Life, what is it but a dream?

What serendipity! Today – I learned by chance – is the very day, 158 years ago, that Alice Pleasance Liddell was born.

It was she who begged Lewis Carroll to write down the story of Alice’s adventures that he first entranced her and her sisters Pre-Raphaelite looks: I have always loved Julia Margaret Cameron’s photographs, and immediately decided to do one in homage when I first started my Alice series last year. with whilst rowing down The Isis (part of the Thames) from Oxford to Godstow for a picnic. Several months later he presented her with the manuscript of Alice’s Adventures Under Ground. (Read more of the history here.)

Carroll himself maintained in later life that the Alice of the story was an entirely imaginary character, and certainly Tenniel’s drawings do not resemble Liddell, although the book is set on her birthday, the 4th of May. Liddell however has inspired a number of other books, poems, films, and even an opera. Yet how extraordinary to have been the muse – however inadvertent – behind one of the world’s most famous children’s tales!

On this anniversary of her birthday, I’ll leave it to Lewis Carroll to have the last word, in his acrostic poem from Through the Looking-Glass.

Alice Liddell, age 7, photographed by Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) in 1860.A boat beneath a sunny sky,
Lingering onward dreamily
In an evening of July—

Children three that nestle near,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Pleased a simple tale to hear—

Long has paled that sunny sky:
Echoes fade and memories die.
Autumn frosts have slain July.

Still she haunts me, phantomwise,
Alice moving under skies
Never seen by waking eyes.

Alice Liddell as a young woman, photographed by Julia Margaret Cameron.Children yet, the tale to hear,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Lovingly shall nestle near.

In a Wonderland they lie,
Dreaming as the days go by,
Dreaming as the summers die:

Ever drifting down the stream—
Lingering in the golden gleam—
Life, what is it but a dream?

Don’t forget to check out the Out-takes & Extras gallery for more homages to Julia Margaret Cameron.

A great resource with a biography and more examples of her work can be found here at Artsy.