Most people think they know the original Alice in Wonderland. They think of a blonde girl in a blue dress, singing to flowers and chasing a frantic rabbit through a Disneyfied Technicolor dreamscape.
But the reality is much weirder. And darker.
When Charles Lutwidge Dodgson—writing under the pen name Lewis Carroll—first told this story on a "golden afternoon" in July 1862, he wasn't trying to build a franchise. He was trying to entertain three bored kids on a rowing trip. The result was Alice's Adventures Under Ground, a handwritten manuscript that looked very different from the book sitting on your shelf today. If you go back to that source material, you find a story that is less about "imagination" and more about the terrifying, illogical frustration of being a child in a world run by adults.
The real story of the 1865 original Alice in Wonderland
The publishing history of this book is a disaster. Honestly, it’s a miracle it ever became a hit.
Carroll originally had the book printed in 1865 by Macmillan. He hired John Tenniel, a famous political cartoonist for Punch magazine, to do the illustrations. But when the first 2,000 copies came off the press, Tenniel hated them. He thought the print quality was "disgraceful." Carroll, being a perfectionist (or maybe just incredibly anxious), agreed. He scrapped the entire first edition. Those rare copies of the original Alice in Wonderland are now some of the most expensive books in the world.
Think about that. He spent a fortune to suppress his own work because the ink didn't look right.
What we call the "original" today is actually the second printing. This version stripped away some of the more personal references found in the handwritten draft he gave to Alice Liddell. In that first manuscript, there were no Mad Hatters. No Cheshire Cats. No tea parties.
Can you imagine the story without the tea party? It feels empty. Carroll added those iconic scenes later to pad out the length for commercial publication. The "original" experience was much more focused on Alice's internal anxiety about her body changing sizes—a literalized metaphor for puberty that Carroll handled with a mix of whimsy and genuine dread.
Math, Logic, and Why the Story Feels So "Off"
Carroll wasn't just a writer; he was a mathematician at Christ Church, Oxford. This matters. A lot.
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When you read the original Alice in Wonderland, you aren't just reading a fairy tale. You’re reading a satire of the "new" mathematics emerging in the mid-19th century. Scholars like Melanie Bayley have pointed out that the scene with the Caterpillar and his hookah is basically an attack on symbolic algebra.
At the time, math was moving away from physical reality and into abstract logic. Carroll hated this.
Take the scene where Alice tries to multiply: "four times five is twelve, and four times six is thirteen." To a kid, it’s just nonsense. To a math nerd in 1865, it was a joke about base-n number systems. Alice is using a base-18 system in one line and base-21 in the next. It’s brilliant, but it’s also kind of aggressive.
The book is a protest against the loss of common sense.
Alice is the only person in the story who tries to use logic. And she is punished for it. Every time she tries to be polite or follow the rules of Victorian society, the creatures of Wonderland scream at her or tell her she’s wrong. It's a nightmare. It’s the feeling of being the only sober person at a party where everyone else is high on something you don't understand.
The Alice Liddell Connection: Facts vs. Gossip
We have to talk about the "real" Alice.
Alice Liddell was the daughter of Henry Liddell, the Dean of Christ Church. She was ten years old when the story was first told.
There is a lot of modern speculation about Carroll’s relationship with the Liddell children. Some of it is pretty dark. However, if we stick to the facts we actually have, the story is more about a lonely, socially awkward man who found it easier to talk to children than his peers. He stuttered when he spoke to adults. With the Liddells, he was a master storyteller.
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The original Alice in Wonderland was a gift for her.
One thing people often miss is that Alice Liddell wasn't blonde. In the original Under Ground manuscript, Carroll drew her with short, dark hair and a fringe. The blonde "Disney Alice" came from Tenniel’s imagination—or perhaps from a different model entirely. The real Alice was a precocious, somewhat moody child who eventually grew tired of being the "inspiration" for a cultural phenomenon.
She eventually had to sell her original manuscript at Sotheby's in 1928 to pay death duties after her husband died. It fetched £15,400. That’s about a million dollars in today’s money.
Why Wonderland Refuses to Die
Why are we still talking about a book written 160 years ago?
It’s not because of the "magic." It’s because the original Alice in Wonderland captures the fundamental unfairness of life.
Most children’s books of the 1860s were "moral" stories. They were designed to teach kids how to be good, quiet, and obedient. If a character was bad, they got eaten by a wolf. If they were good, they got a piece of cake.
Carroll flipped the script.
In Wonderland, the "good" girl is constantly yelled at. The Queen of Hearts is a literal psychopath who demands executions for no reason. The world is chaotic, cruel, and governed by rules that change every five seconds.
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That resonates.
Whether you’re a kid trying to understand why adults have so many arbitrary rules, or an adult trying to navigate a corporate bureaucracy, we are all Alice. We are all trying to get through the door into the garden while our bodies (or our lives) are the wrong size for the situation.
Surprising details you probably missed:
- The Mock Turtle: He isn't just a sad turtle. Mock Turtle soup was a real Victorian dish made from calf’s head to imitate expensive green turtle soup. That’s why Tenniel drew him with a calf’s head and hooves. It’s a literal pun.
- The Hatter’s Madness: "Mad as a hatter" was a real phrase because hat makers used mercury to cure felt. Mercury poisoning causes tremors and hallucinations. The Hatter isn’t just quirky; he has brain damage.
- The Duchess: She was likely a caricature of a real person, or at least a specific type of ugly Victorian aristocrat. Her dialogue is a sharp parody of the "moralizing" literature Carroll despised.
How to Experience the Original Today
If you want to actually "see" the original Alice in Wonderland, you shouldn't start with the movies.
Go to the British Library’s website. They have a high-resolution digitisation of the Alice's Adventures Under Ground manuscript. You can see Carroll’s actual handwriting. You can see the drawings he did himself before he hired a professional.
It feels intimate. It feels like a secret between a family friend and some kids.
After that, read the 1865 text alongside the 1871 sequel, Through the Looking-Glass. People often mix them up. The Jabberwocky, Tweedledum and Tweedledee, and the Walrus and the Carpenter are all from the second book. The first book is much more grounded in the specific landscape of Oxford—the river, the rabbit holes, and the stuffy academic atmosphere.
Actionable Insights for the Curious Reader
- Compare the Drafts: Read the original Under Ground manuscript alongside the final 1865 version. Notice how much "filler" (like the Tea Party) was added to make it a viable product. It’s a lesson in how commercial pressure can actually improve art.
- Study the Satire: Look up "Victorian Nonsense Literature." Carroll was part of a movement that used absurdity to criticize the rigid social structures of his time. Understanding the context makes the Queen of Hearts much scarier.
- Visit the Source: If you’re ever in Oxford, visit Christ Church. You can see the "Alice Window" in the dining hall and the trees in the garden that inspired the story. It grounds the fantasy in a very physical, very old reality.
- Ignore the "Drug" Theories: There is zero historical evidence that Carroll used hallucinogens. The "drug culture" interpretation of Alice didn't start until the 1960s. The weirdness of the original Alice in Wonderland came from a sober mathematician’s obsession with logic and language, which is far more interesting than a mushroom trip.
Wonderland is a place of mirrors. It reflects whatever the reader is going through. In 1865, it was a joke about math. In 1966, it was a psychedelic anthem. Today, it’s a survival manual for a world that has stopped making sense.