Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Alice follows a White Rabbit down a hole into a world of shrinking potions, a Cheshire Cat, a mad tea party and a Queen who wants everyone's head off. By Lewis Carroll (1865). A public-domain classic.
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How it begins Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, “and what is the use of a book,” thought Alice “without pictures or conversations?”So she was considering in her own mind (as well as she could, for the hot day made her feel very sleepy and stupid), whether the pleasure of making a daisy-chain would be worth the trouble of getting up and picking the daisies, when suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her. Keep reading →About this story
A bored girl follows a waistcoated White Rabbit down a rabbit hole and lands in a world where the rules of size, sense and manners have all been changed. She meets a caterpillar who asks who she is, a grinning cat, a tea party that never ends, and a Queen who settles every argument the same way.
Lewis Carroll was the pen name of Charles Dodgson, a mathematics lecturer at Oxford. He first made the story up on a river trip in July 1862 to entertain the three daughters of the head of his college, one of whom was named Alice. It was published in 1865 with John Tenniel’s drawings, which are still how most people picture it. Under the jokes and wordplay there is a lot of logic, because Carroll enjoyed turning arguments inside out.
- Themes
- Nonsense and logic, growing up, authority, identity
- Good for
- Reading aloud, readers of any age, and anyone who likes wordplay
- Worth noticing
- How often Alice is told what she is, and how she answers back.
Chapters
- 1Down the Rabbit-Hole10 min · 9 Oct
- 2The Pool of Tears10 min · 9 Oct
- 3A Caucus-Race and a Long Tale8 min · 9 Oct
- 4The Rabbit Sends in a Little Bill12 min · 9 Oct
- 5Advice from a Caterpillar10 min · 9 Oct
- 6Pig and Pepper12 min · 9 Oct
- 7A Mad Tea-Party10 min · 9 Oct
- 8The Queen’s Croquet-Ground11 min · 9 Oct
- 9The Mock Turtle’s Story10 min · 9 Oct
- 10The Lobster Quadrille9 min · 9 Oct
- 11Who Stole the Tarts?9 min · 9 Oct
- 12Alice’s Evidence10 min · 9 Oct