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Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) -

'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' was published in 1865. The novel, authored by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, has been variously described as a piece of joyful nonsense and a mystery requiring a solution.

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A world of bizarre characters -

'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' details the story of a young girl named Alice who falls through a rabbit hole into a fantasy world populated by a collection of truly bizarre characters.

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Alice Liddell (1852–1934) -

Carroll based his titular character on Alice Liddell, a girl whom he'd met as a 10-year-old along with her sisters, Edith and Lorina (Ina). Edith and Ina also inspired fictional characters that appear in the novel.

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Alice, Edith, and Lorina -

The relationship between Liddell and Dodgson has been the source of much controversy. A keen amateur photographer, Dodgson photographed many young children, though always in the presence of their parents. While rumors still abound as to the exact nature of their friendship, no proof of impropriety on the part of Dodgson against the youngster has ever been offered.

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A trip of a lifetime -

More pertinently perhaps is the suggestion made by some that 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' is a thinly veiled allegory about drug use. The trippy dreamlike world Alice wanders through has itself inspired a number of psychedelic-era songs, most famously Jefferson Airplane's 1967 hit 'White Rabbit.'

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1860s or 1960s? -

And the hookah-smoking Caterpillar seen astride his magic mushroom immediately invokes imagery more associated with the rebellious counterculture of the 1960s rather than the genteel Victorian era of the 1860s.

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A fantastical excursion through the imagination -

The events in 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' correlate with the steps in a child's growth and progression through childhood and adolescence. The story is a fantastical excursion through the imagination, but the underlying theme explores the reality of growing up.

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Based on real-life events -

In the story, Carroll draws on real-life events to fuel his own imagination. The hideous Queen's croquet game described in chapter eight of the novel is likely based on the competitions Alice Liddell herself would have enjoyed as a youngster on the trimmed lawns of Christ Church in Oxford where her father, Henry Liddell, served as ecclesiastical dean.

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"DRINK ME" -

Carroll's preoccupation with food and drink is evident throughout the novel. Alice shrinks to the size of a doll after drinking the contents of a green bottle labelled "DRINK ME."

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"EAT ME" -

She then sees a cake labelled "EAT ME" and after taking a nibble balloons to a size larger than a house. Some observers have suggested the story alludes to abuse of alcohol and eating disorders.

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The Mad Hatter -

The Mad Hatter is one of the story's most endearing characters, though Carroll refers to him simply as "the Hatter." The expression "mad as a hatter" is based on the real-life practices of hatters beginning in the 17th century. The process used to make their hats involved working with mercury, a poison that can induce neurological and behavioral disorders.

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Who is the Hatter? -

The Hatter is probably based on an eccentric gentleman Carroll knew named Theophilus Carter, a furniture dealer who lived near Oxford and who always wore a top hat and tails.

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The Mad Hatter's tea party -

The madcap hilarity of the Hatter's tea party is a key scene in the novel. The gathering can be seen as members of society behaving beyond social constraints. The Hatter is quite often very rude and provokes Alice during the party. Confrontation is the overriding theme. Carroll is reminding us that human interaction is dependent on a mutual openness and respect from all parties involved.

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The Cheshire Cat -

The Cheshire Cat is the guiding spirit for Alice. He teaches her the 'rules' of Wonderland. Carroll may have found inspiration for the name and expression of the character in the 16th-century sandstone carving of a grinning cat on a facade of a church tower located near his birthplace in Daresbury, Warrington.

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"To grin like a Cheshire Cat" -

The cat is known for its distinctive mischievous grin. "To grin like a Cheshire Cat" was a common phrase in Carroll's day. Its origin is unknown, but it could well be an alteration of "cheeser cat"—a cat very fond of cheese. Today, when we are told to say cheese, it's to induce a smile or a grin for a photograph.

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The Queen of Hearts -

'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' includes some very unwholesome characters, none more so than the Queen of Hearts. One of the playing card characters, she is the tyrannical and deranged ruler of Wonderland with a sadistic penchant for beheadings. Carroll never revealed the inspiration for the Queen of Hearts, but some suggest Queen Victoria—the sitting monarch in the author's day—as a model.

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The Dodo -

Carroll was apparently compelled to include a dodo in the story after visiting the University of Oxford's Museum of Natural History and examining a specimen of the flightless bird, which became extinct in 1681. A more fanciful belief is that the author, whose real name remember was Dodgson, chose the bird because of his stammer, and thus would accidentally introduce himself as "Do-do-dodgson."

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The Lory -

Lory, an Australian parrot, is a character that appears in chapter two and chapter three of the novel. The bird is a reference to Ina Liddell, Alice Liddell's older sister.

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The Eaglet -

Also introduced in chapters two and three is the Eaglet, a character inspired by Alice's other sister, Edith.

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The Duck -

The Duck is a representation of the Reverend Robinson Duckworth. He accompanied Carroll and the three sisters on a boat trip along the River Thames in 1862, an excursion that ultimately inspired the entire novel.

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Pool of Tears -

With the Pool of Tears, Carroll is symbolizing the burdens caused by our actions and mistakes. Alice has fallen into her own tears, along with birds and animals—creatures that include a mouse, a crab, and the aforementioned duck, dodo, lory, and eaglet. The episode illustrates how easily Wonderland distracts Alice from reason and causes her to react emotionally.

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March Hare and Dormouse -

Besides Alice, the previously described Mad Hatter's tea party numbers the March Hare and the Dormouse as guests. "Mad as a March hare" is an even older proverb than "mad as hatter." A March hare describes a brown hare in the breeding season, noted for its leaping, boxing, and odd habit of chasing in circles. The dormouse, meanwhile, is slow and sleepy and constantly bullied by the Hatter and March Hare.

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What is the Frog-Footman in Japanese? -

Fun fact: in Japan, the Frog-Footman character in the Japanese paperback edition of 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' published in 2010 is known as the Frog Orderly or the Frog-Face Servant.

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Flamingos and hedgehogs -

In the Queen's grotesque croquet game, the balls are live hedgehogs, and the mallets are live flamingos. Along with the overall theme of defamiliarization the game represents, the notion of animal cruelty has been suggested by some revisionists as a secondary underlying theme.

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The Gryphon and the Mock Turtle -

The Gryphon character is based on the mythical griffin, a half-eagle, half-lion in various cultures. Possessed of an overbearing and dismissive personality, the Gryphon finds an odd soulmate in the melancholic Mock Turtle, who believes he was once a real turtle. Its name is taken from a dish that was popular in the Victorian period, mock turtle soup—actually made using cattle offal after the green turtle originally used as an ingredient was hunted to near extinction.

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The Cook -

Carroll returns again and again to the subject of food in 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.' The Cook has a tendency to use too much pepper for her pepper soup. She also likes to throw things at the Duchess and her baby, and also targets Alice. "Maybe it's always pepper that makes people hot-tempered," Alice later surmises.

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Bill the Lizard -

Bill the Lizard is a lithe and supple character under the employ of the White Rabbit. He does all the hard work for the Wonderland denizens, including being sent down the chimney to rescue Alice after she grows too large to leave the house after eating a magical cake.

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"A curious dream" -

Alice is a witness in the trial to decide whether the Knave of Hearts is guilty of stealing the tarts. The King of Hearts presides as judge. After failing to find meaning in Wonderland, she hopes to find logic and order in the proceedings. But the trial descends into farce. The story concludes with Alice waking up and realizing that her experience of Wonderland was "a curious dream!" Lewis Carroll himself later explained to the dramatist Tom Taylor in a 1864 letter that: "The whole thing is a dream, but that I don't want revealed till the end."

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'Through the Looking-Glass' -

Except it wasn't quite the end. Alice reappeared in 'Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There,' the 1871 sequel to the first novel. One of the characters, the White Knight, is described as having shaggy hair, mild blue eyes, and a kind and gentle face—a pretty good description of the author himself. So what happened next? Well, that's another story.

Sources: (The British Library) (Newsweek) (Britannica) (The Morgan Library & Museum) 

See also: The disturbing stories behind classic fairy tales

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