Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is an 1865 novel by Lewis Carroll that follows a young girl named Alice as she falls down a rabbit hole into a fantastical world filled with bizarre creatures, shifting logic, and playful nonsense. As she journeys through Wonderland, Alice encounters unforgettable characters such as the Cheshire Cat, the Mad Hatter, the Queen of Hearts, and the White Rabbit, each embodying the book’s absurd humor and satirical edge. Through riddles, wordplay, and dreamlike episodes, the story explores themes of identity, curiosity, and the challenge of growing up, while gently mocking the strict social rules of Victorian England.

Lewis Carroll was the pen name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832–1898), an English writer, mathematician, and photographer. He was a lecturer in mathematics at Christ Church, Oxford, and his love of logic strongly influenced his literary work, especially his fondness for puzzles and paradoxes. Carroll is best remembered for the Alice books, which revolutionized children’s literature by blending imagination with intellectual play rather than moral instruction. His whimsical style, inventive language, and layered meanings have made his work enduringly popular with both children and adults.

The French edition of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Les aventures d’Alice au pays des merveilles) was first published in 1869 as the earliest translation into another language, translated by Henri Bué and issued by Macmillan in London before later Paris printings — making it one of the first ways French-speaking readers experienced Carroll’s tale outside English. Carroll himself oversaw and approved Bué’s work, so it’s often described as an authorized translation, and it aimed to capture Carroll’s playful style and clever wordplay in French. Over the years, that original translation has been republished and reprinted many times, and many more French translations and illustrated editions have appeared in France and elsewhere, reflecting the enduring popularity of Alice in the Francophone world.