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Title details for Alice I Have Been by Melanie Benjamin - Available

Alice I Have Been

A Novel

by Melanie Benjamin
Samantha Eggar
Audiobook
2 of 2 copies available
Borrow Listen to a sample Listen to a sample
2 of 2 copies available
Few works of literature are as universally beloved as Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Now, in this spellbinding historical novel, we meet the young girl whose bright spirit sent her on an unforgettable trip down the rabbit hole–and the grown woman whose story is no less enthralling.

But oh my dear, I am tired of being Alice in Wonderland. Does it sound ungrateful?
Alice Liddell Hargreaves’s life has been a richly woven tapestry: As a young woman, wife, mother, and widow, she’s experienced intense passion, great privilege, and greater tragedy. But as she nears her eighty-first birthday, she knows that, to the world around her, she is and will always be only “Alice.” Her life was permanently dog-eared at one fateful moment in her tenth year–the golden summer day she urged a grown-up friend to write down one of his fanciful stories.
That story, a wild tale of rabbits, queens, and a precocious young child, becomes a sensation the world over. Its author, a shy, stuttering Oxford professor, does more than immortalize Alice–he changes her life forever. But even he cannot stop time, as much as he might like to. And as Alice’s childhood slips away, a peacetime of glittering balls and royal romances gives way to the urgent tide of war. 
For Alice, the stakes could not be higher, for she is the mother of three grown sons, soldiers all. Yet even as she stands to lose everything she treasures, one part of her will always be the determined, undaunted Alice of the story, who discovered that life beyond the rabbit hole was an astonishing journey.
A love story and a literary mystery, Alice I Have Been brilliantly blends fact and fiction to capture the passionate spirit of a woman who was truly worthy of her fictional alter ego, in a world as captivating as the Wonderland only she could inspire.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    January 12, 2010

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9780307713476
      • File size: 352096 KB
      • Duration: 12:13:31

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      The real little girl who inspired the children's classics about Alice in Wonderland was as provocative and almost as mysterious as the character in the books. In this well-researched novel, Melanie Benjamin uses the freedom of fiction to explore the complicated relationship between Alice Liddell Hargreaves and the man who created her alter ego, Oxford professor Charles Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll). Samantha Eggar provides a sympathetic, enlightening narration throughout. Her wonderfully warm, crisp British voice sounds right, and she varies pace and tone beautifully to sustain our interest throughout the book's captivating, if occasionally overwrought, narrative. Eggar also changes her pitch just enough to let us know when Alice the child versus Alice the adult is speaking--important in this circuitous tale. An altogether beautiful read of an intriguing novel. A.C.S. (c) AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from October 12, 2009
      Benjamin draws on one of the most enduring relationships in children’s literature in her excellent debut, spinning out the heartbreaking story of Alice from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
      . Her research into the lives of Charles Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll) and the family of Alice Liddell is apparent as she takes circumstances shrouded in mystery and colors in the spaces to reveal a vibrant and passionate Alice. Born into a Victorian family of privilege, free-spirited Alice catches the attention of family friend Dodgson and serves as the muse for both his photography and writing. Their bond, however, is misunderstood by Alice’s family, and though she is forced to sever their friendship, she is forever haunted by their connection as her life becomes something of a chain of heartbreaks. As an adult, Alice tries to escape her past, but it is only when she finally embraces it that she truly finds the happiness that eluded her. Focusing on three eras in Alice’s life, Benjamin offers a finely wrought portrait of Alice that seamlessly blends fact with fiction. This is book club gold.

    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from February 22, 2010
      Samantha Eggar is a consummate actor, and the character of Alice Liddell Hargreaves, from girlhood into old age, is a great vehicle for her talents. The three young Liddell sisters who dominate the first half of the book are easily distinguished and thoroughly believable. So are their parents and the shy, stuttering Oxford professor Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll), who entertains the girls with long, highly imaginative stories. Romance, mystery, and tragedy soon erupt in the life of the “real” Alice; fans of the classic and of smart, atmospheric contemporary fiction will find much to relish. A Delacorte hardcover (Reviews, Oct. 12).

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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