First, Neverland: J. M. Barrie, The Du Mauriers, and the Dark Side of Peter Pan by Piers Dudgeon and now...
Alice I Have Been by Melanie Benjamin due out January 12, 2010.
"The story about the inspiration for Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass concentrates on Alice Liddell: we savor the richly imagined life of a privileged child, a young woman smitten with a prince, a society wife and mother, an elderly widow, and of course "Alice," the perennial Child...As this marvelous novel opens, in 1932, Alice Liddell Hargreaves is starting a letter to her son:
"But oh my dear, I am tired of being Alice in Wonderland. Does it sounds (sound?) ungrateful? It is. Only I do get tired.
"Only I do get tired.
"I pause, place the pen down next to the page and massage my aching hand; the joints of my fingers, in particular, are stiff and cold and ugly like knots on a tree. One does get tired of so many things, of course, when one is eighty; not the least of which is answering endless letters.
"However, I cannot say that, not to my own son."
(From Shelf Awareness Maximum Shelf Oct 26, 2009)
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