The Gateway to Wonderland

Ever since its publication in 1865, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll has been read, re-read, adapted, and used as inspiration. It stands large in the history of literature, considered a classic of children's fantasy by many. But what about Alice compels us so? Why did it have such an effect on people? And how big really was its impact?

Of course, part of it has to do with Alice's writing, but the other part has to do with history. Before Alice, children's literature was vastly different from how we know it today. Its popularity propelled its ideas of how to write for children into the mainstream, and the reasons for its popularity have to do with those ideas and how it conveys them.

If you've ever been curious where Alice's ideas came from, how it expresses them, and how it affected the future of fantasy children's literature, this site is for you! Read on to find out how Alice in Wonderland challenged previously established conventions of children’s literature by emphasizing children’s points of view and imaginations, opening the way for modern fantasy.

Click the button below to read about the landscape of children's literature before Alice and how the novel argued against it.