Readings the Child Author in The Adventures of Alice Laselles by Alexandrina Victoria (aged 10 ¾)

Abstract

In 2015, the British Royal Collection republished one of Queen Victoria’s childhood stories: Alice (c.1835) and renamed it as The Adventures of Alice Laselles (2015). Along with its new title, the text was given a new ending, new illustrations, and a number of in-text edits including the alteration of the lead character’s surname. These edits were crowned, no pun intended, by the cover matter which proclaimed the story as being written by both “Alexandrina Victoria aged 10 ¾” and “Queen Victoria”. In this article, I discuss the impact of these interventions upon both Alice and The Adventures of Alice Laselles, and show how they have come to construct, reconstruct, and reduce the body of the child author. I suggest that The Adventures of Alice Laselles, rather than telling the story of Alice herself, instead documents the impact of adult bodily interventions upon a child-authored text.

Keywords:

• Victorian childhood,
• child author,
• publishing,
• children's literature,
• modern,
• republishing