Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Lewis Carroll's timeless tale of a girl who falls down a rabbit hole into a world of talking rabbits, mad hatters and vanishing cats. Wonderfully strange, endlessly quotable.
About this edition
Lewis Carroll published this in 1865 after telling the story aloud to Alice Liddell and her sisters on a boating trip, and the published version kept the feel of a tale told to a particular child. That origin is why it wanders: a rabbit hole, a bottle labelled DRINK ME, a tea party that never ends, a queen who shouts for beheadings and never gets one. Read it as wordplay first, satire second, dream logic third — Carroll was a mathematician, and the nonsense is precise. Everything hinges on a girl who keeps her manners while the world stops making sense, which is why adults return to it more often than children do. This edition presents the complete text with each chapter on its own page, so you can move at whatever pace a talking cat allows.
CHAPTER I.
Down the Rabbit-Hole
Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, “and what is the use of a book,” thought Alice “without pictures or conversations?”
So she was considering in her own mind (as well as she could, for the hot day made her feel very sleepy and stupid), whether the pleasure of making a daisy-chain would be worth the trouble of getting up and picking the daisies, when suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her.
There was nothing so _very_ remarkable in that; nor did Alice think it so _very_ much out of the way to hear the Rabbit say to itself, “Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be late!” (when she thought it over afterwards, it occurred to her that she ought to have wondered at this, but at the time it all seemed quite natural); but when the Rabbit actually _took a watch out of its waistcoat-pocket_, and looked at it, and then hurried on, Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to take out of it, and burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and fortunately was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge.
In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again.
The rabbit-hole went straight on like a tunnel for some way, and then dipped suddenly down, so suddenly that Alice had not a moment to think about stopping herself before she found herself falling down a very deep well.
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Quick answers about Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
What is Alice's Adventures in Wonderland about?
Lewis Carroll's timeless tale of a girl who falls down a rabbit hole into a world of talking rabbits, mad hatters and vanishing cats. Wonderfully strange, endlessly quotable.
Is Alice's Adventures in Wonderland free to read?
Yes. Every story on RapidTale is free to read in the browser, with no sign-up and nothing to install.
How long does it take to read?
This story runs 12 chapters — most readers finish in one sitting, and you can stop and return to any chapter using the contents list.
Who wrote it?
Classic Books — this is the complete public-domain text, published in its original form.