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Revision as of 00:02, 25 January 2002 by Tarquin (talk | contribs)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is a canonical work of children's literature by Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll. The tale is fraught with satirical allusions to Dodgson's friends and to the lessons which British schoolchildren were expected to memorize. The Wonderland described in the tale plays with logic in ways that has made the story of lasting popularity with children, mathematicians, and users of psychedelics.
History
The book was 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 (Liddell girls):
- Lorina Charlotte (aged 13)
- Alice Pleasance (aged 10)
- Edith (aged 8)
The journey had started at Folly Bridge near Oxford, England and ended five miles away in a village of Godstow. During the journey the Reverend Dodgson made up and told the girls a story, which he later developed into Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
Contents
- Chapter 1 -- Down the Rabbit-Hole
- Chapter 2 -- The Pool of Tears
- Chapter 3 -- A Caucus-Race and a Long Tale
- Chapter 4 -- The Rabbit Sends in a Little Bill
- Chapter 5 -- Advice from a Caterpillar
- Chapter 6 -- Pig and Pepper
- Chapter 7 -- A Mad Tea-Party
- Chapter 8 -- The Queen's Croquet-Ground
- Chapter 9 -- The Mock Turtle's story
- Chapter 10 -- The Lobster-Quadrille
- Chapter 11 -- Who Stole the Tarts?
- Chapter 12 -- Alices's Evidence
The plot
A small girl named Alice is bored while on a picnic with her sister. She find interest in a white rabbit, dressed in a topcoat and muttering "I'm late!", which she follows down a rabbit's hole. She drops down into dream underworld of paradox, the absurd and the improbable. As she attempts to follow the rabbit, she has several misadventures. She meets a group of small animals stranded in a sea of her own tears, then gets trapped in the rabbit's house, meets a baby which changes into a pig and a cat which disappears, goes to a never-ending tea party, plays croquet with an anthropomorphized deck of cards, goes to the shore and meets some more odd creatures, until the story ends with the Knave of Hearts being put on trial for stealing some tarts, and Alice waking up underneath a tree back with her sister.
The Characters in order of appearance
note
maybe list the poems / songs here?
I'll go and dig them up :-)
Thematic Elements