The Lion and the Unicorn The next moment soldiers came running through the wood, at first in twos and threes, then ten or twenty together, and at last in such crowds that they seemed to fill the whole forest. Alice got behind a tree, for fear of being run over, and watched them go by. She thought that in all her life she had never seen soldiers...Learn More

'It's my own Invention' After a while the noise seemed gradually to die away, till all was dead silence, and Alice lifted up her head in some alarm. There was no one to be seen, and her first thought was that she must have been dreaming about the Lion and the Unicorn and those queer Anglo-Saxon Messengers. However, there was the great dish still...Learn More

My dear child, Please to fancy, if you can, that you are reading a real letter, from a real friend whom you have seen, and whose voice you can seem to yourself to hear, wishing you, as I do now with all my heart, a happy Easter. Do you know that delicious dreamy feeling, when one first wakes on a summer morning, with the twitter of birds in the...Learn More

IN MEMORY OF GOLDEN SUMMER HOURS AND WHISPERS OF A SUMMER SEA Girt with a boyish garb for boyish task, Eager she wields her spade: yet loves as well Rest on a friendly knee, intent to ask The tale he loves to tell. Rude spirits of the seething outer strife, Unmeet to read her pure and simple spright, Deem, if you list, such hours a waste of...Learn More

Looking-Glass Insects Of course the first thing to do was to make a grand survey of the country she was going to travel through. 'It's something very like learning geography,' thought Alice, as she stood on tiptoe in hopes of being able to see a little further. 'Principal rivers—there ARE none. Principal mountains—I'm on the only one, but I don't...Learn More

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe; All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe. "Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun The frumious Bandersnatch!" He took his vorpal sword in hand: Long time the manxome foe he sought-- So rested he...Learn More

Humpty Dumpty However, the egg only got larger and larger, and more and more human: when she had come within a few yards of it, she saw that it had eyes and a nose and mouth; and when she had come close to it, she saw clearly that it was HUMPTY DUMPTY himself. 'It can't be anybody else!' she said to herself. 'I'm as certain of it, as if his name...Learn More

Tweedledum And Tweedledee They were standing under a tree, each with an arm round the other's neck, and Alice knew which was which in a moment, because one of them had 'DUM' embroidered on his collar, and the other 'DEE.' 'I suppose they've each got "TWEEDLE" round at the back of the collar,' she said to herself. They stood so still that she...Learn More

PREFACE If-and the thing is wildly possible-the charge of writing nonsense were ever brought against the author of this brief but instructive poem, it would be based, I feel convinced, on the line (in p.4) "Then the bowsprit got mixed with the rudder sometimes." In view of this painful possibility, I will not (as I might) appeal indignantly to...Learn More

Wool and Water She caught the shawl as she spoke, and looked about for the owner: in another moment the White Queen came running wildly through the wood, with both arms stretched out wide, as if she were flying, and Alice very civilly went to meet her with the shawl. 'I'm very glad I happened to be in the way,' Alice said, as she helped her to...Learn More