Book at bedtime: Alice in Wonderland and one street in Oxford

Tonight's book is Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, 1865. It works well read aloud to a child, a chapter an evening, but adults get just as much out of it: this is a book written by a mathematician, and its logical jokes land exactly as well as its jokes about tea. The English text is in the public domain and published in full by Project Gutenberg, so you can start tonight for nothing. There is a practical part too: every place where the story began is in Oxford, five minutes' walk apart, and visitors are let in.

How does the book begin?

With ordinary boredom: "Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do." Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, chapter one, "Down the Rabbit-Hole", from the edition published by Project Gutenberg.

Then the White Rabbit runs past and does the thing that makes Alice jump up: it takes a watch out of its waistcoat-pocket. It is not a talking animal that startles her. It is an animal with a pocket and a timetable.

Why read it today?

Because it is that rare children's book which does not pretend to teach. Nobody reforms and nobody is improved: Alice simply lands in a world where every creature she meets is consistent within its own logic, and that is precisely what makes everything fall apart. For a child it is cheerful nonsense. For an adult it is a fairly exact model of an argument with someone who is right on their own terms.

Chapter one takes about ten minutes read aloud. The chapters are short and end on a scene rather than mid-sentence, so the book divides neatly into a fortnight of evenings.

Who was Lewis Carroll?

Lewis Carroll was the pen name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, 1832–1898. He was born at Daresbury in Cheshire and died on 14 January 1898 at Guildford. He entered Christ Church, Oxford, as an undergraduate in January 1851 and was nominated a Student of the college — a lifelong fellowship — in 1852.

In 1855 Henry Liddell became Dean of Christ Church, and from January 1856 he appointed Dodgson Mathematical Lecturer. Dodgson held the post for twenty-five years and resigned it in 1881. His friendship with the Dean's family produced the book: in 1862 he took a boat trip to Godstow with the Liddell sisters, and in 1865 Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was published. These dates come from the biographical note published by the University of Oxford's Mathematical Institute; the college's own site confirms that Dodgson was a mathematics tutor at Christ Church and became friends with the Liddells in 1856.

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Where can you walk in Alice's footsteps?

The whole route fits into one street: St Aldate's in Oxford.

Christ Church, St Aldate's, Oxford, OX1 1DP — the college where Dodgson spent almost his whole adult life. Visits are by multimedia guide, which is required and already included in the ticket; one of the tours is a family tour built around Alice. In Michaelmas Term, from 4 October to 12 December 2026, an adult ticket (18–64) is £22.95 on weekdays and £24.95 at weekends; seniors over 65 and students pay £20.50 and £22.50; children 5–17 pay £17.50 and £19.50. Over the Christmas vacation, 13 to 31 December, adult tickets rise to £24.95 and £26.95. Booking in advance saves £2 a ticket. Under-5s enter free with a paying adult but are not given a guide. Tickets are released weekly, on Fridays at around 10am, for the following week, and some rooms may be closed: this is a working college and the closures are listed on its site.

Alice's Shop, 83 St Aldate's, directly opposite the college. In Victorian times Alice Liddell, the Dean's daughter, bought sweets here. In Through the Looking-Glass, published in 1871, the shop appears in chapter five, "Wool and Water", as the Old Sheep Shop. The building dates from the fifteenth century and was remodelled in the early seventeenth; together with number 82 it is Grade II* listed, entry 1047154 on the National Heritage List for England.

Where can you get the book?

Free and legally in English from Project Gutenberg. For a library copy, the Library Hub Discover catalogue shows which British libraries hold it. There are many Russian translations of Alice, and they differ sharply — a genuine argument among translators about how to carry the puns across — but each of those translations is separately protected by copyright, which is why we translate our own extracts.

The cover of this issue was made by our editors from our own photograph: a spreading tree above the grass in Kensington Gardens. It is our illustration, not a publisher's cover and not a drawing by John Tenniel.