"In this wide-ranging, incisive tour of twentieth-century popular culture, Will Brooker explores the ways in which Alice, Lewis Carroll's iconic character, has been used andadapted since her creator's death in 1898. Time casts varying shades on Carroll's own life and character as well: the Victorian era treated him as a saint, but since the 1930s, suspicious critics have questioned his relationshipwith Alice Liddell, and read darker shadows into his innocent fantasies." "Yet while contemporary newspapers whisper about Carroll's supposed paedophilia and computer games present Wonderland as a depraved nightmare, our culture still cherishes the author and his work as symbolsof timeless innocence. Disneyland continues to promote itssafely sanitized Alice, while Britain sells Carroll heritage as a tourist attraction. Journalists sneer that our children would not be safe with Lewis Carroll, and at the same moment celebrate the release of a new Alice in Wonderland for young readers. Is it possible that we, not the Victorians, are the moral hypocrites?"--BOOK JACKET