ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that during the 1880s and 1890s Lewis Carroll began to react against the critical view by reshaping his Alice in an attempt to offer a more obvious moral centre, in particular through the 1890 Nursery 'Alice' and his involvement in the production of Henry Savile Clarke's 1886 stage adaptation. These reworkings paradoxically make childhood a centre of moral innocence and encourage adults to celebrate this special, and lamentably short, state. The chapter traces how and why a moral Alice materializes in this period, and reflects on the ways in which Carroll began to use his books for teaching lessons about correct behaviour, for both adults and children, in ways the earlier texts seem to avoid. It considers Carroll's involvement in the production of a range of Alice products and tease out some of the author's somewhat paradoxical problems of desiring to expand the reach of Alice while also being sceptical about consumerism.
