Technology

FACT CHECK: Did Lewis Carroll Write, ‘Everyone Wants A Magical Solution To Their Problems, And Everyone Refuses To Believe In Magic’?

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An image shared on Facebook claims that author Lewis Carroll once wrote, “You know what the issue is with this world? Everyone wants a magical solution to their problems, and everyone refuses to believe in magic.”

Verdict: False

The quote does not appear in any of Carroll’s works, nor in any film adaptations of his novel “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.” It is actually a line from ABC’s television show “Once Upon a Time.”

Fact Check:

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, wrote numerous literary works in the 19th century, including the children’s classic “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” and its sequel “Through the Looking-Glass.”

However, nowhere in these works, or any of his other writings, could the quote attributed to him in the Facebook post be found. The post alleges that it comes from “Alice In Wonderland,” but a keyword search of the 1951 and 2010 film adaptations with that name turned up no matches, and neither did the sequel to the 2010 movie.

“Definitely not by Lewis Carroll,” said Edward Wakeling, a former chairman of the Lewis Carroll Society, in an email to the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The DCNF found an exact match for the quote in an episode of the ABC television series “Once Upon A Time” through an internet search. The show, which aired from 2011 to 2018, pulled characters and plot elements from popular fairy tales, including some of Carroll’s works.

Jefferson, a character based on the Hatter in Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” says the following lines in episode 17 of season one: “You know what the issue is with this world? Everyone wants some magical solution to their problem, and everyone refuses to believe in magic.”

It’s possible this allusion to Carroll’s work may have led some to believe the line about magic in the episode was from Carroll.