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Article: Go Ask Alice.(Brief Article)
- Article from:
- Reason
- Article date:
- July 1, 2001
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2001 Reason Foundation. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Here's Alice through a different looking glass: Lewis Carroll's lens. This famous pose of Alice Liddell--auctioned off by her descendants in June--was taken by Carroll in 1858; seven years later he would publish the tale he'd made up to amuse the girl, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
Victorian photos are often opaque today; many were frankly narrative and were intended to evoke pathos. Carroll dressed Alice as a "picturesque" beggar in imitation of the work of Oscar Rejlander, an early professional photographer who often posed his models as urchins. Rejlander's most successful subject pretended to be a popular Dickens character, "Poor Jo" from Bleak House. Thus ...