Alice in Wonderland

   A girl who has recently come to a strange, exotic, fantastic surrounding is sometimes called an "Alice." Ideas, schemes, plans, and projects that are wholly impractical, those daytime dreams that can exist only in the realm of fantasy, may be alluded to as an idea from "Alice in Wonderland."

   Lewis Carroll's children's books, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and its sequel Through the Looking Glass (1871), illustrated by- Sir John Tenniel, the Punch artist, have enjoyed great longevity. Known for their whimsical humor and "nonsense" verse, the Alice books continue to attract readers and are arguably the most famous children's books in the world.

   The name Carroll was a pseudonym of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832-1892), an Oxford mathematician. Alice originated in 1862 on a boat trip with Lorina, Alice, and Edith, the daughters of Dean Henry George Liddell, who also was at Oxford and was best known as a compiler, together with Robert Scott, of the Oxford Greek-English Lexicon. Carroll fantasized an impromptu story for the amusement of the children but particularly for Alice, of whom he was very fond. Later the story in book form evolved into a worldwide bestseller.