Part love story, part literary mystery, Melanie Benjamin’s spellbinding historical novel leads readers on an unforgettable journey down the rabbit hole, to tell the story of a woman whose own life became the stuff of legend. Her name is Alice Liddell Hargreaves, but to the world she’ll always be known simply as “Alice,” the girl who followed the White Rabbit into a wonderland of Mad Hatters, Queens of Hearts, and Cheshire Cats. Now, nearing her eighty-first birthday, she looks back on a life of intense passion, great privilege, and greater tragedy. First as a young woman, then as a wife, mother, and widow, she’ll experience adventures the likes of which not even her fictional counterpart could have imagined. Yet from glittering balls and royal romances to a world plunged into war, she’ll always be the same determined, undaunted Alice who, at ten years old, urged a shy, stuttering Oxford professor to write down one of his fanciful stories, thus changing her life forever. “This is magic!” —Diana Gabaldon “Excellent . . . a finely wrought portrait of Alice that seamlessly blends fact with fiction. This is book club gold.”— Publishers Weekly (starred review) “A seamless tale of love, loss, and myth . . . storytelling at its finest.”—Sarah Addison Allen, author of The Girl Who Chased the Moon   “A smashing tale—mostly true—of the overlap of childhood and womanhood, a compelling mystery, an exposé of Victorian mores, an exploration of love that came too soon and too late, an explosive trail of emotions and human foibles, a heartbreak—written with compassion and grace: I loved it!” —Susan Vreeland, author of Clara and Mr. Tiffany   “The novel doesn’t just fill in the blanks of a literary life, but tells the story of someone who was more than a muse; Alice may have been immortalized as a girl but, as Benjamin imagines, she grew up to be a great woman.”— New York Post Melanie Benjamin is the New York Times bestselling author of The Children’s Blizzard , Mistress of the Ritz, The Girls in the Picture, The Swans of Fifth Avenue, The Aviator's Wife, The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb, and Alice I Have Been . Benjamin lives in Chicago, Illinois, where she is at work on her next historical novel. Chapter Twelve You look lovely—that rose tulle over the tarlatan is perfection! Oh, I do wish I was going!” Covering her face with her handkerchief, Edith coughed fitfully and then fell back against her pillows, her hair a tangled mess of curls. Her face was nearly as red as her hair.  “Yes, you’d be a perfect vision, with all that coughing! I know it’s unfair, and Aubrey will be vexed, but you know what Dr. Acland said. You’re to stay in bed for a week, at least.”  “It’s so unlucky! And for once I thought I’d be the belle of the ball instead of you! Papa was going to announce the engagement tonight.” Edith smiled weakly, and turned her head to sigh over the beautiful blue taffeta gown hanging in the cupboard.  “I’m never the belle of the ball when you’re present, so I relish the chance tonight. May I borrow your diamond star clip for my hair?”  “Yes, of course—it’ll look wonderful with your diamond earrings!”  I smiled my thanks and rummaged around in her jewel case until I found the clip; dancing over to the looking glass above the mantel, I pinned it in my hair, just above my left ear. “Is this right, do you think?” I turned.  “It’s perfect. Oh dear!” And Edith was off on another coughing fit again.  “Poor darling! I’ll ring for the nurse—Dr. Acland said we weren’t to get too close, in case it’s measles. I do wish I could give you a kiss, though, before I fly. I’m rather excited for tonight—silly, but I am! How many Commemoration Balls have I attended? ”  “None like tonight,” Edith managed to choke out, between coughs. Finally they subsided, and she fell back against her pillows once more. “Do you think the Prince will propose, then?”  “I really don’t know, but perhaps he—might.” I was too superstitious to say more, even if I could not stop myself from smiling in anticipation. We had made so many plans in these last few days, as his time at Oxford drew to an end; some were quite unattainable (I doubted, for instance, that the Queen would countenance Leo’s idea of moving to America in order to organize the recently emancipated slaves into helping the British recapture the colonies), but others more down to earth. I knew he had also spoken to Papa. Yet there remained the matter of obtaining the Queen’s permission, and I had not been able to ask if he had written her.  Still, I sensed it, my future; it was close, so close I could wrap my arms around it; wrap my arms around him . Perhaps, tonight, he would simply waltz me out of Oxford, right under everyone’s noses.  Giggling, I began to waltz around Edith’s room, holding my skirts up, showing off my new silk dancing slippers. Edith giggled, too—as best she could—but when she began to cough again, I stopped.  “Oh, I’m making you much worse! I’l