Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Lewis Carroll

Cambridge University Press, Jan 3, 2013 - Literary Criticism - 210 pages

An accomplished mathematician and photographer, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832-98), writing under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll, transformed children's literature with this world-famous classic. First published in 1865, this tale of the topsy-turvy was originally created to entertain the young Alice Liddell and her sisters during a picnic in the summer of 1862. The humour with which Dodgson enlivened his mathematical works is exploited to the full here: many of the now-familiar nonsense songs and poems in the story are parodies of contemporary works, and there are a number of allusions to mathematical concepts in the text. The illustrations by Punch cartoonist Sir John Tenniel (1820-1914) depict the cast of much-loved characters - including the White Rabbit, the Cheshire Cat and the Mad Hatter - with a brilliance which perfectly enhances Dodgson's gently satirical fantasy. In its universal appeal, the story remains unsurpassed.

About the author

Charles Luthwidge Dodgson was born in Daresbury, England on January 27, 1832. He became a minister of the Church of England and a lecturer in mathematics at Christ Church College, Oxford. He was the author, under his own name, of An Elementary Treatise on Determinants, Symbolic Logic, and other scholarly treatises. He is better known by his pen name of Lewis Carroll. Using this name, he wrote Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. He was also a pioneering photographer, and he took many pictures of young children, especially girls, with whom he seemed to empathize. He died on January 14, 1898. Sir John Tenniel, born in London in 1820 and died in 1914, was an English illustrator and cartoonist. Tenniel was primarily self-taught but he did become a student of the Royal Academy and in 1836 he sent his first picture to the exhibition of the Society of British Artists. In 1850 he was invited to fill the position of joint cartoonist at Punch (a British weekly magazine of humour and satire published from 1841 to 1992 and from 1996 to 2002). Tenniel is most famous today for his illustrations for Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass but he made numerous contributions to Punch in the late 19th century. Tenniel retired in January 1901 and was honored with a farewell banquet at which the Leader of the House of Commons, presided.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland; Cambridge Library Collection - Fiction and Poetry
• Author: Lewis Carroll
• Illustrated by: John Tenniel
• Edition: illustrated, reprint
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2013
• ISBN: 1108060374, 9781108060370
• Length: 210 pages
• Subjects: Literary Criticism / European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh; Literary Criticism / General