Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, widely beloved British children’s book by Lewis Carroll, published in 1865. With its fantastical tales and riddles, it became one of the most popular works of English-language fiction. It was notably illustrated by British artist John Tenniel. The story centres on Alice, a young girl who falls asleep in a meadow and dreams that she follows the White Rabbit down a rabbit hole. She has many wondrous, often bizarre adventures with thoroughly illogical and very strange creatures, often changing size unexpectedly (she grows as tall as a house and shrinks to 3 inches [7 cm]). She
The images were found in a Scottish family s photo album from the 1860s. One shows a stern-looking young Alice Liddell, in a smart dress, stood next to her younger sister Edith who is wearing a bonnet.
Port Meadow and the River Thames
- Credit: Kevan Manwaring
Walk in the footsteps of Lewis Carroll and visit the inspiration for Alice in Wonderland amid the historic water meadows of Oxford
12th-century Godstow Abbey
- Credit: Kevan Manwaring
One idyllic afternoon in early July, 1862, the Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson rowed towards Godstow with his friend Robinson Duckworth (also a man of the cloth) and three VIP passengers – Lorina, Alice, and Edith Liddell, the young daughters of the Dean of Christchurch. To pass the time, the girls asked for a story and Dodgson happily obliged, conjuring a tale of three children – Elsie, Lacie, and Tillie – who lived at the bottom of the ‘treacle well’ (a landmark in St Margaret’s churchyard, Binsey). The story so delighted the girls that the Reverend was encouraged to write it down – which he did under the pen-name of Lewis Carroll – and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was born, presented to the eponymous Alice in a ha