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Lewis Carroll's books Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass have been highly popular in their original forms, and have served as the basis for many subsequent works since they were published. They have been adapted directly into other media, their characters and situations have been appropriated into other works, and these elements have been referenced innumerable times as familiar elements of shared culture. Simple references to the two books are too numerous to list; this list of works based on Alice in Wonderland focuses on works based specifically and substantially on Carroll's two books about the character of Alice.

History[]

Carolyn Sigler[1] has shown that Carroll's two great fantasies inspired dozens of imitations, responses, and parodies during the remainder of the nineteenth century and the first part of the twentieth — so many that Carroll at one point began his own collection of Alice imitations. In 1887, one critic suggested that Carroll had plagiarized Tom Hood's From Nowhere to the North Pole (1875) when writing Alice — though the relationship was just the reverse: Hood's novel was one of the many Alice imitations.[2]

The primary wave of Alice-inspired works slackened after about 1920, though Carroll's influence on other writers has never fully waned; it can be seen in recent books like Maeve Kelly's Alice in Thunderland (1993) and Alison Haben's Dreamhouse (1995).

Literary Retellings and Sequels[]

  • 1890 – The Nursery "Alice" by the author himself, a short version of the story written for little children.
  • 1895 – A New Alice in the Old Wonderland, a novel by Anna M. Richards in which a different Alice, Alice Lee, travels to Wonderland and meets many of the characters of Carroll's books as well as others. (New edition 2009, ISBN 978-1-904808-35-0)
  • c1897 – Gladys in Grammarland, a parody by Audrey Mayhew Allen illustrated by Henry Clarence Pitz in which a recalcitrant schoolgirl meets many grammar Imps which help to educate her. (New edition 2010, ISBN 978-1-904808-57-2)
  • 1902 – The Westminster Alice, a parody by "Saki" illustrated by Francis Carruthers Gould critical of the Second Boer War in which Alice meets many British politicians of the time.
  • 1902 – Clara in Blunderland, a parody by "Caroline Lewis" critical of the Second Boer War in which Clara represents Leader of the House of Commons Arthur Balfour. (New edition 2010, ISBN 978-1-904808-49-7)
  • 1903 – Lost in Blunderland, a sequel to Clara in Blunderland criticizing Arthur Balfour after he was made Prime Minister. (New edition 2010, ISBN 978-1-904808-50-3)
  • 1904 – John Bull's Adventures in the Fiscal Wonderland, a parody by Charles Geake and Francis Carruthers Gould critical of British economic policies of the time, in which the part of Alice is played by John Bull. (New edition 2010, ISBN 978-1-904808-51-0)
  • 1907 – Alice in Blunderland: An Iridescent Dream, a parody by American humourist John Kendrick Bangs making fun of big business and big government. (New edition 2010, ISBN 978-1-904808-56-5)
  • 1917 - New Adventures of Alice by artist John Rae, in which a young girl called Betsey dreams in bed about finding a new Alice book she had longed for since she read the first two and from there. The story follows Alice as she goes on another deep sleep adventure encountering characters and scenarios mostly based on the Mother Goose Rhymes.
  • 1923 – Alice in Grammarland, a play by Louise Franklin Bache and illustrated by "Claudine", in which Alice attends a courtroom scene in Grammarland where questions of grammar are discussed.
  • 1925 - Alice in Orchestralia by Ernest La Prade has another girl named Alice meeting animated musical instruments and learning about the symphony orchestra.
  • 1928 - Alice's Adventures in China (阿丽思中国游记) by Chinese writer Shen Congwen.
  • 1982 – Alice in Puzzle-Land: A Carrollian Tale for Children Under Eighty by Raymond Smullyan is a book of riddles featuring Carroll's characters as protagonists.
  • 1984 – Alice Through the Needle's Eye by Gilbert Adair, a sequel to Carroll's Alice books.
  • 1985 – "Alice's Last Adventure", a short story by Thomas Ligotti is a present-day horror tale using Carroll-derived imagery.
  • 1994 – Alice in Quantumland, by Robert Gilmore, is an allegory of quantum mechanics told through the adventures of Alice's explorations of the world of modern physics, with quanta depicted as eccentric characters similar to those in Wonderland, and quantum laws as the nonsensical or counter-intuitive rules governing Carroll's world.
  • 1996 – Automated Alice by Jeff Noon. In this illustrated novella, Alice enters a grandfather clock and emerges in future Manchester, which has many bizarre denizens including an invisible cat named Quark and Celia, the Automated Alice.
  • 1997 – "Złote popołudnie" ("Golden Afternoon"), a short story by Andrzej Sapkowski, retells the story of Alice from the point of view of the Cheshire Cat.
  • 1998 – Otherland by Tad Williams, a science fiction series heavily influenced by Alice. There are sections involving a Red Queen, the chess-squares concept from Looking Glass, and evil men following the protagonists who take the form of Tweedledum and Tweedledee several times. There are four volumes in this series: City of Golden Shadow (Hardcover 1996, Paperback 1998); River of Blue Fire (Hardcover 1998, Paperback 1999); Mountain of Black Glass (Hardcover 1999, Paperback 2000); Sea of Silver Light (Hardcover 2001, Paperback 2002)
  • 2004 – Alice's Journey Beyond the Moon, by R. J. Carter (ISBN 1-903889-76-6, Telos Publishing), fictionally purports to be a second sequel. It is heavily footnoted, however, with valid biographical information on both Dodgson and Liddell.
  • 2005 – The Whole, or "Duh Whole" (published by Simon & Schuster/Pocket Books/MTV Books), a novel by John Reed, features an MTV VJ following a psychedelic Black Rabbit into the depths of a hole that has appeared in the United States Heartland.[citation needed]
  • 2006 – The Looking Glass Wars, and its follow-up novel, Seeing Redd (2007), written by Frank Beddor depicts an alternative to Carroll's Alice, implying that Carroll in fact distorted the story of Princess Alyss Heart (a.k.a. Alice Liddell) who had been sent to Earth when the evil Queen Redd conquered Wonderland. The series follows Alyss' exploits with familiar characters cast in new roles. The third book in the trilogy, Arch-Enemy, was published in October 2009.
  • 2009 – Wonderland Revisited and the Games Alice Played There, a novel by Keith Sheppard, in which Alice finds herself back in Wonderland and has a number of a boardgame-themed adventures. (ISBN 978-1-904808-34-3)
  • 2009 – Alice of the Dreamland, a novel by Kira, in which a girl meets the eternal Alice in a dreamland unspoiled by the mad adult world. (ISBN 978-1-4414-5384-6)
  • 2010 – Alice in Verse: The Lost Rhymes of Wonderland, by J.T. Holden, is a reimagining of Lewis Carroll's classic tales, written entirely in rhyming verse. (Hardcover)

Literature with Allusions and Influences[]

  • The Wonderland books are most likely the inspiration in the creation of other book series about little girls entering fantasy worlds through an interesting entrance (Dorothy Gale entering The Land of Oz through a twister, Wendy Darling entering Neverland with Peter Pan, Lucy Pevensie entering Narnia through the wardrobe, Coraline entering The Other World through a door that's been painted over, etc.).[citation needed]
  • Finnegans Wake by James Joyce is famously influenced by Alice. The novel is about a dream, and includes such lines as: "Alicious, twinstreams twinestraines, through alluring glass or alas in jumboland?" and "...Wonderlawn's lost us for ever. Alis, alas, she broke the glass! Liddell lokker through the leafery, ours is mystery of pain."
  • British writer Jeff Noon has inserted many Carrollian allusions into a series of cyberpunk novels, beginning with Vurt (1993), that are set in a fantasy-future Manchester. In the books, Noon applies a logical extension of the Wonderland and Looking-Glass World concepts into a virtual reality cyberverse that characters occasionally get lost in. One possible interpretation of the books is that everything happens in the dream of Alice, akin to the supposed "dream of the Red King" in Through the Looking-Glass. Noon also wrote Automated Alice, which he calls a "trequel" to the Alice books as well as being a continuation of the Vurt series.
  • Vladimir Nabokov translated Alice into his native Russian as Аня в Стране Чудес (Anya in Wonderland). His novels include many Carrollian allusions, such as the spoof book titles that run through Ada, or Ardor. However, Nabokov told his student and annotator Alfred Appel that the infamous Lolita, with its paedophilic protagonist, makes no conscious allusions to Carroll (despite the novel's photography theme and Carroll's interest in the art form).
  • John Crowley's Little, Big has many Carrollian allusions.
  • Graham Masterton's horror novel, Mirror, is heavily influenced by Through the Looking-Glass, imagining that Carroll intended the novel to be a coded allegory about a Satanic underworld just on the other side of the glass.
  • Mordant's Need is a two-volume fantasy book series by Stephen R. Donaldson which tells the story of a woman named Terisa who travels from modern Earth to a medieval setting where there is a form of magic based on mirrors. Instead of reflecting images, mirrors are used to "translate" people and things between locations and realities. The author also bases much of the plot on a metaphor of the game of checkers (called "hop-board" in the story) instead of chess.
  • Alice Liddell is a character in the Riverworld series of science fiction books by Philip José Farmer.
  • Sign of Chaos, written by Roger Zelazny as part of The Chronicles of Amber, features two chapters taking place in a manufactured Shadow designed to resemble Wonderland as part of a drug-induced hallucination.
  • Paul Auster's City of Glass contains a reference to Chapter IV: Humpty Dumpty of Through the Looking-Glass.
  • HaJaBaRaLa, a Bengali "nonsense story" by Sukumar Ray, features a little boy who enters into a fantasy world full of fantastic comic creatures.
  • Douglas Hofstadter's Gödel, Escher, Bach contains numerous references to Alice in Wonderland.
  • Carroll's work is a major subtext in Joyce Carol Oates's novel Wonderland.
  • The heroine of Boris Starling's Vodka (2004) is called Alice Liddell, symbolising not only her journey through the surreal shifting sands of post-Soviet Russian politics but also her battle against alcoholism (referenced by the bottle which appears to the original Alice saying 'drink me').
  • Monsters native to other planets in our Solar System ("Known Space") in Larry Niven's sci-fi future world include the "frumious bandersnatch".
  • Neil Gaiman's Coraline has been compared to Alice in Wonderland because it has an alternate-reality based plot and the main character is a bored young girl.
  • Robert Doucette's "Why a Raven is like a Writing Desk: A Wonderland Mystery" (2006) is a short fable that attempts to answer the riddle from the Mad Tea-Party.
  • The title of teen novel Go Ask Alice is taken from the psychedelic song by Jefferson Airplane, "White Rabbit", which took major imagery from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
  • The Wonderland Gambit is a trilogy by Jack Chalker. While set in a science-esque setting, they plays heavily on both characters and themes from the Lewis Carol books.
  • The first novel in the Echo Falls series by Peter Abrahams, called Down the Rabbit Hole, features main character Ingrid Levin-Hill starring in a stage production of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
  • In the eleventh book of A Series of Unfortunate Events, one of the stanzas of the poem "The Walrus and the Carpenter" is worded in a coded message. There is also a beach named Briny Beach.
  • Little Mimzy Wells by Markiv Inias is influenced heavily by Carroll's works, and draws liberally from the themes present in said novels.
  • Night of the Jabberwock by Fredric Brown includes a character who is a member of a society that believes Lewis Carroll's books to be visions of an actual world.
  • The King in the Window by Adam Gopnik.
  • Davy and the Goblin; or, What Followed Reading "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" (1884) by Charles E. Carryl.
  • Aliss is a novel by French Canadian writer Patrick Sénécal.
  • Uncle Albert and the Quantum Quest, a children's science book by Russell Stannard.
  • French philosopher Gilles Deleuze writes extensively on Alice in Wonderland and the paradoxes contained within it in The Logic of Sense (1969).
  • One Pill Makes You Smaller by Lisa Dierbeck. A novel about an 11 year old girl who experiences things beyond her age range because she developed early.
  • Exegesis by Astro Teller, a science fiction novel featuring the e-mail correspondences of grad student Alice Lu and the artificial intelligence she has created. Contains many allusions of Carroll.
  • A parody exists in the 2010 Chick-fil-A calendar "Great Works of Cow Literature" in March where the novel is referred to as Salisbury in Wonderland.
  • John Ringo's "Looking Glass" military hard science fiction book series, Into the Looking Glass, Vorpal Blade, Manxome Foe, and Claws That Catch.
  • "Into Wonderland (2010 Book)", a photographic portrayl of the original classic story. Fashion photographs & models depicting "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" by Truffle, 2010

Art[]

  • In 1969, Salvador Dalí produced 12 illustrations based on Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
  • In 1956 Charles Blackman heard an audio book of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and painted a series of 46 paintings of Alice with other characters from the series.
  • The town of Warrington in Cheshire, the nearest town to the village of Daresbury where the Reverend Dodgson lived and worked, has several statues of figures from the story. The figures show the scene of the tea party, whilst allowing room for viewers to sit at the table with the characters. The church in Daresbury, likewise, memorialises the story in several stained glass windows.
  • The Surrey county town of Guildford also has several Alice in Wonderland statues throughout the town, the most notable in the castle grounds, showing a brass statue of Alice passing through a pane of glass, and the other at Millmead alongside the River Wey of Alice and her sister sat on the grass looking at the White Rabbit running towards his hole.
  • Statues of Alice, the Mad Hatter and the White Rabbit can be seen in the southeastern part of Central Park in New York City.

Comics/Mangas[]

  • Alice is a main character in Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie's Lost Girls, which presents her as an adult, in erotic adventures with Dorothy of the Oz books and Wendy of the Peter Pan story.
  • Hatter M. by Ben Templesmith is a comic book based around the character Hatter Madigan from The Looking-Glass Wars by Frank Beddor.
  • DC Comics has some supervillains based on characters from Wonderland and Looking Glass, mostly enemies of Batman. They include:
    • The Mad Hatter, a physcopathic hypnotist;
    • Tweedledum and Tweedledee, twin cousins who are acrobatic, despite their rotund appearance;
    • Malice Vundabar, an Alice-like New Goddess who controls a shadow monster called "Chessure";
    • Cheshire, a female assassin with poisonous fingernails;
    • Humpty Dumpty, an egg-shaped criminal with a knack for reassembling machines.
  • Gakuen Alice, a manga series about people with "Alices" that gives them special powers such as ESP, super speed, technology, etc.. The currency used in the school is called "Rabbits" which is about 100 yen.
  • Marvel Comics also has a villain called White Rabbit, an enemy of Spider-Man.
  • Rozen Maiden focuses on a set of magical dolls that fight one another to become "Alice", alleged to be a creature of perfect femininity, purity, and beauty. A white rabbit that guides the dolls through worlds is also prominently featured and the dolls themselves also refer to various characters Alice encounters in the story.
  • Kagihime Monogatari Eikyuu Alice Rondo, a manga that focuses on the completion of a third Alice novel called The Eternal Alice.
  • The manga Alice 19th by Yū Watase involves Alice's older sister being drawn into a darker Wonderland. Not to mention that at the beginning of the story, Alice encounters a white rabbit named Nyozeka.
  • Bizenghast is a manga-style American comic by M. Alice Legrow. It makes many references to Alice & is comparable to American McGee's Alice in that the lead female character is like Alice McGee & Edaniel resembles the Tower Records glowing green Cheshire Cat.
  • Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth, in an interview with the writer of the graphic novel, Grant Morrison, his take on Batman was described as "a remake of the Lewis Carroll classic Alice's Adventures in Wonderland", to which he replied "I'd read the Alice books and decided to put Batman into a similar situation - where he goes into a strange place, strange things happen to him and then he comes back out at the end, none the wiser." [3]
  • Alice in Sunderland – Carroll's connection with Sunderland, and the area's history, is documented in Bryan Talbot's 2007 graphic novel.[4]
  • The first chapter of Godchild, "Mad Tea Party", focuses on a serial killer nicknamed the 'White Rabbit' and contains elements from Alice in Wonderland.[5]
  • Pandora Hearts has several references to Alice in Wonderland. The main heroine is named Alice, and some of the chains are based on the characters, such as the Jabberwocky, Dormouse, and others. Pandora Hearts also contains many of the same themes as in the books, such as reversals, time, youth, aging and identity. It is heavily referenced, both by the books and by aspects of Lewis Carroll and Alice Liddell's life. The author seems to have a good knowledge of the books, as she puts in a lot of characters and themes that many would not even know about.
  • The manga series, Are you Alice? features a boy who is taken into Wonderland by "The White Rabbit" to meet the Queen of Hearts and participate in a game to kill the very White Rabbit and become the real "Alice."
  • Return to Wonderland, where Wonderland is actually another name for Limbo and R'lyeh, is a series that reinterprets the Alice story[6] and has been followed by two sequels: Beyond Wonderland.[7] & Escape From Wonderland as well as many one-shots called Tales From Wonderland
  • "Heart no Kuni no Alice", a manga based on the otome game of the same name, uses the story and characters from Carroll's books as its source. However, it recasts most of the characters into warring parties making it a more romantic, yet violent retelling of the story.
  • A manga prequel to the video game Devil May Cry 3 features Alice as a girl who seeks to gain the power of a demon so she can grow up and become beautiful. The White Rabbit also makes an appearance, posing as a client to lure Dante to his brother Vergil.
  • The manga and anime Miyuki-chan in Wonderland is a more eroticised yuri version of Carroll's book, with scantilly-clad women (some with animal attributes) instead of the original anthropomorphic characters.
  • Wallace Wood's Malice in Wonderland (Eros Comix)
  • Oz/Wonderland Chronicles (buymetoys.com, 2005) – four issues published to date
  • Wonderland (Arrow Comics, 1998) – three issues published
  • Latex Alice (Amryl, 2003)
  • The webcomic Seven Years in Dog-Land by "John Avatar" is partly inspired by Alice in Wonderland. Its protagonist is also a little girl called Alice, and her father's name is Lewis Carroll (reference to the author of Alice in Wonderland). Dog-Land also centers around a child getting lost in a bizarre alternate world (of talking dogs).
  • "Wonderland"[8] (SLG/Disney) is a sequel by Tommy Kovac and Sonny Liew based on both the Disney animation and the original Lewis Carroll books, published by SLG and Disney Press, featuring the White Rabbit's maid Maryann as the main protagonist.
  • In the manga Hanako to Guuwa no Tera Chapter 8 page 15 Hanako dresses as a rabbit when she enters Hiranuma Chieri dream stating that Alice saw a rabbit when she had her dream

Animation[]

  • Betty in Blunderland (1934), Betty Boop's adventures in Wonderland.
  • Thru the Mirror (1936), Mickey Mouse's adventures in a dream world inspired by reading Through the Looking-Glass (but with animated cards as in Alice in Wonderland).
  • Swee'pea Through the Looking-Glass (1955? 1960?), a Jack Kinney Popeye cartoon.
  • Neco z Alenky (Alice) A 1988 full-length stop motion animation by Czech Republic artist Jan Švankmajer.
  • Brandy & Mr. Whiskers is somewhat similar to the Alice books; the main heroine falls into the Amazon because of a white rabbit, and encounters creatures like bickering twins and a tyrannical dictator.
  • An anime short film based on Alice in Wonderland was made by Sanrio, starring Hello Kitty as Alice. Released as part of Hello Kitty & Friends.
  • The anime series Serial Experiments Lain tells the story of a girl who is drawn into the cyberspace "underground" of the Wired, and features a character named Arisu ("Alice") Mizuki (this character is a second use of one created by the scenarist, Chiaki Konaka, for the animation "Alice in Cyberland"). In the episode KIDS, Lain has an encounter with an avatar which directly parallels Lewis Carroll's Cheshire Cat with the exception that Lain rejects the Cheshire Cat's assistance, stating that she knows everything.
  • Nippon Animation produced an anime of Alice in Wonderland in 1983 to 1984. This anime adopted an original story that Alice and her rabbit Benny take a trip to Wonderland and go home for each episode.
  • Alice SOS, where four kids go on an adventure to different worlds to rescue Alice after she has been kidnapped by a mysterious evil force.
  • Kagihime Monogatari Eikyuu Alice Rondo, an anime that focuses on the completion of a fictional sequel called The Eternal Alice.
  • Miyuki-chan in Wonderland, an anime, adapted from a manga by Clamp, is a sexy animated parody of Alice.
  • The George Shrinks episode "Becky in Wonderland" pays homage to the original novel.
  • Project ARMS (プロジェクトアームズ?) is an anime and manga series that is heavily influenced by "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland". The ARMS weapons are named after characters in Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland.

Television[]

  • Alice in Wonderland, or What's a Nice Kid Like You Doing In a Place Like This?, a 1966 ABC animated comedy special very loosely based on the book, in which Hedda Hopper is caricatured (with the help of her voice) as Hedda the Mad Hatter, and both Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble played the Caterpillar.[9]
  • Lost (2004–2010) is heavily influenced by Alice in Wonderland and contains many references to Alice's world. The third season finale was also named after the second book.
  • The Disney Channel series Adventures in Wonderland is based on the first book, featuring many of the major characters. Also, Alice enters Wonderland in each episode by walking through her mirror, a reference to the second book.
  • This is Wonderland (2004–2006), a Canadian legal drama/comedy which follows the main character Alice De Raey as she encounters characters ranging from the truly desperate to the bizarre, is partly inspired by the characters of the Alice books.
  • The Care Bears Adventure in Wonderland (1987) – Animated movie
  • Warehouse 13 Season 1 Episode 8: Duped has Alice trapped inside a mirror.
  • Alice (2009) is a Syfy channel miniseries based on the novels, but set in the modern day, where Wonderland has evolved to today's standards and Alice as a dark-haired assertive woman instead of the blond child she is in the original.

Film[]

Not to be confused with actual adaptations of the Alice and Looking-Glass books, these are films which are based on elements of the books.

  • Alice in US Land (1932 newsreel), Paramount News feature about Alice Liddell's visit to New York City.
  • The Alice Comedies, a series of live action/animated shorts created by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks in the 1920s which initially were loosely based on Alice in Wonderland.
  • Alice in Wonderland: A Musical Porno, a 1976 pornographic film, is based directly upon Lewis Carroll's story.
  • Jabberwocky (1977) a film by Terry Gilliam set in medieval times and featuring the Jabberwock.
  • Alicia En La España De Las Maravillas (1978, Jorge Feliu, Spain) features four Alices wandering through 40 years of Spanish history.
  • Dreamchild, the 1985 Gavin Millar film, in which a reporter attempts to uncover the 'true story' of the Alice tales from an 80 year-old woman who may or may not be Alice Liddel. Featuring grotesque, aged versions of the Alice characters (designed by Jim Henson's Creature shop), the film explores the relationships adults have with the fictional characters from their childhoods.
  • Felix the Cat: The Movie, a 1989 Animated film based on Felix the Cat.
  • Alicia en el Pueblo de Maravillas (Cuba 1991), is a social comedy about bureaucratism.
  • The Matrix (1999). The protagonist Neo is told by his future mentor Morpheus to "follow the White Rabbit". Neo agrees to accompany visitors when he sees one of them sporting a white rabbit tattoo. The connection is further established with Morpheus' constant reference to being down the rabbit hole, as well as when Neo first transitions from the Matrix to the "real world" by interacting with a looking glass. The Wachowski brothers who directed the film have stated that Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is a running theme in their Matrix trilogy.
  • Alice in Wonderland (1999 film) This film closely follows the storyline of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, with Tina Majorino (from Napoleon Dynamite) starring as Alice. A notable feature about this is that it also includes references to Through The Looking Glass, with the Mock Turtle (Gene Wilder) and the Gryphon singing 'Beautiful Soup.' The Duchess with her strange baby are also included. In this film, Alice is seen wearing a yellow dress rather than a blue dress, and her hair is brown rather than blonde.
  • Phoebe in Wonderland (2008), starring Elle Fanning as a little girl whose role as Alice in a school play helps her deal with her Tourette syndrome.
  • Malice in Wonderland, set in present day England, the characters are inspired by those in Carroll's novels.
  • Alice in Wonderland, (2010), a film by Tim Burton, in which a 19-year-old Alice returns to Wonderland for more adventures.

Radio[]

  • Alice in Cyberspace, a radio drama series presented by the Lewis Carroll Society of Canada. The script is also available in book form.
  • Humph in Wonderland, a special edition of the BBC Radio 4 series I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue broadcast on Christmas Day 2007 featuring the chairman, Humphrey Lyttelton, as the protagonist and the pianist, Colin Sell, as the white rabbit.

Classical music and opera[]

Music inspired by, referencing, or incorporating texts from the Alice books include:

  • Deems Taylor: orchestral work Through the Looking-Glass (1918)
  • Irving Fine: choral work Three Choruses from Alice in Wonderland (1942)
  • Richard Rosen: original rock opera production Alice and Wonderland (1973)
  • David Del Tredici: An Alice Symphony (1969), Final Alice (1976), Child Alice (1980/1981), Haddock's Eyes (1986)
  • Federico Ibarra: opera Alicia (1995)
  • Carlo Forlivesi, Through the Looking-Glass (2005) for electronics. The piece is included in the CD album SILENZIOSA LUNA (ALCD 76).
  • Unsuk Chin: opera Alice in Wonderland (2007)
  • Alan John: opera Through the Looking Glass (2008)
  • Joseph Hallman: Ballet/Dramaturgy: ALICE (2010)

Popular music[]

  • Jefferson Airplane's song White Rabbit from their 1967 album Surrealistic Pillow mentions Alice, the Dormouse, the hookah-smoking caterpillar, the White Knight, and the Red Queen. Written by Grace Slick it shows parallels between the story and the hallucinatory effects of psychedelic drugs.
  • On Aerosmith's 2001 album, Just Push Play, the song "SUNSHINE" talks about Alice and other characters of the book. In the music video, Steven Tyler is shown trying to protect a young, blonde Alice in the woods, along with depictions of the Red Queen, the White Rabbit, among others.
  • The bands Alice in Chains and Alice in Videoland take their names from Alice.
  • The thrash metal / speed metal band Annihilator released a number of albums inspired directly and indirectly by Alice in Wonderland, the most popular being Never, Neverland and Alice in Hell.
  • Virginia Astley has released a lot of Alice-related work, including her LP From Gardens Where We Feel Secure with sound effects recorded a few miles south of where Alice's adventures began; and songs like "Tree Top Club," "Nothing Is What It Seems," and "Over the Edge of the World".
  • The popular Japanese band Buck-Tick released a song in 2007 titled "Alice in Wonder-Underground". The PV includes a very macabre depiction of the story, with Alice chasing her rabbit, the band periodically becoming rabbits, and the lead vocalist Atsushi Sakurai dressed as the Mad Hatter.
  • GWAR has a longform video titled Phallus in Wonderland.
  • Jewel released an album and single with the title Goodbye Alice in Wonderland.
  • Lisa Mitchell's song "Alice in Wonderland" is based on Alice's experiences in Wonderland.
  • Neil Sedaka took Alice into the US Top 50 in 1963 with the single "Alice In Wonderland".
  • The video for the Tom Petty song "Don't Come Around Here No More" portrays Alice, the Mad Hatter, and other Wonderland elements. Producer Dave Stewart appears as the Caterpillar.
  • Symphony X's 1998 release, Twilight in Olympus, contains "Through the Looking-Glass" – a 13-minute epic about the book.
  • Red Queen by Funker Vogt makes direct references to The Looking Glass, Alice and the Red Queen.
  • Tom Waits released an 2002 album titled Alice, consisting of songs that were written for a stage adaptation of Alice.
  • There was a rash of Alice-related material in the music industry in the 1980s, a fad mainly fueled by goth and indie rock musicians. Siouxsie and the Banshees, for instance, named their label Wonderland and released an album called Through The Looking Glass. The former London-based Batcave Club was renamed "Alice In Wonderland." The Sisters of Mercy had a hit single, "Alice," about the image of Carroll's heroine, which in turn led to a story called "Alice In The Floodlands".
  • Hard rock bands have used ideas from Alice In Wonderland, usually with a sense of parody. Both Nazareth and Paice Ashton & Lord released albums called Malice In Wonderland – the latter using one of Peter Blake's paintings for the sleeve.
  • The debut album Alice's Inferno by Spanish Gothic metal band Forever Slave is a concept album focusing on Alice's life after her parents' death.
  • In addition to having their 1979 album The Wall synchronized with the Disney animated movie adaption, some of Pink Floyd's early work were said to be influenced by Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, like "Country Song", since it has references to the Red Queen, White King and a smiling cat. Early member Syd Barrett also cited the books as one of the key inspirations for some of his early work.
  • Malice Mizer's 1997 Sans Retour Voyage "Derniere" ~Encoure Une Fois~ concert video was an interpretation of Alice in Wonderland by the band.
  • Escape Key's song, "The Girl Who's Never Been", retells the story from the point of view of Alice, lost in the real world and trying to find her way back to Wonderland.
  • The German Neofolk collaboration Werkraum has a song called "Beware the Jabberwock!" using Carroll's poem with original music on their album "Early Love Music".
  • Avril Lavigne wrote and recorded the song "Alice" for Tim Burton's film Alice in Wonderland, which is on the soundtrack Almost Alice.[10]
  • The popular Visual Kei band; D have two albums named after Alice from Alice in Wonderland: "Yami no Kuni no Alice/Hamon" and "Alice" along with the song "MAD TEA PARTY" like the one March Hare and the Mad Hatter had with Alice (2003–2008)

Computer and video games[]

  • Wonderland (1990), an illustrated text adventure by Magnetic Scrolls.
  • Alice (1990), a point-and-click visual novel created by the influential Japanese computer graphics designer, Haruhiko Shono. Winner of the 1991 MITI Multimedia Grand Prix Award.
  • In the Bloody Roar series of fighting games, one of the main protagonists is a young Eurasian woman dressed in blue and white and called Alice, and whose zoanthropic transform is a white rabbit.
  • American McGee's Alice is a macabre computer game which chronologically takes place following the two Alice books.
  • Alice in Wonderland was adapted into a computer game by Windham Classics in 1985. It is presented as a platform game involving puzzle-solving and simplistic word parsers akin to a text adventure.
  • The Thief series, developed by Looking Glass Studios, contains references to the Alice world. Thief: The Dark Project has an early level that involves breaking into a huge mansion; as one goes deeper inside, it becomes "curiouser and curiouser" — resembling
  • In the RPG Megami Tensei series and it's subsequent spin-offs, Alice is a major boss and a summon that you can obtain.
  • The RPG Kingdom Hearts includes Alice as a plot character. Also, Disney's version of Wonderland appears as one of the first worlds.
  • The Silent Hill series contain a few references of Wonderland, in an homage to its surreal world. The best example of this is in the first game, where a door puzzle at the Alchemilla Hospital involves coloured blocks imprinted with the Cheshire Cat, Mad Hatter, Mock Turtle and The Queen of Hearts.
  • In the intro to the Nintendo 64 game, Chameleon Twist, a rabbit runs through a forest stating he is late for something and jumps into a tree trunk and warps to a magical world. The player's character follows the rabbit into the magical world. A sequel was made called Chameleon Twist 2 and the rabbit and the magical world are once again featured.
  • Windham Classics' Alice In Wonderland adventure game for the Commodore 64. The game was remade later for Philips CD-I with clay animation graphics.
  • In the PC-98 game Mystic Square of the Touhou Project, one of the boss characters is named Alice. She is inspired by the story: the background music for the Extra Stage where she appears again is titled "Alice in Wonderland", and playing cards appear as enemies; the mid-boss is a King card soldier. Alice later returns in Perfect Cherry Blossom and other games of the series.
  • The Don Bluth arcade game Dragon's Lair II: Time Warp, features an Alice in Wonderland/ Through the Looking-Glass inspired level.
  • The Otome game "Heart no Kuni no Alice" and its sequels "Clover no Kuni no Alice" and "Joker no Kuni no Alice" use a story and world based on Alice in Wonderland as well as many of its characters as protagonists. The titles of the games themselves are a play on the Japanese title of Alice in Wonderland; ふしぎの国のアリス (Fushigi no Kuni no Arisu)
  • The 2000 Game Boy Color video game Alice in Wonderland published by Nintendo.
  • The 2005 adventure game Psychonauts features the White Rabbit, where Razputin, the game's protagonist, follows a White Rabbit in a Wonderland-esque universe in his mind.
  • Wild Tangent just released a game called Bookworm Adventures; Fractured Fairy-tales. Although the game is not completely Alice in Wonderland based it does have many characters from Alice in Wonderland as well as several from Through The Looking Glass.
  • The 2002 tag-team fighting game, Rage of the Dragons, features a character named Alice Carroll. The last name is shared with the original author of the books, Lewis Carroll.
  • In the 2005 video game Ratchet: Deadlocked there is an unlockable cheat code with the name Mirrored World whose description reads "See the world through the looking glass."
  • In A Witch's Tale the characters and the scenes are from "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland".
  • Alice in Wonderland developed by Etranges Libellules.
  • Rule of Rose developed by Punchline.
  • The 2010 Xbox 360 & PlayStation 3 video game Bayonetta contains several references to the Cheshire Cat; the title character's nickname for her love interest, Luka, is "Cheshire," and another character, Cererza, carries a plush cat she calls "Cheshire."

Other games[]

  • Dungeonland and The Land Beyond the Magic Mirror are translations of the two books into Advanced Dungeons and Dragons terms. Written by AD&D creator Gary Gygax, they were released in the 1980s as two gaming adventures (or modules). In the game, all of Carroll’s characters are translated into horrifically deadly AD&D equivalents—for example, the Cheshire Cat became a sabretooth tiger (smilodon).
  • Wonderland, a.k.a. JAGS Wonderland, is a role-playing game by Marco Chacon and published by Better Mousetrap Games that is based on the perspective of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland as being horrific rather than merely fanciful.
  • An adventure module for the role-playing game Paranoia was titled Alice Through the Mirrorshades, referring to both Through the Looking-Glass and the cyberpunk genre.

New Media[]

The Eindhoven University of Technology built the interactive ALICE installation based on the narrative 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'.[11] It addresses the western culture characteristics highlighted in the narrative. Six stages were selected and implemented as an interactive experience.

Atomic Antelope built the iPad book Alice for the iPad. The book took the characters in Alice and attached them to a physics modeling system that makes them appear to spring to life. [1]

Science and Medicine[]

  • Richard Gregory in his book Mirrors in Mind, questions why looking-glass images are right-left reversed. He explains with diagrams the reversals occurring in Carroll's Through The Looking-Glass while also pondering on how a scientific phenomenon is reflected in the vocabulary of the text, dwelling on the importance of words such as "re-turning", "behind", "back".
  • A.L.I.C.E. a journey to the beginning of the Universe [2]
  • Alice in Wonderland syndrome, a neurological condition in which objects are perceived to be substantially larger or smaller than in actuality, is derived from passages in the book.

Tourist attractions[]

  • Walt Disney Parks and Resorts have several attractions based on the 1951 animated film. Among them are Alice in Wonderland, Alice's Curious Labyrinth and Mad Tea Party.
  • Blackpool Illuminations has featured numerous illuminated and animated features and tableaux based on Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.[12]
  • Blackpool Pleasure Beach has an Alice in Wonderland amusement park ride featuring characters from both Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass.[13][14]
  • Winter Park, a ski resort in Grand County, Colorado, has several trails named after Alice in Wonderland characters, including March Hare, Jabberwocky, White Rabbit, Cheshire Cat, Tweedle Dee, Tweedle Dum, and Mock Turtle. Additionally, one chairlift in this area is a double chairlift named Looking Glass. However, the main lift to these Alice in Wonderland named trails, the Olympia Express high speed quad, is not named after an Alice in Wonderland character (although it services March Hare, White Rabbit, Jabberwocky, and Cheshire Cat).

See also[]

External links[]

Notes[]

  1. Sigler, Carolyn, ed. Alternative Alices: Visions and Revisions of Lewis Carroll's "Alice" Books. Lexington, KY, University Press of Kentucky, 1997.
  2. Sigler, p. 206.
  3. Grant Morrison interview in Xstatic #1 (May '92)
  4. Robertson, Ross (27 March 2007). "News focus: Alice in Pictureland". Sunderland Echo. Archived from the original on 2 April 2007. Retrieved 29 March 2007. 
  5. Yuki, Kaori (3 March 2006). "Mad Tea Party". Godchild Volume 1. Viz Media. pp. 6, 17. ISBN 978-1-4215-0233-5. 
  6. Raven Gregory on Return to Wonderland, Newsarama, January 24, 2007
  7. Going Beyond Wonderland with Raven Gregory, Newsarama, April 11, 2008
  8. J. Caleb Mozzocco on Wonderland, Newsarama, April 18, 2009
  9. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0275070/
  10. Walt Disney Records (Press Release) (January 12, 2010). "Buena Vista Records Presents ALMOST ALICE Featuring Other Voices from WONDERLAND". EarthTimes. Retrieved 26 January 2010. 
  11. Hu, J., Bartneck, C., Salem, B., & Rauterberg, M. (2008). ALICE's Adventures in Cultural Computing. International Journal of Arts and Technology, 1(1), 102–118. | DOI: 10.1504/IJART.2008.019885 | html
  12. "Sarah Myerscough (Artist) – Alice in Wonderland 2006 – Blackpool Illuminations Gallery". www.sarahmyerscough.co.uk. Retrieved 12 August 2009. 
  13. "Blackpool Pleasure Beach – Alice Ride". www.blackpoolpleasurebeach.com. Retrieved 1 September 2009. 
  14. "Sarah Myerscough (Artist) – Mad Hatter (Alice in Wonderland Ride) – Blackpool Pleasure Beach Gallery". www.sarahmyerscough.co.uk. Retrieved 1 September 2009. 
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