Characters

• Alice: The curious and imaginative young protagonist who follows the White Rabbit into Wonderland.
• White Rabbit: The worried, time-obsessed creature Alice follows down the rabbit hole.
• Cheshire Cat: A mysterious, grinning cat that can appear and disappear at will.
• Mad Hatter: An eccentric character who hosts a never-ending tea party.
• March Hare: The Mad Hatter's tea party companion.
• Dormouse: A sleepy mouse who joins the Mad Hatter's tea party.
• Queen of Hearts: The ill-tempered ruler of Wonderland, fond of ordering executions.
• King of Hearts: The Queen's milder husband who presides over the trial.
• Caterpillar: A hookah-smoking insect who gives Alice cryptic advice.
• Duchess: An unpleasant noblewoman with a strange baby.
• Gryphon: A mythical creature who takes Alice to meet the Mock Turtle.
• Mock Turtle: A sad creature who tells Alice his story.
• Knave of Hearts: A character who is accused of stealing the Queen's tarts and put on trial.
• Bill the Lizard: A chimney sweep Alice encounters.
• Dodo: Organizes the Caucus-race to dry off the creatures.

Quick facts

• Lewis Carroll wrote the story for Alice Liddell, the young daughter of his friend Henry Liddell, after she asked him to tell her a tale during a boating trip.
• The book was originally titled Alice's Adventures Under Ground before being published as Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in 1865.
• The Mock Turtle character is believed to be a play on the popular Victorian dish of mock turtle soup, which was made from calf's head rather than actual turtle.
• Carroll, whose real name was Charles Dodgson, was a mathematician at Oxford University and included several mathematical jokes and allusions in the book.
• Carroll included several puns and wordplay based on French in the book, as he was fluent in the language and Alice Liddell was studying it at the time.
• The book’s initial print run of 2,000 copies was recalled because illustrator John Tenniel was unhappy with the print quality, making the first edition extremely rare and valuable today.
• The Cheshire Cat's signature grin may have been inspired by an architectural feature called a “Cheshire cat” found on churches in Cheshire, England.
• In the sequel Through the Looking-Glass, Carroll invented the nonsense word “chortle,” which has since entered common usage.
• The novel has inspired countless screen and stage adaptations, with Disney's 1951 animated film version being perhaps the most famous.
• The original handwritten manuscript, which Carroll illustrated himself, is now in the British Library and was sold for £15,400 in 1928, a world record price for a manuscript at the time.
• Alice's Adventures in Wonderland has been translated into at least 174 languages and has never been out of print since it was first published.

About the author

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832-1898), better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English author as well as an Oxford scholar and university lecturer, Anglican deacon, mathematician, and photographer. He is most widely remembered for writing the children's classics Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass. His books are considered masterpieces of the literary nonsense genre. His poem “Jabberwocky” from Through the Looking-Glass is one of the greatest nonsense poems in the English language.

Beyond children's literature, Carroll made contributions to the fields of logic, probability theory, and election theory. He invented new concepts in linear algebra and wrote nearly a dozen books on mathematics under his real name. As a photographer, Carroll became well-known for his portraits, particularly those of children and notable figures of the Victorian era.

Carroll's legacy as an author, logician, and creative thinker remains strong more than a century after his death. Societies around the world are dedicated to studying his life and works, and his Alice books continue to delight readers and inspire adaptations across various media.