2005 37c The Art of Disney: The Mad Hatter and Alice

 

Issue Date: June 30, 2005
City: Anaheim, CA
Printed By: Banknote Corporation of America for Sennett Security Products
Printing Method: Lithographed
Perforations: Serpentine Die Cut 10.5 x 10.75
Quantity: 215,000,000
Color: Multicolored

 

Lewis Carroll was the pen name of British preacher and mathematics professor Charles L. Dodgson (1832-98) of Oxford College, England. Growing up, Dodgson had commonly entertained his ten brothers and sisters.

 

During a boating party on the Thames River in 1862, one of the guests, ten-year-old Alice Liddell, grew restless and begged Dodgson for a story “with lots of nonsense in it.”

 

Later, Alice asked Dodgson to write the story down for her, and in 1865, he published it under the title, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

In the story, Alice is treated to a Mad Tea Party at the March Hare’s house. This proves to be a strange sort of celebration, however.

Alice finds the Dormouse sitting between the March Hare and the Mad Hatter at a large table, fast asleep. It seems that ever since Time stopped working for the Mad Hatter, it has always been six o’clock, teatime. Alice’s confusing conversation with the trio reflects Carroll’s talent for word games and logic puzzles.

 

Walt Disney adapted Alice in the late 1940s. (The British copyright on Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland had expired in 1907.) Disney’s animated feature film was released in 1951.