Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Other Stories

On a drowsy afternoon Alice spots a white rabbit in a waistcoat fretting about the time, follows it down a hole, and falls into Wonderland. There the ordinary rules no longer hold: cakes and potions swell her to giant size or shrink her to inches, a caterpillar quizzes her from atop a mushroom, a cat grins itself out of existence, and a Hatter and a March Hare keep a tea party running forever at six o'clock. Every creature Alice meets is certain of its own strange logic, and every conversation slips out from under her just as she thinks she understands it.

First published in 1865 and illustrated by John Tenniel, Lewis Carroll's book grew out of a story invented to entertain three children on a riverboat outing. Across twelve short episodes it follows Alice from the rabbit hole to a mad tea party to the croquet grounds and courtroom of the tyrannical Queen of Hearts, where her adventure comes to a head. Beneath the nonsense runs a quiet thread about a child trying to hold on to who she is while the world around her refuses to make sense.

More than a century and a half later the book remains one of the most quoted and adapted works in the English language. Its riddles, puns, and cast of impossible characters read as delightful invention to younger readers and as a pointed comedy about language, growing up, and the absurdity of adult authority to older ones. It is the foundational work of literary nonsense and the model for countless portal fantasies that followed.