Britain

The real ALICE

Were it not for Alice Pleasance Liddell, we might never have known of the madcap world of Wonderland, where White Rabbits wear waistcoats, Mad Hatters host tea parties and playing-card-Queens play croquet. Lewis Carroll’s dreamland has fired the imaginations of generations of British children, along with everyone from The Beatles to The Royal Ballet, as a new exhibition at London’s V&A is set to explore. But comparatively little fame is enjoyed by the real girl who inspired it all, and without whom one of the world’s best-loved stories might never have made it onto paper, let alone into print.

Alice, the tiny, dark-haired daughter of the

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