Watercolor storybook illustration of two ornate Victorian books, one teal and one rose, with gilt lettering reading Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass — AI-generated storybook illustration (2026-09-26): the two Alice books. AI-generated dramatization art — not a historical depiction.

The Books

A boat trip, a handwritten Christmas gift, a recalled first edition, and a sequel six years later. The publication history of the two most famous children's books ever written.

The golden afternoon: 4 July 1862

On a “golden afternoon” — Carroll’s own phrase, from the prefatory poem — Charles Dodgson took the three young daughters of Dean Liddell of Christ Church, Oxford (Lorina, Alice, and Edith) on a rowing trip up the Thames to Godstow. To pass the time he told them a story about a girl named Alice and her adventures underground. Alice Liddell, then ten, loved it and asked him to write it down for her. The diary entry for the day documents the trip; the phrase “golden afternoon” is Carroll’s poetry, and the weather that day was, by some accounts, actually rainy — a reminder that memory gilds.

Alice’s Adventures Under Ground (1864)

Dodgson kept his promise. He wrote out the story by hand, illustrated it himself with 37 pen-and-ink drawings, and gave the finished manuscript — titled Alice’s Adventures Under Ground — to Alice Liddell as a Christmas gift in 1864. The manuscript survives in the British Library. It is shorter and rawer than the published book: no Cheshire Cat, no Mad Tea-Party as we know it — those came later.

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865)

Encouraged by friends (including the novelist Henry Kingsley and the publisher Alexander Macmillan), Dodgson expanded the story for publication. He chose the pen name “Lewis Carroll” — a play on his own names (Charles Lutwidge Latinized and reversed) — and commissioned illustrations from John Tenniel, the celebrated Punch cartoonist. The book was published by Macmillan in 1865.

The first printing of 2,000 copies was recalled: Tenniel objected to the quality of the printing, and Dodgson — famously exacting — had the whole edition withdrawn. Most copies were rebound and sold in America in 1866; the true first English edition followed the same year. Original 1865 copies are among the most valuable children’s books in existence.

The book was an immediate success and has never been out of print since.

Through the Looking-Glass (1871)

The sequel, Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, was published in December 1871 (dated 1872), again by Macmillan with Tenniel illustrations — 92 in total across the two books. Where Wonderland is a summer riverbank dream, Looking-Glass is a winter fireside dream, structured as a chess game. It sold well from the start, though its wordplay and logic games have always made it the more “grown-up” of the two.

The later Alice books

The Nursery “Alice” (1890) — Carroll’s own abridged edition for very young children (“from nought to five”), with Tenniel’s illustrations enlarged and hand-colored. Carroll took a close interest in its production.
Sylvie and Bruno (1889) and Sylvie and Bruno Concluded (1893) — Carroll’s long, strange later novels, mixing fairy-tale with Victorian society satire. They contain some Alice-like material but are separate works, never as loved.
The “People’s Edition” and countless reprints — once copyright lapsed, editions multiplied into the thousands; there are now translations in well over a hundred languages.

John Tenniel’s illustrations are so inseparable from the books that Carroll once rejected a whole print run to protect them. Tenniel (1820–1914) drew 92 illustrations for the two books, working closely with Dodgson — who was exacting to the point of legend (the “crown” on the White Knight, the exact look of the Cheshire Cat, were argued over). After Tenniel, dozens of artists re-illustrated Alice; none displaced him. See the illustrators.

Source notes

The 4 July 1862 boat trip: Carroll’s diary; the “golden afternoon” phrasing is from the prefatory poem to Wonderland.
The Under Ground manuscript: presented to Alice Liddell, Christmas 1864; now in the British Library.
The recalled 1865 edition: documented in publishing history; the objection to print quality is attributed to Tenniel, the withdrawal to Dodgson.
Publication dates: Wonderland 1865 (Macmillan); Looking-Glass December 1871, dated 1872 (Macmillan).

Limitations

Details of what was actually told on the boat trip come only from later recollection — Alice Liddell’s and Carroll’s — not from a contemporary transcript.
The exact division of creative credit between Dodgson and Tenniel for individual illustrations is documented only where their correspondence survives.