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Alice in Wonderland Visited America in 1932
Lewis Carroll’s muse had a new adventure
Lewis Carroll, the author of Alice in Wonderland, died in 1898 at the age of sixty-five, and so was unavailable to celebrate his hundredth birthday. Event organizers in America, however, realized they could get — Alice? The girl who inspired the children’s classic, now an old woman, agreed to come.
The former Alice Liddell sailed from England and arrived in New York on April 29, 1932. A Paramount newsreel, Alice in U.S. Land!, was filmed before she disembarked. She had a prepared speech:
“It is a great honor and a great pleasure to have come over here, and I think now my adventures overseas will be almost as interesting as my adventures underground were.”
Some forty reporters arrived to greet her
They wanted to see the ‘Alice’ of the book. Even physical descriptions nudge the details. The Herald Tribune offers:
“She will be eighty years old on Wednesday, but she appeared many years younger than that, a slender, erect little figure in a black fur coat.”
Noting her hair wasn’t very Alice-like, she’s asked about it.
“That was a long time ago,” she replied, “but I’m afraid those stories about long curls…
