Introduction

On a hot summer afternoon little Alice sits on the riverbank, bored with the book her sister is reading, which has no pictures or conversations. Suddenly a White Rabbit in a waistcoat runs past, takes a watch out of its pocket and mutters, 'Oh dear! I shall be too late!' Alice follows it down the rabbit-hole into a wondrous world: a sip from a bottle makes her shrink, a bite of cake makes her taller than a house; she meets the Cheshire Cat, which fades away until only its grin remains, the Mad Hatter and the March Hare at their never-ending tea party, and the Queen of Hearts, forever shouting 'Off with his head!' In the sequel, Through the Looking-Glass, she steps through the drawing-room mirror into a land run by the rules of chess and makes her way from pawn to queen. Full of wordplay, logical paradox and nonsense verse, the books are immortal classics of children's literature, loved by philosophers and mathematicians alike.