Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is a novel by Lewis Carroll published in 1865. Following a hurried White Rabbit, young Alice falls down a rabbit hole into a world of nonsense, where she meets the Mad Hatter, the Cheshire Cat and the Queen of Hearts. It is one of the most famous children's books ever written.
A world of nonsense
Alice grows and shrinks depending on what she eats or drinks, swims in a pool of her own tears and attends an endless tea party.
She ends up at the trial of the Knave of Hearts, where the Queen demands heads, before she wakes up and finds that it was all a dream.
Games with words
The book is full of puns, parodies of poems Victorian children learned by heart, and logic pushed to absurdity.
Lewis Carroll, whose real name was Charles Dodgson, was a lecturer in mathematics at Christ Church, Oxford.
Tenniel's drawings
The illustrations by John Tenniel, a cartoonist for Punch, fixed the image of the characters for generations.
Carroll wrote a sequel, Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, published at the end of 1871.
Anecdotes
A golden afternoon
On 4 July 1862, during a boat trip on the Thames, Dodgson made up the story to entertain the three Liddell sisters, including ten-year-old Alice.
The withdrawn first printing
The first printing of 1865 was withdrawn because Tenniel was unhappy with the quality of the printing of his pictures. The book was reprinted with the date 1866.
Frequently asked questions
Who wrote the book?
Lewis Carroll, pen name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson.
When was it published?
In 1865.
Who was the real Alice?
Alice Liddell, daughter of the dean of Christ Church, Oxford.