Before You Begin

Before you begin.

On a drowsy summer afternoon, a girl sitting by a river spies a White Rabbit in a waistcoat, takes out his watch, and mutters that he shall be late — and Alice, too curious to resist, tumbles down the rabbit-hole after him into the strangest country ever dreamed. There she grows tall as a house and small as a mouse, swims in a pool of her own tears, and meets a hookah-smoking Caterpillar, a grinning Cheshire Cat, a Mad Hatter forever stuck at tea, and a Queen of Hearts who would behead the whole world. So begins the best-loved dream in the English language.

Lewis Carroll first told this tale to three little girls in a rowing-boat in 1862, and published it in 1865; ever since, it has belonged to children and grown-ups alike. It runs by the logic of a dream, where a baby may turn into a pig, a cat may fade to nothing but a smile, and a trial may reach its sentence before its verdict — and yet Alice, sensible and brave, keeps her head while all Wonderland loses theirs.

It is a story to be enjoyed first as sheer delight — the fall past the shelves of marmalade, the caucus-race where everybody wins, the maddest of tea-parties, the croquet played with flamingoes and hedgehogs — and treasured ever after.

This illustrated edition opens with a gallery of the cast, the map of Alice’s dream, and its great scenes; and as you read, the story unfolds in six visual movements — recap plates you unlock along the way, each gathering together the tale so far, with never a glimpse of what lies ahead. Turn the page, and follow the White Rabbit down the hole.