Alice’s Adventures Underground: A Reading
Channel: British Library
Date: 2021-11-23

An all-star reading of the full original manuscript version of Alice’s Adventures Underground, with Timothy Allsop, Adjoa Andoh, Grace Chilton, Charles Dance, Joanna David, Charlie Higson, Toby Jones, Miriam Margolyes and Gemma Whelan.


Filmed at the British Library on 7 February 2016


Lewis Carroll’s exquisite manuscript book is one of the great treasures of both English literature and the British Library. This reading is of that first hand-written and illustrated version


Carroll (Charles Dodgson) first told his story to Lorina, Alice and Edith Liddell, the young daughters of the Dean of his college, on a boat trip in 1862. The 10-year old Alice was so entranced, that she begged him to write it down for her. It took him some time to write out the tale and complete 37 illustrations. Alice finally received the 90-page book, dedicated to 'a dear child, in memory of a summer day', in November 1864. Urged by friends to publish the story, Dodgson re-wrote and enlarged it, removing some of the private family references and adding two new chapters. The published version in 1866 was illustrated by the artist John Tenniel.


Many years later, Alice was forced to sell her precious manuscript at auction. It was bought by an American collector, but returned to England in 1948 when a group of American benefactors presented it to the British Library in appreciation the British people's role in the Second World War.


With musical accompaniment by Gary Carpenter.