Queen reveals the classic children’s story that left her terrified
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The Queen has admitted that she was never a fan of the author Lewis Carroll because Alice in Wonderland frightened her as a child.
When the 76-year-old was asked on her Reading Room podcast to choose between Lewis Carroll and Hans Christian Andersen, there was no hesitation.
“Hans Christian Andersen,” she said. “I have to admit I’ve never really liked Lewis Carroll. I was rather put off by Alice going down that rabbit hole. It always really frightened me as a child. All the Mad Hatters and Red Queens and… it just wasn’t my favourite.”
The Queen does not appear to have let her own views on Carroll shape those of others. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is one of many books featured on her Reading Room website, recommended by authors William Boyd, Elif Shafak and Susan Hill.
The actor Richard E Grant read Carroll’s All in the Golden Afternoon, the preface poem to Alice in Wonderland, at the inaugural Queen’s Reading Room Literary Festival at Hampton Court Palace in June.
At a poetry recital attended by the Queen at a primary school in west London last August, two students performed Carroll’s Jabberwocky, dressed as the Mad Hatter and Alice.
The Queen’s views may well have prompted a debate with the Princess of Wales. In her final year reading history of art at university, the Princess wrote her dissertation about Carroll’s photographs of children.
The then Catherine Middleton wrote to the Lewis Carroll Society in November 2004, asking whether it could recommend anyone who might help her.
At her 40th birthday portrait shoot in January 2022, the Princess discussed her passion for photography with Paolo Roversi, the Italian photographer.
She told him she was particularly inspired by Julia Margaret Cameron, the pioneering female photographer of the 19th century, and Carroll.
In 2018, it was claimed that the Duke of Sussex had considered buying a £24,000 first edition of Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass, as a christening present for his nephew, Prince Louis.
He eventually plumped for a 1926 first edition of A A Milne’s Winnie the Pooh, for £8,000.
