Queen Victoria’s reign brought about a sense of stability and growth which constituted many of the crowning moments of the British Empire—this period of stability lead to a new rise to Children’s Literature. “Reading literally [became] a ladder to paradise, bearing the promise of better social circumstances for many…” (Styles and Arizpe 109). Published in 1865, Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is a story which tells us about the adventures and imagination of children. It is characterized by its luscious illustrations, character genderization, sentimentalizing of religiosity and its didactic purpose (the intention to teach lessons and instill social values and norms).

Although this was a time of societal change, literacy still belonged primarily to the privileged. “…The well-to-do Victorian child had routine access to books, and received them as Christmas presents, cowering among the leaves of ‘The Christmas Tree’. If poor, he or she is energetically stimulated to learn to read as a way to salvation” (Styles and Arizpe 107). Literacy was a means of participating in this national development.

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is reflective of the Victorian sense of propriety, manners and educational importance. But Carroll’s use of nonsensical language and imaginative characters severely contradicts this. “…The idea of nonsense as a force of the imagination, or nonsense as a challenge to the logic of adulthood and the laws of civil life—this was a new idea in Victorian England. [A master] of that nonsense was, of course, Lewis Carroll” (Lerer 191). Lerer goes on to say that, “Life lived on the diagonal or the off-center, through the looking glass, or upside down is the world of nonsense imagination, and it is the world that so appeals to childhood” (196).

The novel provided children with liberation from their Victorian upbringing by mockery; it was a parody of what the children were intended to learn:

The acts of reading performed by wealthy children, would bring us back to Alice and to the chapters where school and lessons are made fun of…this signals the gap between children belonging to the two nations of Victorian times, but also the newly-acquired status as readers that girls, not dissimilar from Alice, are achieving. (Styles and Arizpe 110)

Evidently, young girls constituted the majority of Alice’s readership in the Victorian Era. The enthusiasm and interest these young ladies had for literature lead to an even greater female readership for years to come: “Towards the end of the nineteenth century, girls practise reading with more freedom than in the past, and the turn of the century has many little princesses who can even teach their dolls to read” (Styles and Arizpe 110).

Works Cited

Ferrall, Charles, and Anna Jackson. Juvenile Literature and British Society, 1850-1950: The Age of Adolescence. New York: Routledge, 2010. Print.

Grenby, M.O. The Child Reader, 1700-1840. Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2011. Print.

Hancock, Susan. The Child That Haunts Us: Symbols and Images in Fairytale and Miniature Literature. London: Routledge, 2009. Print.

Immel, Andrea, and Michael Witmore. Childhood and children’s books in early modern Europe, 1550-1800. New York: Routledge, 2006. Print.

Kiefer, Monica Mary. American Children Through Their Books, 1700-1835. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1948. Print.

Knoepflmacher, U.C. Ventures into Childland : Victorians, Fairy Tales, and Femininity. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1998. Print.

Lerer, Seth. Children’s Literature: A Reader’s History, From Aesop To Harry Potter. Chicago: University Of Chicago Press, 2008. Print.

Maeyer, Jan de. Religion, Children’s Literature, and Modernity in Western Europe, 1750-2000. Leuven: Leuven University, 2005. Print.

Mickenberg Ed., Julia L., and Lynne Vallone. The Oxford Handbook of Children’s Literature. Oxford: Oxford University, 2011. Print.

Styles Ed., Morag, and Evelyn Arizpe Ed. Acts of Reading: Teachers, Text and         Childhood. Stoke on Trent, UK: Trentham, 2009. Print.

Susina, Jan. The Place of Lewis Carroll in Children’s Literature. New York: Routledge, 2010. Print.