The trip was about three miles, beginning at Folly Bridge, near Oxford, and ending at the village of Godstow. “We had tea on the bank there,” Carroll recorded in his diary, “and did not reach Christ Church again till quarter past eight, when we took them on to my rooms to see my collection of micro-photographs, and restored them to the Deanery just before nine.” Seven months later he added to this entry the following note: “On which occasion I told them the fairy-tale of Alice’s adventures underground . . .”
Twenty-five years later (in his article “Alice
on the Stage,” The Theatre,
April 1887) Carroll wrote:
Many a day had we rowed together on that quiet stream—the three little maidens and I—and many a fairy tale had been extemporised for their benefit—whether it were at times when
the narrator was “i’ the vein,” and fancies unsought came crowding thick upon him, or at times when the jaded Muse was goaded into action, and plodded meekly on, more because she had to say something than that she had something to say—yet none of these many tales got written down: they lived and died, like summer midges, each in its own golden afternoon until there came a day when, as it chanced, one of my little listeners petitioned that the tale might be written out for her. That was many a year ago, but I distinctly remember, now as I write, how, in a desperate attempt to strike out some new line of fairy-lore, I had sent my heroine straight down a rabbit-hole, to begin with, without the least idea what was to happen afterwards. And so, to please a child I loved (I don’t remember any other motive), I printed in manuscript, and illustrated with my own crude designs—designs that rebelled against every law of Anatomy or Art (for I had never had a lesson in drawing)—the book which I have just had published in facsimile. In writing it out, I added many fresh ideas, which seemed to grow of themselves upon the original stock; and many more added themselves when, years afterwards, I wrote it all over again for publication. . . .
Stand forth, then, from the shadowy past, “Alice,” the child of my dreams. Full many a year has slipped away, since that “golden afternoon” that gave thee birth, but I can call it up almost as clearly as if it were yesterday—the cloudless blue above, the watery mirror below, the boat drifting idly on its way, the tinkle of the drops that fell from the oars, as they waved so sleepily to and fro, and (the one bright gleam of life in all the slumberous scene) the three eager faces, hungry for news of fairy-land, and who would not be said “nay” to: from whose lips “Tell us a story, please,” had all the stern immutability of Fate!
Alice twice recorded her memories of the occasion. The following lines are quoted by Stuart Collingwood in The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll
:
Most of Mr. Dodgson’s stories were told to us on river expeditions to Nuneham or Godstow, near Oxford. My eldest sister, now Mrs. Skene, was “Prima”, I was “Secunda”, and “Tertia” was my sister Edith. I believe the beginning of Alice was told one summer afternoon when the sun was so burning that we had landed in the meadows down the river, deserting the boat to take refuge in
the only bit of shade to be found, which was under a new-made hayrick. Here from all three came the old petition of “Tell us a story,” and so began the ever-delightful tale. Sometimes to tease us—and perhaps being really tired—Mr. Dodgson would stop suddenly and say, “And that’s all till next time.” “Ah, but it is next time,” would be the exclamation from all three; and after some persuasion the story would start afresh. Another day, perhaps the story would begin in the boat, and Mr. Dodgson, in the middle of telling a thrilling adventure, would pretend to go fast asleep, to our great dismay.
Alice’s son, Caryl Hargreaves, writing in the Cornhill Magazine
(July 1932) quotes his mother as follows:
Nearly all of Alice’s Adventures Underground
was told on that blazing summer afternoon with the heat haze shimmering over the meadows where the party landed to shelter for a while in the shadow cast by the haycocks near Godstow. I think the stories he told us that afternoon must have been better than usual, because I have such a distinct recollection of the expedition, and also, on the next day I started to pester him to write down the story for me, which I had never done before. It was due to my “going on, going on” and importunity that, after saying he would think about it, he eventually gave the hesitating promise which started him writing it down at all.
Finally, we have the Reverend Duckworth’s account, to be found in Collingwood’s The Lewis Carroll Picture Book
:
I rowed stroke
and he rowed bow
in the famous Long Vacation voyage to Godstow, when the three Miss Liddells were our passengers, and the story was actually composed and spoken over my shoulder
for the benefit of Alice Liddell, who was acting as ‘cox’ of our gig. I remember turning round and saying, “Dodgson, is this an extempore romance of yours?” And he replied, “Yes, I’m inventing as we go along.” I also well remember how, when we had conducted the three children back to the Deanery, Alice said, as she bade us good-night, “Oh, Mr. Dodgson, I wish you would write out Alice’s adventures for me.” He said he should try, and he afterwards told me that he sat up nearly the whole night, committing to a MS. book his recollections of the drolleries with which he had enlivened the afternoon. He added illustrations of his own, and presented the
volume, which used often to be seen on the drawing-room table at the Deanery.
It is with sadness I add that when a check was made in 1950 with the London meteorological office (as reported in Helmut Gernsheim’s Lewis Carroll: Photographer
) records indicated that the weather near Oxford on July 4, 1862, was “cool and rather wet.”
This was later confirmed by Philip Stewart, of Oxford University’s Department of Forestry. He informed me in a letter that the Astronomical and Meteorological Observations Made at the Radcliffe Observatory, Oxford,
Vol. 23, gives the weather on July 4 as rain after two P.M.,
cloud cover 10/10, and maximum shade temperature of 67.9 degrees Fahrenheit. These records support the view that Carroll and Alice confused their memories of the occasion with similar boating trips made on sunnier days.
The question remains controversial, however. For a well-argued defense of the conjecture that the day may have been dry and sunny after all, see “The Weather on Alice in Wonderland Day, 4 July 1862,” by H. B. Doherty, of the Dublin Airport, in Weather,
Vol. 23 (February 1968), pages 75–78. The article was called to my attention by reader William Mixon.