Alltop.com

Though those of us raised on the Disney verison of Alice in Wonderland hold onto the image of a blond-haired imp as the star of the Lewis Carroll classic, pint-sized brunettes can now take heart in the fact that one of their kind was actually the inspiration for the tale.

According to Wikipedia, Alice Liddell was Carroll’s model and audience for the original stories, and Retronaut has a collection of pictures of the little girl taken circa 1862.

“On 4 July 1862, in a rowing boat travelling on the Isis in Oxford for a picnic, 10-year-old Alice asked Charles Dodgson (pen name Lewis Carroll) to entertain her and her sisters, Edith (age 8) and Lorina (age 13), with a story.

As the Reverend Robinson Duckworth rowed the boat, Dodgson regaled the girls with stories, not unlike those Dodgson had spun for the sisters before, but this time Liddell asked Mr. Dodgson to write it down for her. He eventually presented her with the manuscript of Alice’s Adventures Under Ground in November 1864.”

Full story at Retronaut.

Inspiration for the classics.