Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (also known as Alice in Wonderland) is an 1865 English children's novel by Lewis Carroll. It tells the story of a little girl named Alice who falls through a rabbit hole into a fantasy world of anthropomorphic creatures. It is seen as an example of the literary nonsense genre. The artist John Tenniel provided 42 wood-engraved illustrations for the original edition.
The novel received positive reviews upon release. It has become one of the best-known works of Victorian literature; its narrative, structure, characters, and imagery have had a wide influence on popular culture and literature, especially in the fantasy genre. It is credited as helping end an era of didacticism in children's literature, inaugurating an era in which writing for children aimed to "delight or entertain". The tale plays with logic, giving the story lasting popularity with adults as well as with children. The titular character, Alice, shares her name with Alice Liddell, a girl Carroll knew; scholars disagree about the extent to which the character was based upon her.
The novel has never been out of print and has been translated into 174 languages. Its legacy includes adaptations to screen, radio, visual art, ballet, opera, and musical theatre as well as theme parks, board games, and video games. Carroll published a sequel in 1871 entitled Through the Looking-Glass and a shortened version for young children, The Nursery "Alice", in 1890.
Background "All in the golden afternoon..."
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was conceived on 4 July 1862, when Lewis Carroll and the Reverend Robinson Duckworth rowed up the river Isis with the three young daughters of Carroll's friend Henry Liddell: Lorina Charlotte (aged 13; "Prima" in the book's prefatory verse); Alice Pleasance (aged 10; "Secunda" in the verse); and Edith Mary (aged 8; "Tertia" in the verse).
The journey began at Folly Bridge, Oxford, and ended upstream at Godstow, Oxfordshire. During the trip, Carroll told the girls a story that he described in his diary as "Alice's Adventures Under Ground", which his journal says he "undertook to write out for Alice". Alice Liddell recalled that she asked Carroll to write it down: unlike other stories he had told her, this one she wanted to preserve. She finally received the manuscript more than two years later.
The day 4 July was known as the "golden afternoon", prefaced in the novel as a poem. In fact, the weather around Oxford on 4 July was "cool and rather wet", although at least one scholar has disputed this claim. Scholars debate whether Carroll in fact came up with Alice during the "golden afternoon" or whether the story was developed over a longer period.
Carroll had known the Liddell children since around March 1856, when he befriended Harry Liddell. He had met Lorina by early March as well. In June 1856, he took the children out on the river. Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, who wrote a literary biography of Carroll, suggests that Carroll favoured Alice Pleasance Liddell in particular because her name was ripe for allusion. "Pleasance" means pleasure and the name "Alice" appeared in contemporary works, including the poem "Alice Gray" by William Mee, of which Carroll wrote a parody; Alice is a character in "Dream-Children: A Reverie", a prose piece by Charles Lamb. Carroll, an amateur photographer by the late 1850s, produced many photographic portraits of the Liddell children – and especially of Alice, of which 20 survive.
Manuscript: Alice's Adventures Under Ground
Carroll began writing the manuscript of the story the next day, although that earliest version is lost. The girls and Carroll took another boat trip a month later, when he elaborated the plot of the story to Alice, and in November, he began working on the manuscript in earnest. To add the finishing touches, he researched natural history in connection with the animals presented in the book and then had the book examined by other children—particularly those of George MacDonald. Though Carroll did add his own illustrations to the original copy, on publication he was advised to find a professional illustrator so that the pictures were more appealing to his audience. He subsequently approached Punch cartoonist John Tenniel to reinterpret his visions through his own artistic eye, telling him that the story had been well-liked by the children.
Carroll began planning a print edition of the Alice story in 1863. He wrote on 9 May 1863 that MacDonald's family had suggested he publish Alice. A diary entry for 2 July says that he received a specimen page of the print edition around that date. On 26 November 1864, Carroll gave Alice the manuscript of Alice's Adventures Under Ground, with illustrations by Carroll, dedicating it as "A Christmas Gift to a Dear Child in Memory of a Summer's Day". The published version of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is about twice the length of Alice's Adventures Under Ground and includes episodes, such as the Mad Hatter's Tea-Party, that do not appear in the manuscript. The only known manuscript copy of Under Ground is held in the British Library. Macmillan published a facsimile in 1886.
Plot
Sitting with her older sister on a bank, and feeling rather sleepy and bored, Alice suddenly spots a White Rabbit with a pocket watch and waistcoat hurrying by, lamenting that he is late. Surprised, Alice follows him down a rabbit hole, which sends her into a lengthy fall. Landing safely, she finds herself inside a room where she discovers a key to a tiny door, beyond which is a garden. While pondering how to fit through the door, she notices a bottle labelled "Drink me". Alice drinks some of the contents and, to her astonishment, shrinks small enough to enter the door. However, she had left the key on a table and is now unable to reach it. She finds and eats a cake labelled "Eat me", which causes her to grow to a tremendous size. Distraught, Alice bursts into tears. As she cries, the White Rabbit rushes past, dropping a fan and gloves. Alice uses the fan to cool herself down, which causes her to shrink once more and leaves her swimming in a pool of her own tears. There she meets various animals and birds, who convene on a bank and engage in a "Caucus Race" to dry themselves. Alice inadvertently frightens the animals away by mentioning her cat.
Mistaking her for his maidservant, the White Rabbit orders Alice to go to his house and retrieve his lost gloves and fan. Alice finds another bottle and drinks from it, causing her to grow to such an extent that she gets stuck in the house. Attempting to extract her, the White Rabbit and his neighbours eventually take to hurling pebbles that turn into small cakes. Alice eats one and shrinks herself, allowing her to flee into the forest. She meets a Caterpillar seated on a mushroom and smoking a hookah. Under the Caterpillar's questioning, Alice begins to admit to her current identity crisis, compounded by her inability to remember a poem. Before crawling away, the Caterpillar says that a bite of one side of the mushroom will make her larger, while a bite from the other side will make her smaller. During a period of trial and error, Alice's neck extends between the treetops, frightening a pigeon who mistakes her for a serpent. After shrinking to an appropriate height, Alice arrives at the home of a Duchess, who owns a perpetually grinning Cheshire Cat. The Duchess's baby, whom she hands to Alice, transforms into a piglet, which Alice releases into the woods. The Cheshire Cat appears to Alice and directs her toward the Hatter and March Hare before disappearing, leaving his grin behind. Alice finds the Hatter, March Hare, and a sleepy Dormouse in the middle of a tea party. The Hatter explains that it is always 6 p.m. (tea time) – the consequence of his having quarrelled with Time. Unable to answer the riddle "Why is a raven like a writing desk?", and considering the company rude, Alice walks off, declaring "It's the stupidest tea-party I ever was at in all my life!"
Noticing a door in a tree, Alice passes through and finds herself back in the room from the beginning of her journey. She takes the key and opens the door to the garden, which turns out to be the croquet court of the Queen of Hearts, whose guard consists of living playing cards. Alice participates in a croquet game, in which hedgehogs are used as balls, flamingos are used as mallets, and soldiers act as hoops. The Queen is short-tempered, constantly ordering beheadings. When the Cheshire Cat's lone head appears, the Queen orders its beheading, an act which appears impossible in the absence of a body from which to sever it. Alice prompts the Queen to release the Duchess, now in prison.
Alice meets a Gryphon and a Mock Turtle, who dance to the Lobster Quadrille while Alice recites (rather incorrectly) a poem. The Mock Turtle sings "Beautiful Soup", during which the Gryphon drags Alice away for a trial, in which the Knave of Hearts stands accused of stealing the Queen's tarts. The trial is conducted by the King of Hearts, and the jury is composed of animals that Alice previously met. Alice gradually grows in size and confidence, allowing herself increasingly frequent remarks on the irrationality of the proceedings. The Queen eventually commands Alice's beheading, but Alice scoffs that her guard is only a pack of playing cards. The cards rise up into the air and come swarming down upon her.
Alice wakes from her dream to find her sister brushing leaves from her face. Alice tells her about her adventures, then runs in for her tea, leaving her sister on the bank to imagine all the curious happenings for herself.
Characters
The main characters in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland are the following:
Character allusions
In The Annotated Alice, Martin Gardner provides background information for the characters. The members of the boating party that first heard Carroll's tale show up in chapter 3 ("A Caucus-Race and a Long Tale"). Alice Liddell is there, while Carroll is caricatured as the Dodo (Lewis Carroll was a pen name for Charles Lutwidge Dodgson; because he stuttered when he spoke, he sometimes pronounced his last name as "Dodo-Dodgson"). The Duck refers to Robinson Duckworth, and the Lory and Eaglet to Alice Liddell's sisters Lorina and Edith.
Bill the Lizard may be a play on the name of British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli. One of Tenniel's illustrations in Through the Looking-Glass—the 1871 sequel to Alice—depicts the character referred to as the "Man in White Paper" (whom Alice meets on a train) as a caricature of Disraeli, wearing a paper hat. The illustrations of the Lion and the Unicorn (also in Looking-Glass) look like Tenniel's Punch illustrations of William Ewart Gladstone and Disraeli, although Gardner says there is "no proof" that they were intended to represent these politicians.
Gardner has suggested that the Hatter is a reference to Theophilus Carter, an Oxford furniture dealer, and that Tenniel apparently drew the Hatter to resemble Carter, on a suggestion of Carroll's. The Dormouse tells a story about three little sisters named Elsie, Lacie, and Tillie. These are the Liddell sisters: Elsie is L.C. (Lorina Charlotte); Tillie is Edith (her family nickname is Matilda); and Lacie is an anagram of Alice.
The Mock Turtle speaks of a drawling-master, "an old conger eel", who came once a week to teach "Drawling, Stretching, and Fainting in Coils". This is a reference to the art critic John Ruskin, who came once a week to the Liddell house to teach the children to draw, sketch, and paint in oils. The Mock Turtle sings "Turtle Soup", a parody of a song called "Star of the Evening, Beautiful Star", which the Liddells sang for Carroll.
Poems and songs Carroll wrote multiple poems and songs for Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, including: