liddell the handwritten manuscript of the early edition Alice's Adventures Under Ground, along with a note that said: 'A Christmas Gift to a Dear Child in Memory of a Summer's Day'. Bet she didn't ask for the receipt for that Christmas present!
   What is particularly extraordinary about Dodgson is his academic discipline in the mathematical field of logistics, geometry and algebra. The symbols and themes in Alice have been connected to mathematics: when Alice falls down the rabbit hole and changes size, this links to the idea of limits; Chapter 2's 'Pool of Tears' features Alice attempting a confused multiplication, symbolizing bases and positional numeral systems; and also the contradictory converse of the Mad-Hatter's Tea Party is supposed to show a mathematical inverse relationship. Dodgson's ability to merge both literary and mathematical elements in his story demonstrate great skill and imagination, which helps explain why Alice's Adventures in Wonderland remains to this day to be one of the greatest children's and adult books of all time.