Preface
Lewis Carroll was born as Charles Lutwidge Dodg-
son in England in 1832. In his childhood, Carroll
wrote for a small magazine that was produced for
the church where his father was minister. This was
the only writing that Carroll did until he published
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
Lewis Carroll was a college lecturer on
mathematics. He frequently entertained the children
of his fellow teachers and friends with his inventive
and creative stories. He would make the stories up
as he went along. Sometimes they involved the same
characters and sometimes they were entirely new.
When Alice Liddell, the daughter of one of the
school’s deans, asked Carroll to write a story he had
told about her, he obliged. He gave Alice a copy of
Alice’s Adventures Underground which he illustrated
himself. When a novelist visited the Liddell family,
he read the copy of Alice’s book. He was so
impressed he recommended that Carroll have it
published.
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Carroll got a positive response from others when
he gave them the manuscript to read. So he rewrote
parts of the story to make it better and added new
chapters to make the book long enough to publish.
With the help of children’s author George Mac-
Donald, Carroll had Alice’s Adventures in Wonder-
land published in 1865. He had professional illus-
trator John Tenniel redraw his illustrations, and the
drawings were so well done that everyone, to this
day, thinks of Alice as Tenniel drew her.
The book was popular with children and adults.
Carroll continued to tell stories to Alice about her-
self. He combined several of those stories in the book
that followed, Through the Looking Glass and What
Alice Found There. That book was published in 1871.
Although Carroll published other books, the two
books about Alice were the most popular books that
he wrote. By the time Carroll died in 1898, a book
that combined the two stories together (as they
appear here) was the best selling book for children
in England.