Facts you didn't know about Alice In Wonderland

I came across these facts about Alice in Wonderland in one of the many versions of the book, and thought they were interesting. So I'd like to share them with you :)

#1 The author, Lewis Carroll, whose real name is Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, was very meticulous and had this habit of making lists and keeping records of everything that he did. He even kept records of all the letters that he wrote - a total of 98,721 letters, from January 1861 until his death in 1898!

#2 Mock Turtle soup IS REAL! It was a popular dish in Victorian times. It was made from parts of a calf.

#3 Alice Liddell is the little girl who inspired this story. Read more here. Read a review of a historical fiction based on Alice Liddell's life (Alice I Have Been) here.

#4 In the 1930s Alice in Wonderland and its sequel, Through the Looking Glass, were banned from publication in China because the Chinese authorities objected to the animals in the story talking like humans.

#5 Before it was called Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, the author named it Alice's Adventures Under Ground. (The characters in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland called it Under Land.)

# 6 Did you know there is a special day which celebrates silliness called Mad Hatter's Day? It's celebrated on 10/6 (10th June in Great Britain, 6 October in the US), after Tenniel's (the illustrator) illustration of the Mad Hatter's hat which says 10/6, although it is thought that 10/6 was actually the price of the hat (ten shillings and sixpence in old English money.)

(Got the above information/facts from Puffin Books' Puffin Classics (978-0-131-32107-3)

I must say, I had so much fun reading this book. It's filled with witty conversations, clever play of words and not to mention, the brilliant illustrations that made Alice and Wonderland come to life!

Let me share with you some of my favourite quotes/conversations:
1) Alice: And how many hours a day did you do lessons?
The Mock Turtle: Ten hours the first day, nine the next, and so on.
Alice: What a curious plan!
The Gryphon: That's the reason they're called lessons, because they lessen from day to day.

2) Alice and the Cat:
Alice: Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?
The Cat: That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.
Alice: I don't much care where.
The Cat: Then it doesn't much matter which way you go.
Alice: …so long as I get somewhere.
The Cat: Oh, you're sure to do that, if only you walk long enough.

3) The Duchess: Be what you would seem to be -- or, if you'd like it put more simply -- Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise.

4) The Duchess: You're thinking about something, my dear, and that makes you forget to talk. I can't tell you just now what the moral of that is, but I shall remember it in a bit.
Alice: Perhaps it hasn't one.
The Duchess: Tut, tut, child! Everything's got a moral, if only you can find it.

And my favourite of the favourites....
5) March Hare: …Then you should say what you mean.
Alice: I do; at least - at least I mean what I say -- that's the same thing, you know.
Hatter: Not the same thing a bit! Why, you might just as well say that, 'I see what I eat' is the same as 'I eat what I see'!
March Hare: You might just as well say, that "I like what I get" is the same thing as "I get what I like"!
The Dormouse: You might just as well say, that "I breathe when I sleep" is the same thing as "I sleep when I breathe"!

Tell me if those weren't great stuff! :)) Do you have some favourite conversations too?

This is the kind of story I can read over and over again, and still find something new in it!

(The top most picture is a clearer cover of Alice in Wonderland I got from here.)