Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Alice In Oz - 'Please, Ma'am, Is This New Zealand? Or Australia?': The Lewis Carroll Alice In Wonderland Books In Australia, Michael K. Organ

Michael Organ

There is no obvious connection between Australia and the very English Alice in Wonderland stories written by the Reverend Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) in the latter half of the nineteenth century, apart from a few brief words uttered by Alice at the beginning of her adventures - 'Please, Ma'am, is this New Zealand? Or Australia?' - suggesting that, upon falling down a rabbit hole, she had been transported to the Antipodes ('Antipathies'), just as Lemuel Gulliver had found himself lost in Lilliput a century earlier. Yet the ongoing popularity and influence of these works in the former British colony is …