Few works of literature are as universally beloved as Alice’s . Now, in this spellbinding historical novel, we meet the young girl whose bright spirit sent her on an unforgettable trip down the rabbit hole — and the grown woman whose story is no less enthralling.
But oh my dear, I am tired of being Alice in Wonderland. Does it sound ungrateful?
Alice Liddell Hargreaves’s life has been a richly … ungrateful?
Alice Liddell Hargreaves’s life has been a richly woven tapestry: As a young woman, wife, mother, and widow, she’s experienced intense passion, great privilege, and greater tragedy. But as she nears her eighty-first birthday, she knows that, to the world around her, she is and will always be only “Alice.” Her life was permanently dog-eared at one fateful moment in her tenth year — the golden summer day she urged a grown-up friend to write down one of his fanciful stories.
That story, a wild tale of rabbits, queens, and a precocious young child, becomes a sensation the world over. Its author, a shy, stuttering Oxford professor, does more than immortalize Alice — he changes her life forever. But even he cannot stop time, as much as he might like to. And as Alice’s childhood slips away, a peacetime of glittering balls and royal romances gives way to the urgent tide of war.
For Alice, the stakes could not be higher, for she is the mother of three grown sons, soldiers all. Yet even as she stands to lose everything she treasures, one part of her will always be the determined, undaunted Alice of the story, who discovered that life beyond the rabbit hole was an astonishing journey.
A love story and a literary mystery, Alice I Have Been brilliantly blends fact and fiction to capture the passionate spirit of a woman who was truly worthy of her fictional alter ego, in a world as captivating as the Wonderland only she could inspire.
BONUS: This edition contains an Alice I Have Been discussion guide and an excerpt from Melanie Benjamin’s The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb.
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Melanie Benjamin writes as though she lived the experiences. She personalizes the characters in unforgettable ways,and Alice Liddell sticks with me. Alice I Have Been explores the real-life inspirations for Lewis Carroll’s famous trip through the looking glass. Serving as a muse changed the life set out for the dean’s daughter. The included …
The real Alice in Wonderland comes to life in Melanie Benjamin’s Alice I Have Been. This is a fictionalized account, but based in fact and speculation of Alice Liddell Hargreave, who inspired Charles Dodgson’s (AKA Lewis Carroll) Alice in Wonderland. Benjamin does a very good job of incorporating her take on the different legends and speculations …
I have never read Alice in Wonderland, but now that I’ve read Melanie Benjamin’s account of the real Alice (beyond the looking glass), I’m curious to discover it. Set in Oxford during the Victorian period, Alice I Have Been describes the escapades of a non-conforming child who never quite fit into the life of small town academia she was born into. …
Read 3.11.2011
Melanie Benjamin’s first work of historical fiction, exploring the sometimes-unsettling relationship between Lewis Carroll and his inspiration, Alice Liddell. Nuanced and intriguing.
Interesting
Make you wonderful a bit about story of Alice though fictional.
Great read!
I’m so torn over this book. On the one hand, I loved so much about Alice Liddell, the inspiration behind Lewis Carrol’s Alice in Wonderland, and the true story of her life. Her tragic romance with a prince and the story of her years living through WWII were told with great emotion and urgency by Melanie Benjamin, bringing to life a strong, …
Melanie Benjamin is masterful at plumbing the depths of real women’s lives. The life of the girl who inspired Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland was shrouded in darkness, but this novel is a triumph. I loved it.
I felt this book was really two books: the book of Alice as a child, which could be a bit tedious and hard to relate to, and Alice as an adult which was reminiscent of Downton Abbey (I’ve become a bit obsessed, so the parallels were positive for me), and also profoundly moving. Before reading this book, I was vaguely aware that Lewis Carroll was …
It’s hard to believe this book is fictional. The characters are so vivid and real. I’m satisfied with pretending this is the real story.
This fictional biography follows the life of Alice Liddell. Her childhood friendship with the adult Charles Dodgson gives him the inspiration for Alice in Wonderland. The writing was very descriptive, but I was very creeped out by the way their relationship was portrayed. It doesn’t say anything unseemly happened, but it still really bothered me.
Great book about Victorian values and mystery about Louis Carroll.
A thoughtful and realistic view of Alice Liddell, her family, and her relationship with Charles Dodgson. Utterly engaging.
I did not realize Alice was based on a real girl. Very interesting story. In fact, I read Alice in Wonderland again with new eyes.
A perfect blend of the enchanted mind of a young girl and the consequences required by the real world.
Very interesting read. Glad I read it.
Who wouldn’t want to get to know the real Alice in Wonderland? I had no idea the story was based on a real girl or how it may have affected her life. The author tells this story through the eyes of the real Alice from her storybook childhood through her difficult and shocking transition to the adult world. Her later years were just as intriguing, …
An interesting read at times a little unsettling. I like historically correct books. I felt I was right there.