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John Tenniel illustrated the first editions of the Alice books. This image features Alice peering at the Drink Me bottle.

Alice is a fictional character in the books Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass, which were written by Charles Dodgson under the pen name Lewis Carroll.

The character has been said to be based on Alice Liddell, a child friend of Dodgson's. However Dodgson himself said several times that his 'little heroine' was not based on any real child, but was entirely fictional.^[1] 'Alice' is portrayed as a quaintly logical girl, sometimes even pedantic, especially with Humpty Dumpty in the second book. According to Through the Looking-glass, she is seven-and-a-half years old but seems to conduct herself like a somewhat older child. Alice in Wonderland takes place on May 4th, Alice Liddell's birthday. Through the Looking Glass takes place on November 4th, her half-birthday (and Alice states that she is "seven-and-a-half - exactly.")

Alice is popularly depicted wearing a pale blue knee-length dress with a white pinafore overtop, although the dress originally was yellow in The Nursery "Alice", the first coloured version of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Her blonde hair is held back with a wide black ribbon, and in honour of Alice, such hairbows are sometimes called "Alice bands", particularly in the UK.

As Alice was first drawn in black & white her colors would vary from artist to artist; it was Disney who made blue the most popular color for her dress and blonde for her hair. However, Alice has been colored by Tenniel in a blue dress, with white stripes at the bottom. Her pinafore is outlined in red.

Tenniel drew Alice in two variants: for "Through the Looking-glass" she was shown in striped stockings, an image which has remained in much of the later art.

Besides the books, Alice has appeared in many other works, perhaps the most famous one being the Disney film version. There have been many other films, spin-off novels, comic book adaptations, and other forms of the story. Alice is also featured in the Playstation 2 game Kingdom Hearts, in the Wonderland level. In the game, Alice has been found guilty by the Queen of Hearts, and is put on trial. It is later found out that she is one of the seven 'Princesses of Hearts'.

This version of Alice appears as a guest in House of Mouse.

Box of American McGee's Alice

In the 2000 PC game, American McGee's Alice, Alice is portrayed as an older, dark-brown haired girl with emerald green eyes. In the game, Alice is a tortured young woman, who at a young age was orphaned when her parents were burned alive in an accidental fire caused by her cat Dinah. Afterwards, she falls into a catatonic state, and condemned to Rutledge's Asylum for treatment. There she remains for many years, faced with her own survivor's guilt, and the mistreatment of patients in the mental hospitals of the time. Then, the Cheshire Cat arrives in her cell, and tells her she must return to Wonderland as their savior. By doing so, she not only saves Wonderland, but her own sanity. American McGee's Alice has Susie Brann voicing the titular character.

The Czech surrealist Jan Švankmajer retold the story in a very dark 1988 film titled simply Alice. Woody Allen also called a film Alice, and while it was not a direct adaptation it did follow a woman who has a series of surreal adventures. Alice also appears as a college-attending teenager alongside Wendy Darling, Dorothy Gale and C.S. Lewis' Susan Pevensie (The Chronicles of Narnia) in Chicago of 2005 and 2006, in the comic book series, The Oz/Wonderland Chronicles.

Alice is voiced by Kathryn Beaumont in all English Disney productions but the Disney Channel original show, Adventures in Wonderland, where she was played by Elisabeth Harnois. In the Tokyo Disneyland DreamLights version of the Main Street Electrical Parade, Alice is voiced by Kat Cressida. Kristýna Kohoutová portrayed her in Svankmajer's Alice (her English dub was done by Camilla Power). In the Japanese version of Kingdom Hearts, she was voiced by Mika Doi.

Recently Alice has been portrayed by Beyonce Knowles for Disney's theme park campaign.

• Character description of Alice

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, available at Project Gutenberg.

1. ^ Cohen, Morton N. (ed), The Letters of Lewis Carroll, London: Macmillan, 1979.