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.

History

Alice was first published on July 4, 1865, exactly three years after Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson and Reverend Robinson Duckworth rowed in a boat up the River Thames with three little girls:

Related Topics:
July 4 - 1865 - Robinson Duckworth - River Thames

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• Lorina Charlotte Liddell (aged 13) ("Prima" in the book's prefatory verse)
• Alice Pleasance Liddell (aged 10) ("Secunda" in the prefatory verse)
• Edith Mary Liddell (aged 8) ("Tertia" in the prefatory verse)

The journey had started at Follie Bridge near Oxford, England and ended five miles away in a village of Godstow. To while away time the Reverend Dodgson told the girls a story that, not so coincidentally, featured a bored little girl named Alice who goes looking for an adventure.

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The girls loved it, and Alice Liddell asked Dodgson to write it down for her. He eventually did so and in February 1863 gave Alice the first manuscript of Alice's Adventures Under Ground. This original script was probably destroyed later by Dodgson himself when he printed a more elaborate copy by hand, illustrated it, and presented it to Alice as a Christmas present on 26 November 1864 (Gardner, 1965).

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He also gave a copy of Alice's Adventures Under Ground to his friend and mentor George MacDonald, whose children loved it. On MacDonald's advice, Dodgson decided to submit Alice for publication. He expanded the 18,000-word manuscript to 35,000 words, most notably adding the episodes about the Cheshire Cat and the Mad Tea-Party. In 1865, Dodgson's tale was published as Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by "Lewis Carroll" with illustrations by John Tenniel. The first print run of 2,000 was shelved because Tenniell had objections over the print quality; a new edition, released in December of the same year but carrying an 1866 date, was quickly printed.

Related Topics:
George MacDonald - John Tenniel

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The entire print run sold out quickly. Alice was a publishing sensation, beloved by children and adults alike, and it has never been out of print since. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland has been translated into over 50 languages, including Esperanto. There have now been over a hundred editions of the book, as well as countless adaptations in other media, especially theatre and film (see below).

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Publishing Highlights

• 1869: Alice has its first American printing.
• 1871: Dodgson meets another Alice during his time in London, Alice Raikes, and talks with her about her reflection in a mirror, leading to another book Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, which sells even better.
• 1886: Carroll publishes a facsimile of the earlier Alice's Adventures Under Ground manuscript.
• 1890: He publishes The Nursery "Alice", a special edition "to be read by Children aged from Nought to Five."
• 1908: Alice has its first translation into Japanese.
• 1960: American writer Martin Gardner publishes a special edition, The Annotated Alice, incorporating the text of both Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. It has extensive annotations explaining the hidden allusions in the books, and includes full texts of the Victorian era poems parodied in them. Later editions expand on these annotations.
• 1998: The suppressed first edition of the book (that is, the edition nixed by Tenniell) is sold at auction for $1.5 million USD, becoming the most expensive children's book ever traded. (Only 23 copies of the 1865 first edition are known to have survived; 18 are owned by major archives or libraries, such as the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, while the other five are held in private hands.)