Mad
Hatter and His Tea Party
The character of the Mad Hatter
was invented by Lewis Carroll in 1864 for his classic book
of “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”.
The Hatter is a hat maker who is quite mad because he is being
slowly poisoned by mercury fumes given off during the hat
making process.
His friends, the March Hare
and the Dormouse continue having tea with
the Mad Hatter constantly, because they are stuck in Time
precisely at 6.00 PM. Every now and then they swap places
at the long table to get new cups and saucers since they don’t
have time to wash up. Another curious thing about this everlasting
tea party is that they put butter in their
tea. The Hatter even dips his pocket watch into the tea cup!
Sir John Tenniel, a famous
artist of the time, drew the pictures for Lewis Carroll’s
books, ‘Alice in Wonderland’
and ‘Through the Looking Glass and What Alice
Found There’. Above and below are character
drawings of the Mad Hatter at the tea party.
Mad
Hatter Costume
 Mad
Hatter is a quirky character who dresses in a suit,
a bow tie and a large top hat with a card saying "In
this style 10/6" on it. This marking means the price
of the hat, 10 shillings and 6 pence in old British money.
There have been many versions of him in countless productions,
plays and musicals over the years. But still he is one of
the favorite characters of Wonderland.
The Mad Hatter costume is
perfect for a costume party or Halloween. It can be worn by
young and old, even girls find a way to make Mad Hatter
costumes a perfect fit. If you’re looking for
a Mad Hatters costume, you can find great ones in our shop.
Mad Hatter's Riddle
Alice
visits the Mad Hatter tea party and gets
into great arguments with the Hatter. This is the setting
for many of the quotes on this page. Mad Hatter’s riddle
is one of the quirkiest quotations in Carroll’s books:
“Why
Is a Raven Like a Writing Desk?”
Even Lewis Carroll himself
did not have an answer to it! Though later, after countless
requests from readers, he tried to come up with an answer
to it. In the preface to the 1896 edition of the book, Carroll
wrote:
Enquiries have
been so often addressed to me, as to whether any answer
to the Hatter’s Riddle can be imagined, that I may
as well put on record here what seems to me to be a fairly
appropriate answer: "Because it can produce a few notes,
though they are very flat; and it is never put with the
wrong end in front!"
This, however, is merely an afterthought;
the riddle as originally invented, had no answer at all.’
 The
Hollywood actor, Johnny Depp has made this
Raven-quotation ever more famous as the Mad Hatter in the
Disney’s Alice in Wonderland movie 2010.
He asked the riddle as many as three times in the movie.
|
