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| Grosset & Dunlap 1910 |
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| Grosset & Dunlap 1919 |
In the book, a very precocious, independent and curious young girl follows a humanized rabbit into a rabbit hole down a well. She eventually emerges in a "Wonderland" where she meets many strange (but witty) talking animals, and changes size frequently. After many pun-filled, semi-surrealistic conversations with these anthropomorphized animals (as well as a "Mad Hatter" and an abrupt "Duchess"), she ends up playing a game of croquet with a pack of playing cards cast in human shape. During a final "trial scene", Alice calls out the ridiculous nature of the arguments and wakes up to realize that she has been dreaming.
- Down The Rabbit Hole: While sitting on the bank of a river with her older sister, a precocious young girl named Alice spots a white rabbit in a waistcoat as it checks its pocket watch. When the rabbit hurries off, Alice pursues it down a rabbit-hole. Soon she finds herself falling down an interminably deep well, dotted with shelves filled with jars and pictures. She eventually lands (safely) and enters a long hall filled with doors. The doors are all locked except for one, which is too small for her to fit through. She then comes across a bottle labelled "DRINK ME". She does this and proceeds to shrink down to a few inches in height. Unfortunately, she has left the door key on the table above her.
The Pool Of Tears: After eating a bit of cake (labelled "EAT ME"), she grows taller. Now however, even with the key, she is too big to fit through the small door. The White Rabbit then dashes through the room, and drops his hand-fan and gloves. At this point, Alice suffers a sudden (but brief) identity crisis, leading to a fit of crying. However, when Alice picks up the White Rabbit's hand-fan she shrinks again, but then finds herself floating in her own pool of tears. Alice next encounters a Mouse, but momentarily offends it when she ruminates on the virtues of her pet cat. Eventually, Alice, the Mouse and several other small animals land on the bank.
1st official edition, printed in 1865 and dated 1866. - A Caucus-Race And A Long Tale: In an attempt to dry everyone out, the mouse begins reciting a "dry" account of William the Conqueror's historical exploits. When this fails to have any effect, a Dodo suggests a "Caucus-race", in which all participants run in a circular path. After this is completed, Alice rewards the winners (which is everyone) with some candy (and herself with a thimble). Next, the Mouse is given the floor. When Alice appears bored by the Mouse's tale (shaped like a "tail"), the Mouse leaves in a huff. When Alice begins talking about her cat Dinah again, the remaining animals (mostly small birds) become alarmed and depart as well.
- The Rabbit Sends In A Little Bill: The White Rabbit reappears and mistakes Alice for his house-servant. Alice obeys the White Rabbit's order and goes into the Rabbit's house to retrieve his gloves and a fan. However, Alice impulsively drinks from another bottle which makes her grow until her hands and legs stick out of the doorways and up the chimney. When the White Rabbit notices these strange limbs coming out of his house, he has a lizard named Bill go down the chimney to investigate, but Alice merely kicks it back out. Ultimately, the animals end up throwing some cake into the house, which, when eaten by Alice, turns her small again (about 3 inches tall). After fleeing into the forest she runs into a puppy. Worried about being eaten, she escapes the puppy after tiring it out with a stick game.
- Advice From A Caterpillar: Alice next comes across a contemptuous caterpillar perched atop a giant mushroom and smoking a hookah pipe. Alice is then asked to recite a poem ("You are old, Father William", a parody of Robert Southey's "The Old Man's Comforts and How He Gained Them.") about an elderly and corrupt - but strangely talented - man. After criticizing Alice's recitation the caterpillar then decides to depart. However, before it does so, it tells Alice that she can adjust her height by nibbling on the opposing edges of the mushroom. When she eats one piece she becomes small. When she eats a piece from the opposite side it makes her neck elongate until her head floats above the treetop. A nearby pigeon then mistakes her for a serpent. Eventually, Alice eats the correct amount of mushroom to attain a manageable height. She then spots a 4-foot-tall house, and then shrinks herself down further to 9 inches in order to visit it properly.
- Pig And Pepper: Before entering, she notices a Fish-Footman deliver a letter to the house's Frog-Doorman, inviting "the Duchess" to a croquet match with the Queen. Inside, she finds the Duchess holding a baby and being served by a very excitable cook - nearby is a smiling cat (the Cheshire Cat). When the Duchess departs for the croquet match, Alice is given charge of the Duchess' baby. However, when she exits the house, she finds that the child has become a pig, and lets it loose in the forest. In a nearby tree, the Cheshire Cat points out where Alice might find a mad March Hare. After growing herself to 2 feet in height, she heads towards the March Hare's house, which is shaped like a rabbit's head.
- A Mad Tea-Party: In front of the house, Alice finds the Mad Hatter, the March Hare and the Dormouse (a kind of British squirrel) gathered in one corner of a table having tea. She learns that the Hatter's watch tells the day but not the time. The Dormouse frequently nods off, while the March Hare makes bizarre statements about butter. The Mad Hatter relates a story in which he once sang a song for the Queen, prompting her to declare that he was murdering Time ("killing time"?). After that, Time had punished him by trapping him at 6 o'clock (tea time) forever. The Dormouse then begins telling a pun-filled story about three girls in a "treacle-well". When Alice asks too many logical questions, the other members begin shouting her down. Upset, she departs the tea party. However, she soon finds a door (embedded in a tree) which leads to a beautiful garden.
- The Queen’s Croquet-Ground: In the garden, Alice comes across three gardeners in the form of humanized playing cards ("Spades"). A procession of additional playing cards soon arrives, with the Queen of Hearts at its head. When she becomes angered at the gardeners she shouts her favorite phrase, "Off with their heads!" After Alice saves the gardeners from execution (by hiding their heads), she joins the Queen's croquet game, which is played by hitting curled up hedgehog-balls through card-soldier hoops using flamingo mallets. When the Cheshire Cat's head reappears, the King asks the Queen to have it beheaded. However, confusion soon mounts, as beheading a floating, disembodied head seems irrelevant. After Alice mentions that the Cat belongs to the Duchess, the Duchess is brought forth (from imprisonment), but by that time the Cheshire Cat head has vanished.
- The Mock Turtle’s Story: Alice and the Duchess have a pun-filled conversation punctuated by the Duchess' favorite "morals", but the Queen returns and scares her away. After the croquet game resumes, the Queen continues to issue her favorite command, "Off with his head!", to her various card-servants until no more cards are available to form croquet hoops. While the King of Hearts surreptitiously pardons all of the condemned, the Queen asks a Gryphon to take Alice to the Mock Turtle. There, the Mock Turtle (derived from "Mock turtle soup", a veal broth) explains that it is sad because it is not a "real turtle". It then begins telling Alice of an undersea education in which it was taught washing, "uglification" (multiplication), "drawling, stretching, and fainting in coils" (drawing, sketching, and painting in oils).
- The Lobster-Quadrille: The Mock Turtle then begins describing a Lobster Quadrille, a song and dance in which rows of lobsters are thrown out to sea and then chased after. When Alice recounts her recent adventures in their world, the Gryphon and Mock Turtle become skeptical and insist that Alice repeat her story. Alice then begins reciting some mangled up nursery rhymes. Failing to understand her, the Mock Turtle then begins singing another song, but the Gryphon drags Alice away when they hear that a trial about to commence.
- Who Stole The Tarts?: They soon arrive at a trial (heralded by the White Rabbit and his trumpet) in which the Knave (Jack) of Hearts has been accused of stealing tarts from the Queen of Hearts. The first witness is the Mad Hatter, but he offers little that makes sense. The next witness is the Duchess' cook, whose testimony is mocked by the Dormouse. Finally, Alice is called to the witness stand.
- Alice’s Evidence: Alice claims ignorance of the entire affair, after which the King tries to dismiss her for being too tall. A note containing a nonsense love song is brought forth, purportedly written by the Knave. When the King tries to reinterpret the verses as some kind of confession, Alice mocks the members of the court. The cards immediately rise up into the air, poised to attack her. Alice then wakes up, with her sister brushing fallen leaves from her face. Alice then describes the dream had just had to her sister. The older sibling soon sends Alice inside for her tea, and then listens to the sounds of the field and stream, imagining that they must have inspired the events and characters in Alice's dream. She then hopes that Alice will remain a child at heart and tell similar adventures to her children one day.
Through The Looking-Glass, And What Alice Found There
- Looking-Glass House: On one cold day, Alice tries to tell a young kitten (Dinah's offspring) about the magical world in "Looking-glass House" (the world reflected in the room's large mirror). When Alice reaches out to touch the mirror surface, she realizes that she can pass into the Looking Glass world. Once there, she sees that the paintings of the room now have living faces, and that the chess pieces are now living figures. When a "pawn" becomes distressed, Alice carries the White Queen and the White King to its rescue. However, since Alice is both invisible and inaudible to the chess pieces, the Queen and King become terrified. Alice then reads a nearby book containing a poem titled "Jabberwocky", in which a young warrior is congratulated by his father for defeating a "Jabberwock" with a "vorpal sword". Eventually, Alice leaves the room and floats downstairs like a spectre. On the ground floor she soon learns how to walk more naturally.
- The Garden Of Live Flowers: Alice tries to reach a distant hill but somehow the path always leads her back to the house. After a pointless conversation with some talking flowers (a parody on the talking flowers in section 22 of Tennyson's poem "Maud"), Alice spots the Red Queen, now grown large. She reaches the Red Queen by walking in the opposite direction of her destination. At the top of the hill, Alice notices that the field is laid out like a giant chessboard. The Red Queen states that Alice can be a White Pawn. After she and the Red Queen "run in place" for awhile, the Red Queen explains the dominant features of the various regions denoted by the squares. She then puts some peg markers into the ground and disappears (Queen chess pieces can instantly cross any number of squares).
- Looking-Glass Insects: In the distance Alice sees some elephant-sized (shaped?) bees (Bishop chess pieces) hovering above flowers. However, she elects to head in the opposite direction towards the other end of the chessboard. She somehow next finds herself aboard a train carriage facing a paper-clothed man, a goat and a beetle. A Guard appears, looking for tickets, but Alice, of course, doesn't have one. In any case, the train jumps over a brook to reach the Fourth Square (pawns can jump a square in their first move). Suddenly, Alice appears under a tree and finds herself speaking to a chicken-sized Gnat. She ends up naming various insect species which the gnat then proceeds to re-characterize as hybrid insect-objects: Rocking-horse fly, Snap-dragon-fly, Bread-and-butter-fly. After the Gnat departs, Alice enters a forest where all names are forgotten. After meeting a Fawn (another white pawn), she eventually emerges from the forest and remembers her own name.
- Tweedledum And Tweedledee: Following two signs, she runs across two fat schoolboys, Tweedledum And Tweedledee (nursery rhyme characters), who like to say phrases like "Nohow" and "Contrariwise", and are mirror-images of each other. After a bout of "mulberry bush dancing", Tweedledee recites "The Walrus And the Carpenter", a poem in which a Walrus and a Carpenter entertain a bunch of oysters, but end up eating them all by the end (this is an original Carroll poem and not a parody). Alice is then led to a sleeping Red King. The twin schoolboys then annoy Alice when they accuse her of being a figment of the Red King's dream. One of the boys then discovers that his new rattle has been abused. With Alice's assistance they armor themselves for a duel using pots, pans and bits of fabric. However a black crow then flies overhead, scattering the boys (following their original nursery rhyme narrative).
- Wool And Water: The wind from the crow's beating wings blows a shawl past Alice. She discovers that it is the White Queen's and helps her adjust her hair and clothing. The unkempt White Queen then claims to remember things backwards, such as punishments being carried out before the crimes (she also tells Alice to believe in impossible things). After another wind blows away the White Queen's shawl again, Alice suddenly finds herself in a dark shop facing a knitting Sheep. In the store, everything Alice wishes to examine seems to move farther away from her (this refers to the effect of looking through a reversed telescope). Alice and the Sheep then briefly find themselves in a rowboat amongst reeds, but they soon return to the shop (now fitted with trees and a brook) where the Sheep sells Alice an egg (which also seems to evade her grasp).
- Humpty Dumpty: The egg gradually grows closer until Alice sees that it is the fabled Humpty Dumpty, sitting on a wall. Humpty Dumpty is provoked by Alice's knowledge of his background, and soon begins treating her rudely. Eventually, Alice asks him to explain the meaning behind the words to "Jabberwocky", but his explanations are nonsensical. Afterwards, he proceeds to recite his own song about an attempt to communicate with some fish, but stops mid-sentence. Humpty Dumpty then says goodbye and stops talking.
- The Lion And The Unicorn: After a loud crash, the White King's soldiers begin to rush through the forest ("All the king's horses and all the king's men.."). An Anglo-Saxon messenger arrives and informs the White King that the Lion and the Unicorn are fighting "for the crown" in town (the King's messengers, "Haigha" and "Hatta" are reimagined versions of the Hare and Hatter from the previous book). The White King brings Alice to the town to observe the fight. During a break in the struggle, Alice serves the two combatants some plum-cake and is introduced as some kind of exotic monster. Suddenly a loud drumming noise erupts.
- “It’s My Own Invention”: A Red Knight and a White Knight engage in battle. After the Red Knight is defeated and driven away, Alice remarks on the White Knight's impractical inventions (including an upside-down backpack), which are designed to handle unlikely emergencies. As the White Knight escorts Alice across the chessboard square (while periodically falling off his horse), he explains many more bizarre, nonsensical inventions and then recites a song about an old man becoming wealthy ("Sitting on a Gate", a parody of Wordsworth's "Resolution and Independence"). Eventually, they reach the border and the Knight departs. However, just before crossing into the next square, Alice offers to comfort an ailing old Wasp, who bemoans his ill-fitting wig. Eventually, the insect begins criticizing Alice's bodily makeup, prompting Alice to move on. (The "Wasp In A Wig" episode is only included in The Annotated Alice). In the 8th square, a crown appears on Alice's head ("pawn promotion").
- Queen Alice: After chatting with an annoying Frog doorman, Alice enters a castle where she becomes the featured guest of a feast hosted by the White Queen and the Red Queen. However, the food becomes offended when Alice tries to slice it up. Eventually frustrated, Alice scatters the party by pulling out the tablecloth, after which she grabs the Red Queen and begins shaking it, hoping it will become a kitten (this is Alice "capturing the Red Queen" to checkmate the Red King).
- Shaking: Immediately, the Red Queen begins to transform...
- Waking:...into a black kitten.
- Which Dreamed It?: Alice muses that the black kitten was the Red Queen and that the white kitten was the White Queen (and their mother Dinah was Humpty Dumpty). She also asks the black kitten if the Red King was a dream of hers, or the other way around.
Some notes on Jabberwocky:
The opening of "Jabberwocky" goes like this:
"'Twas brillig, and the slithytoves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe."
Based on Carroll's early notes, the passage can be translated as follows:
"It was evening, and the smooth active badgers
Were scratching and boring holes in the hill-side:
All unhappy were the parrots,
And the grave turtles squeaked out."
In "Stanza of Anglo-Saxon Poetry" (1855, from Mischmasch), Carroll writes:
BRYLLYG (derived from the verb to BRYL or BROIL), "the time of broiling dinner, i.e. the close of the afternoon."
SLYTHY (compounded of SLIMY and LITHE). "Smooth and active."
TOVE. A species of Badger. They had smooth white hair, long hind legs, and short horns like a stag; lived chiefly on cheese.
GYRE, verb (derived from GYAOUR or GIAOUR, "a dog"). To scratch like a dog.
GYMBLE (whence GIMBLET). "To screw out holes in anything."
WABE (derived from the verb to SWAB or SOAK). "The side of a hill" (from its being soaked by the rain).
MIMSY (whence MIMSERABLE and MISERABLE). "Unhappy."
BOROGOVE. An extinct kind of Parrot. They had no wings, beaks turned up, and made their nests under sundials: lived on veal.
MOME (hence SOLEMOME, SOLEMONE, and SOLEMN). "Grave."
RATH. A species of land turtle. Head erect: mouth like a shark: forelegs curved out so that the animal walked on its knees: smooth green body: lived on swallows and oysters.
OUTGRABE, past tense of the verb to OUTGRIBE. (It is connected with old verb to GRIKE, or SHRIKE, from which are derived "shriek" and "creak"). "Squeaked."
There were probably sundials on the top of the hill, and the "borogoves" were afraid that their nests would be undermined. The hill was probably full of the nests of "raths", which ran out, squeaking with fear, on hearing the "toves" scratching outside. This is an obscure, but yet deeply-affecting, relic of ancient Poetry.
Links
- Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland Wiki Entry
- Through the Looking-Glass Wiki Entry
- Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Standard Ebooks)
- Through the Looking-Glass (Standard Ebooks)
- Lewis Carroll First Editions
- Lewis Carroll Book Illustrations
- British Library: Original manuscript and drawings by Lewis Carroll
