A collection of photographs, books and papers belonging to the real Alice of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland could fetch £2 million sterling (€3.3 million) at auction next month. Alice Pleasance (nee Liddell) Hargreaves (1852-1934) was Carroll's inspiration for Alice in Wonderland. Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, 1832-98) was on the staff at Christchurch College, Oxford, while Alice was the daughter of its dean. He first told his story about Alice during a river expedition with the three Liddell sisters on the "golden afternoon" of July 4th, 1862. Alice Liddell became the author's favourite photographic model. The archive goes under the hammer at Sotheby's on June 6th in London. Ms Juliet Hacking, a specialist in the applied arts department at Sotheby's, told The Irish Times: "There's a fantastic amount of interest in Lewis Carroll. There's a fantastic amount of interest in Alice in Wonderland and the original Alice. And what we've got here are items tied to Carroll and to the real Alice. If you're interested in Carroll, if you're interested in Alice, it doesn't really get better than that."

Lot 32 is generating the most interest of all. "It's a photographic scrapbook that belonged to Alice Liddell herself. It contains a number of photographs by Carroll. It's thought to be the last album of Carroll photographs in private hands. They don't often come to the market. It's got a series of some of the iconic images that he took as a photographer. "It's also got one which is not known - it's not to say there won't be others somewhere in the world, but it's certainly not known at the moment of any other copies - which is a little picture of her dressed up in rags, begging."

At this juncture in the telephone interview, this reporter felt obliged to ask Ms Hacking if she could hear his little four-year-old daughter screaming as if at the walls of Jericho. "Our own little Alice," I explained. Yes, she'd heard her. "Serendipitous," said Ms Hacking, suggesting that four-year-old Alice Liddell was precocious too. "One of the great things about this album is that photographic scholars agree that they are the earliest known photographs of her by Carroll. She looks quite different because, at four, she's still got puppy fat on her face. We think she's four. They could even be the first photographs taken at the time he first took up photography, which was 1856. Certainly most pictures that people know of Alice by Carroll are taken when she's about eight or nine. These are her really, really young." The album is estimated at £500,000 to £800,000 sterling. Another highlight is Alice's personal hand-coloured presentation print of Carroll's study of her - Alice Liddell as the Beggar Maid - from circa 1858. One of nine recorded prints of this image, it is estimated at £100,000 to £150,000.

Among the books is the dedication copy of Alice's Adventure's Under Ground, bound by Carroll for Alice in white vellum and inscribed by him "to her whose namesake one happy summer day inspired his story". As Alice's own copy, it carries an estimate of £200,000 to £300,000. The auction contains more than 370 editions of works by Carroll, many of which are signed by Alice Liddell. Autographed letters by Carroll include a letter to Alice written in 1891, addressed to "Mrs Hargreaves". Inviting Alice and her husband to tea, he writes: "It is hard to realise that he was the husband of one I can scarcely picture to myself, even now, as more than seven years old." This letter is estimated at £80,000-£120,000.

jmarms@irish-times.ie