The Real Alice in Wonderland Circa 1862, and Our Favorite Culture Links on the Web

Over at The Retro­naut they’re fea­tur­ing a gallery of images of Alice Lid­dell cir­ca 1862. Who is that you may ask? Well, it’s only the young girl who inspired Lewis Car­rol­l’s clas­sic sto­ry Alice’s Adven­tures in Won­der­land (a text that you can down­load from our col­lec­tions of Free eBooks and Free Audio Books). If the men­tion of the great children’s tale warms your heart, we’d encour­age you to re-vis­it Maria Popo­va’s guest-authored post, Alice in Open­land, which has all kinds of great relat­ed mate­r­i­al — read­ings of Alice by Cory Doc­torow, film adap­ta­tions of the sto­ry from 1903 and 1915, and much more.

And now let’s give you some of our favorite cul­ture links on the web, all recent­ly fea­tured on our Twit­ter stream. Fol­low us on Twit­ter or Face­book.

Jer­ry Sein­feld Sends a Let­ter to the New York Times

Junot Diaz, Natalia Alma­da and 21 oth­ers named MacArthur Fel­lows for 2012

Sched­ule of Stan­ford’s Upcom­ing Mas­sive Open Online Cours­es

David Fos­ter Wal­lace’s The Pale King Archive Now Open

Damien Echols Recounts His Time on Death Row & His Jour­ney to the Oth­er Side. Audio.

24/7 Look at What’s Hap­pen­ing at the Famous Abbey Road Street Cross­ing

This is Your Brain on Jane Austen

The Poet­ry of the Piano. A Mas­ter Class with David Owen Nor­ris

The Best Books on the Bea­t­les, Accord­ing to The Guardian

Min­i­mal­ist Posters Cel­e­brat­ing Six Pio­neer­ing Women in Sci­ence

Pussy Riot’s Lawyers Lec­ture at NYU Law School

Salman Rushdie Writes in the New York­er on Liv­ing Under a Fat­wa

Bill Mur­ray Por­trait Made from Arti­cles about Bill Mur­ray 

Schol­ars “Exca­vate” the Lost Sounds of the Hagia Sophia

Andy Warhol Surf Flick to Debut 44 Years After Film­ing Start­ed

New Edi­tion of A Farewell to Arms Includes 39 Dif­fer­ent End­ings Writ­ten by Hem­ing­way

A Vio­lin Once Owned by Goebbels Keeps Its Secrets (and the Naz­i’s Loot­ing of Pre­cious Instru­ments

The Film­ing Loca­tions of Annie Hall Reveal How New York City Has Changed

A Young Bertrand Rus­sell Guards His Time. No Won­der the Mar­riage Did­n’t Last

“Pol­i­tics in Music” (Emory) added to our list of Free Cours­es Online

Stephen Col­bert’s High School Year­book Page

Between the Rain­drops: The Irish Coun­try­side in Time­lapse

Sky­div­ing Into Burn­ing Man