Archives in Action - Alice Illustrated
In 2017 we received a collection lovingly put together of almost 400 published works relating to Lewis Carroll and his Alice in Wonderland adventures. Some are even written in languages other than English. There are also biographies of the author, books about the ‘real’ Alice, its illustrators, the puzzles and maths in Carroll’s stories, and fiction inspired by it - even a set of coasters!
To tie-in with this year’s summer production of Alice in Wonderland in Chester’s Grosvenor Park, we showcased the variety of illustrations and illustrators involved with Alice over the centuries since Alice in Wonderland was first published in 1865. This year, 2025, marks its 160th anniversary in print.
We set up our “Alice Illustrated” pop-up exhibition in the Storyhouse lobby, with a curated selection of books, and a Mad Hatter’s Tea Party and colouring table alongside. We shared our own research into the Alice illustrators whose work was on show, as well as discussing the links between Cheshire and Lewis Carroll. Carroll, born Charles Dodgson in Daresbury in 1832, spent his childhood in Cheshire - is that why he came up with the Cheshire cat?
Our visitors particularly liked being able to touch and browse through the original books. We received many questions and positive comments, including from one visitor who said we had “cheered up his soul”! The collection is newly catalogued to search through online and will be available to see in real life in our Chester centre in 2026.
Many thanks to Storyhouse for hosting and of course Mr Oultram who kindly donated this collection to Cheshire Archives.
By Heather Vernon, Local Studies Librarian
