Book of a lifetime: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

From The Independent archive: Richard Cohen goes down the rabbit hole

Alice upsets the jury when she gives evidence in court, in an illustration by John Tenniel from the first edition of ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ (Getty)

On my 10th birthday my mother gave me a copy of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Charles Lutwidge (the archaic form of Lewis, just as “Carroll” is a form of “Charles”) Dodgson published the book on 26 November 1865; maybe my copy was already called Alice in Wonderland – I don’t remember. But I read it in a single afternoon, and have been re-reading it ever since.

Some critics insist that children don’t understand Alice, and may be frightened by its violence and cruelty. I took to it at once, loving the fact that an adult, even one from the far-off past, shared my sense of humour. I revelled in all the logical games and the wordplay. It made me laugh till my sides hurt.

Dodgson wrote it as a fantasy – a dream, of course – after telling the original story to 10-year-old Alice Liddell one lazy summer afternoon on a boating trip; but here was an adventure I might have made, and all the characters that Alice met I longed to meet too. I quickly acquired Through the Looking Glass, devouring it, but somehow – Tweedledum and Tweedledee apart – its characters didn’t strike quite the same chord. The tone is altogether darker.