Page:Collingwood - Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll.djvu/131

 "Alice"; there was hardly a dissentient voice among them, and the reception which the public gave the book justified their opinion. So recently as July, 1898, the Pall Mall Gazette conducted an inquiry into the popularity of children's books. "The verdict is so natural that it will surprise no normal person. The winner is 'Alice in Wonderland'; 'Through the Looking-Glass' is in the twenty, but much lower down."

"Alice" has been translated into French, German, Italian, and Dutch, while one poem, "Father William," has even been turned into Arabic. Several plays have been based upon it; lectures have been given, illustrated by magic-lantern slides of Tenniel's pictures, which have also adorned wall-papers and biscuit-boxes. Mr. Dodgson himself designed a very ingenious "Wonderland" stamp-case; there has been an "Alice" birthday-book; at schools, children have been taught to read out of "Alice," while the German edition, shortened and simplified for the purpose, has also been used as a lesson-book. With the exception of Shakespeare's plays, very few, if any, books are so frequently quoted in the daily Press as the two "Alices."

In 1866 Mr. Dodgson was introduced to Miss