Robert Douglas-Fairhurst's "The Story of Alice," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: The Story of Alice: Lewis Carroll and the Secret History of Wonderland by Robert Douglas-Fairhurst.

Part of his entry:

Movies about Carroll himself are comparatively rare. The most successful version is probably Dreamchild (dir. Gavin Millar, 1985), in which he is played by Ian Holm as a sad and stammering figure tortured by thoughts that are too disturbing to put into words. The real Carroll was far more interesting: a playful figure who loved new inventions (at one point he enquired whether it was possible to buy Charles Babbage’s pioneering version of the computer) and was addicted to games and jokes. He was also remarkably good-looking as a young man, and it is worth remembering that when he first told Alice Liddell his story in 1862 he was only 30 years old. So who could play him now? My choice would be either a smart actor like Dan Stevens, who could capture Carroll’s personal charisma with a single look to camera, or a comedian like...[read on]

Learn more about The Story of Alice: Lewis Carroll and the Secret History of Wonderland.

Robert Douglas-Fairhurst is Professor of English Literature and a Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford. His publications include Becoming Dickens: The Invention of a Novelist.

My Book, The Movie: Becoming Dickens.

The Page 99 Test: Becoming Dickens.

My Book, The Movie: The Story of Alice.

--Marshal Zeringue