SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2015 COSTA BIOGRAPHY AWARD
This is the secret history of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
Wonderland is part of our cultural heritage. But beneath the fairy tale lies the complex history of the author and his subject.
It is the ultimate book about Alice - comprehensive and scholarly, but so delightfully and elegantly written that it's a true work of literatureThe Story of Alice is the best book on the myriad enigmas of Carroll’s heart-breaking wonderland I have ever readSuperb…toweringly the best of the dozens of books on Carroll which I have readDouglas-Fairhurst is a startling and exciting writerThis is biography at its bestRobert Douglas-Fairhurst is a Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford, and a Fellow of Magdalen College. His books include Becoming Dickens: The Invention of a Novelist, which won the Duff Cooper Prize, and The Story of Alice: Lewis Carroll and the Secret History of Wonderland, which was shortlisted for the Costa Biography Award, and The Turning Point: A Year that Changed Dickens and the World. He writes regularly for publications including The Times, Guardian, TLS and Spectator. Radio and television appearances include Start the Week and The Culture Show, and he has also acted as the historical consultant on TV adaptations of Jane Eyre, Emma, Great Expectations, the BBC drama series Dickensian, and the feature film Enola Holmes. In 2015 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.