Under ground

Alice Pleasance Liddell, photograph by Charles L. Dodgson

The original handwritten manuscript for Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) is in the collection of the British Library. The entire book has been scanned and is available to read online. On an afternoon boat trip up the Thames river in 1862, Dodgson invented the tale of a magical world beyond a rabbit hole to entertain the three daughters of Henry Liddell. Upon their return, the youngest daughter, Alice, asked Dodgson to write down the story he had told. Over many months, he wrote and illustrated a book titled, 'Alice's Adventures Under Ground,' presenting it to Alice as an early Christmas gift in 1864. The story was published in 1865 with illustrations by John Tenniel. Tenniel's illustrations are perfect, but one can see the creative genius of the character design was in Dodgson's original manuscript.