Celebrate 160 years of Alice in Wonderland with new collection in Oxford

Celebrate the 160^th anniversary of Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland by visiting Christ Church College in Oxford where an exceptional collection of Lewis Carroll’s writings and photographs are on display until 17^th April.

The collection features thousands of letters, photographs, illustrations and books from one of the world’s largest private collections of Lewis Carroll’s works. They have been donated to the University of Oxford’s Christ Church College, where Carroll lectured and met the inspiration for Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Alice Liddell, by an American philanthropist.

The collection includes more than 200 autograph letters, some of which are unpublished, early editions of the Alice books and other writings and even an edition dedicated to Alice’s mother by Lewis Carroll. As well as being known for his writings, Carroll is also considered to be one of the best amateur photographers of his day and the collection’s photographs include more than 100 snaps of his friends and noted figures of the time, including Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

The collection has been donated by Jon A Lidseth, an American philanthropist, who emailed the college out of the blue offering them the collection. Speaking to reporters about the donation, a librarian at the college said: “It was a bit of a surprise. It’s an enormous collection, he’s incredibly generous, it would be impossible to make a collection like this nowadays without having an enormous amount of money.

“Such material doesn’t come on the market these days and not all at once. When we’ve tried to buy Carroll photographs, we’ve never had enough money.”

Some of the most exceptional items in the collection will be on display in Christ Church’s historic upper library until 17^th April.