The Fabulous Journeys of Alice and Pinocchio ― Exploring Their Parallel Worlds

Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking-Glass (1871) and Carlo Collodi’s Le Avventure di Pinocchio (1883) are among the most influential classics of children’s literature. Firmly rooted in their respective British and Italian national cultures, the Alice and Pinocchio stories connected to a worldwide audience almost like folktales and fairy tales and became fixtures of postmodernism. Although they come from radically different political and social backgrounds, the texts share surprising similarities. This comparative reading explores their imagery and history, and through literary criticism and author biographies, and discusses them in the broader context of British and Italian children’s stories.

Laura Tosi is an associate professor of English literature at the University Ca’ Foscari in Venice, Italy. Her research spans the areas of Elizabethan drama, and children’s literature. In the field of children's literature, she has published extensively on literary fairy tales and adaptation, and has co-edited the first history of English-language children’s literature written in Italian. Peter Hunt is professor emeritus in English and children’s literature at Cardiff University, UK. He has lectured on Children’s Literature at over 150 universities, colleges and to learned societies in 23 countries, and has written or edited 30 books and over 500 papers and reviews on the subject.