Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is a work of children's literature by the British mathematician and author Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll. It tells the story of a girl named Alice who falls down a rabbit-hole into a fantasy realm populated by talking creatures and anthropomorphic playing cards.

Characters in order of appearance

• Alice
• Alice's Sister
• The White Rabbit
• Alice's Cat, Dinah
• The Mouse
• The Duck
• The Dodo
• The Lory
• The Eaglet
• Bill the Lizard
• The Caterpillar
• The Fish-Footman
• The Frog-Footman
• The Duchess
• The Baby
• The Cook
• The Cheshire Cat
• The March Hare
• The Hatter
• The Dormouse
• Two, Five & Seven (cards)
• The King of Hearts
• The Queen of Hearts
• The Knave of Hearts
• The Gryphon
• The Mock Turtle
• The Jurymen

Character allusions

The members of the boating party that first heard Carroll's tale all show up in Chapter 3 ("A Caucus-Race and a Long Tale") in one form or another. There is, of course, Alice herself, while Carroll, or Charles Dodgson, is caricatured as the Dodo. The Duck refers to Rev. Robinson Duckworth, the Lory to Lorina Liddell, and the Eaglet to Edith Liddell.

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Bill the Lizard may be a play on the name of Benjamin Disraeli.

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The Hatter is most likely a reference to Theophilus Carter, a furniture dealer known in Oxford for his unorthodox inventions. Tenniel apparently drew the Hatter to resemble Carter, on a suggestion of Carroll's.

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The Dormouse tells a story about three little sisters named Elsie, Lacie, and Tillie. These are the Liddell (sounds like "little") sisters: Elsie is L.C. (Lorina Charlotte), Tillie is Edith (her family nickname is Matilda), and Lacie is an anagram of Alice.

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The Mock Turtle speaks of a Drawling-master, "an old conger eel," that used to come 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 drawing, sketching, and painting in oils. (The children did, in fact, learn well; Alice Liddell, for one, produced a number of skilled watercolours.)

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