Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

1865
Lewis Carroll
Illustrated by John Tenniel
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
B+


This is one of those books that I can't remember first reading, which isn't true of all the children's books I own.  It's just one of those stories that's always been in my life, and so many other lives.  This is the first time I've read it in the midst of Dickens and all the other mid-1800s authors, so I was more aware of the way that eccentric and/or unpleasant people (and creatures) are presented.  Compared to later children's books, it's striking that Alice doesn't really meet anyone sympathetic.  Dorothy has her posse in Oz, but Alice wanders alone, continuously offending and being offended.  In fact, the only way she gets out of her dream (nightmare) is to tell off a whole court (royal and judicial). 


I can remember not getting all the puns as a child, like the one about the "soles and eels" of shoes.  I like that the king/judge angrily makes the court laugh at his pun.  Some of the wordplay is lost because I didn't grow up with Victorian poetry, although I've always enjoyed Carroll's version of "Father William."

I think the story by itself would only get a B, but the Tenniel drawings remain both beautiful and disturbing.  I remember preferring the text of Through the Looking-Glass to Wonderland, so we'll see if that still holds true.