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Alice on the Internet

Over the last fifteen years or so, since the Internet has become a guage of popular culture, the Alice cult has grown so that it has a sizeable internet presence. For instance, a quick search of the phrase "Alice in Wonderland" on Google, yeilds a staggering 28,900,000 results. Interestingly, the first two results are the two Disney movie versions, the third and fourth are Wikipedia articles on Carroll's book and the latest movie and the fifth is "Lenny's Alice in Wonderland Site." There are numerous ads for "Alice in Wonderland" books and products, there are video and music clips, and there are "educational" sites, some less reputable than others (cliffnotes). On this page I've attempted to gather the most interesting, useful, or bizzarre Internet Alices, to show how the "Digital" Wonderland has evolved.

 

Electronic Text

Since Alice is in the public domain (and has been for some time) there are several sites that offer the full digital text of the novel. However, many of them do not include illustrations-- Tenniel's or any one else's-- which, as I discuss at lenghth in the Images section, is no good.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland full text from Project Gutenburg (no Illustrations)
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland full text from Literature Online (no Illustrations)
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland full text from the Sabian Assembly website (with Tenniel's Illustrations)
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland full text from the Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia (with Tenniel's Illustrations)

There is also a full version of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in digital form on Google Books. This version, however, is not a "digital plain text," rather a series of images of pages from the 1897 edition of the book. Below you can see the title page, and the first page of Chapter 5. Reading the book on Google Books is probably the closest electronic equivalent to reading the print version.

There are also a few instances of more creative presentations of the text in the form of flash movies. While these two are perhaps a little too far-removed from the text to be called "e-versions" of the text, they are certainly interesting adaptatons.

Alice in Wonderand interactive ".swf" flash movie from Feel Good Anyway
Alice in Wonderland flash movie from Funny-games.biz

 

Fan Sites

Fan sites are great, and usually highly entertaining. But one of the most interesting things about sites like FanPop, is that you get a real sense of an Alice community. After all, the book does not live in a vacuum. And when you visit a fan site you realize that there are thousands of others who have read Alice and like it and want to talk about their ideas about it.

Here's a great one: Lenny's Alice in Wonderland Site

And a few others, if you're interested.
FanPop.com's Alice In Wonderland Fan Page

Lauren Harman's Alice in Wonderland Site - this one is great for illustrations.

Alice2010 blog

Alice Fan Art Gallery

 

Educational or Academic Sites

In addition to electronic texts sites and fan sites, there are also some sites dedicated to academic or educational pursuits focused on Alice. There is a varying amount of credibility attached to the sites, most of which would probably not pass an expert's standards for accurate information. However, many of them are helpful introductions for the layman just trying to "get a feel" for Alice.

The Lewis Carroll Society of North America - According to its website, "the LCSNA is a non-profit organization dedicated to furthering study of the life and works of Lewis Carroll." The site is somewhat of a mix between serious educational pursuits and fandom, but really is an excellent for understanding Alice in popular culture today.

The Victorian Web - The Victorian Web is a collection of articles about Victorian life, culture and literature contributed by University Professors, grad students, and undergradutates. George P. Landow, Professor of English and the History of Art, Brown University is the webmaster.

Wikipedia - A web-based, user-edited encyclopedia. This page is actually pretty good, well-cited, with lots of information

Cliffs Notes - Cliffs Notes, although the notorious bane of educators for their reputation as a "substitute" for literature, actually provide a pretty good overview of the book, both in summaries and in major themes and criticism. The information is not perhaps the most profound, but as an introduction, this site is not bad.

Grade Saver - Very much like Cliffs Notes, Grade Saver provides summaries, character lists, and a list of the major themes for many classic works of literature. Again, certainly not the most reputable site, Grade Saver is at least a decent introduction for the layman.

 

 

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