Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
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Front Cover Dover Thrift Editions Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland Lewis Carroll i Dover Thrift Editions Fiction Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen. (0-486-28473-5) Civil War Short Stories and Poems, Edited by Bob Blaisdell. (0-486-48226-X) The Decameron: Selected Tales, Giovanni Boccaccio. Edited by Bob Blaisdell. (0-486-41113-3) Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë. (0-486-42449-9) Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë. (0-486-29256-8) The Thirty-Nine Steps, John Buchan. (0-486-28201-5) My Ántonia, Willa Cather. (0-486-28240-6) The Awakening, Kate Chopin. (0-486-27786-0) Lord Jim, Joseph Conrad. (0-486-40650-4) Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad. (0-486-26464-5) The World’s Greatest Short Stories, Edited by James Daley. (0-486-44716-2) A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens. (0-486-26865-9) Great Expectations, Charles Dickens. (0-486-41586-4) A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens. (0-486-40651-2) The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. (0-486-47491-7) The Hound of the Baskervilles, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. (0-486-28214-7) The Good Soldier, Ford Madox Ford. (0-486-41921-5) Where Angels Fear to Tread, E. M. Forster. (0-486-27791-7) Beowulf, Translated by R. K. Gordon. (0-486-27264-8) The Return of the Native, Thomas Hardy. (0-486-43165-7) The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne. (0-486-28048-9) Siddhartha, Hermann Hesse. (0-486-40653-9) The Metamorphosis and Other Stories, Franz Kafka. (0-486-29030-1) Sons and Lovers, D. H. Lawrence. (0-486-42121-X) The Call of the Wild, Jack London. (0-486-26472-6) Great American Short Stories, Edited by Paul Negri. (0-486-42119-8) Frankenstein, Mary Shelley. (0-486-28211-2) Three Lives, Gertrude Stein. (0-486-28059-4) The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson. (0-486-26688-5) Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain. (0-486-28061-6) The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain. (0-486-40077-8) See every Dover book in print at www.doverpublications.com ii iii Dover Thrift Editions Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland Lewis Carroll With all the original illustrations by Sir John Tenniel Dover Publications, Inc. New York iv At Dover Publications we’re committed to producing books in an earth-friendly manner and to helping our customers make greener choices. Manufacturing books in the United States ensures compliance with strict environmental laws and eliminates the need for international freight shipping, a major contributor to global air pollution. And printing on recycled paper helps minimize our consumption of trees, water and fossil fuels. The text of this book was printed on paper made with 10% post-consumer waste and the cover was printed on paper made with 10% post-consumer waste. At Dover, we use Environmental Defense’s Paper Calculator to measure the benefits of these choices, including: the number of trees saved, gallons of water conserved, as well as air emissions and solid waste eliminated. Courier Corporation, the manufacturer of this book, owns the Green Edition Trademark. Please visit the product page for Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland at www.doverpublications.com to see a detailed account of the environmental savings we’ve achieved over the life of this book. Dover Thrift Editions General Editor: Stanley Appelbaum Editor of This Volume: Philip Smith Copyright Copyright © 1993 by Dover Publications, Inc. All rights reserved. Bibliographical Note This Dover edition, first published in 1993, contains the unabridged, slightly corrected text of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland as published by The Macmillan Company, New York, 1898 [the book was first published in 1865]. All of Sir John Tenniels original illustrations from that edition are included. A new introductory Note has been specially prepared for the present edition. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Carroll, Lewis, 1832-1898. Alice’s adventures in Wonderland/Lewis Carroll; with all the original illustrations by Sir John Tenniel. p. cm. — (Dover thrift editions) “This Dover edition . contains the unabridged, slightly corrected text of Alice’s adventures in Wonderland as published by the Macmillan Company, New York, 1898. A new introductory note has been specially prepared for the present edition”— T. p. verso. Summary: A little girl falls down a rabbit hole and discovers a world of nonsensical and amusing characters. ISBN-13: 978-0-486-27543-7 ISBN-10: 0-486-27543-4 [1. Fantasy.] I. Tenniel, John, Sir, 1820-1914, ill. II. Title. III. Series. PZ7. D684Ai 1993 [Fic]—dc20 93-4056 CIP AC Manufactured in the United States by Courier Corporation 27543419 www.doverpublications.com v Note One of the most fervently admired works of the imagination, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is credited with having been the first great imaginative book for children whose principal goal was to entertain rather than instruct. Written by Oxford mathematician Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832-1898) under the pseudonym “Lewis Carroll,” the story originated in a fantastic tale spun for the amusement of a group of children on an outing; after producing a handwritten version, Alice’s Adventures Under Ground, for presentation to the child upon whom Alice is modeled, Dodgson received encouragement to submit the book for publication, and eventually brought it out at his own expense in 1865, with illustrations by noted Punch cartoonist Sir John Tenniel. The published version of Alice, greatly expanded from the original tale, remains unmatched in its appeal to all ages and sophistications. Most of the books verses, enjoyable in themselves, are clever and frequently subversive parodies of children’s lyrics of the era; indeed, commentators have long perceived satiric elements throughout the book, many specific to Dodgson’s academic environment. The success of Alice prompted an equally admired sequel, Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There (1871). This edition contains the text of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland as published in 1898 (Dodgson made minor corrections to the work at many times). All of Sir John Tenniel’s original illustrations are included. vi Contents Chapter I. Down the Rabbit-Hole page 1 Chapter II. The Pool of Tears page 7 Chapter III. A Caucus-Race and a Long Tale page 13 Chapter IV. The Rabbit Sends in a Little Bill page 19 Chapter V. Advice from a Caterpillar page 27 Chapter VI. Pig and Pepper page 36 Chapter VII. A Mad Tea-Party page 44 Chapter VIII. The Queens Croquet-Ground page 51 Chapter IX. The Mock Turtles Story page 59 Chapter X. The Lobster-Quadrille page 66 Chapter XI. Who Stole the Tarts? page 73 Chapter XII. Alice’s Evidence page 79 vii All in the golden afternoon Full leisurely we glide; For both our oars, with little skill, By little arms are plied, While little hands make vain pretence Our wanderings to guide. Ah, cruel Three! In such an hour, Beneath such dreamy weather, To beg a tale of breath too weak To stir the tiniest feather! Yet what can one poor voice avail Against three tongues together? Imperious Prima flashes forth Her edict “to begin it”: In gentler tones Secunda hopes “There will be nonsense in it!” While Tertia interrupts the tale Not more than once a minute. Anon, to sudden silence won, In fancy they pursue The dream-child moving through a land Of wonders wild and new, In friendly chat with bird or beast— And half believe it true. And ever, as the story drained The wells of fancy dry, And faintly strove that weary one To put the subject by, “The rest next time—” “It is next time!” The happy voices cry. viii Thus grew the tale of Wonderland: Thus slowly, one by one, Its quaint events were hammered out— And now the tale is done, And home we steer, a merry crew, Beneath the setting sun. Alice! A childish story take, And, with a gentle hand, Lay it where Childhoods dreams are twined In Memory’s mystic band, Like pilgrims wither’d wreath of flowers Pluck’d in a far-off land. ix Christmas-Greetings [From a fairy to a child.] Lady dear, if Fairies may For a moment lay aside Cunning tricks and elfish play, Tis at happy Christmas-tide. We have heard the children say— Gentle children, whom we love— Long ago, on Christmas Day, Came a message from above. Still, as Christmas-tide comes round, They remember it again— Echo still the joyful sound “Peace on earth, good-will to men!” Yet the hearts must childlike be Where such heavenly guests abide; Unto children, in their glee, All the year is Christmas-tide! Thus, forgetting tricks and play For a moment, Lady dear, We would wish you, if we may, Merry Christmas, glad New Year! Christmas, 1867. 1 Chapter I: Down the Rabbit-Hole Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, “and what is the use of a book,” thought Alice, “without pictures or conversations?” So she was considering, in her own mind (as well as she could, for the hot day made her feel very sleepy and stupid), whether the pleasure of making a daisy-chain would be worth the trouble of getting up and picking the daisies, when suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her. There was nothing so very remarkable in that, nor did Alice think it so very much out of the way to hear the Rabbit say to itself “Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late!” (when she thought it over afterwards, it occurred to her that she ought to have wondered at this, but at the time it all 2 seemed quite natural); but, when the Rabbit actually took a watch out of its waistcoat-pocket, and looked at it, and then hurried on, Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to take out of it, and, burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge.