Alice in Wonderland

The Best Illustrations from 150 Years of Alice in Wonderland

by Maria Popova

Down the rabbit hole in enchanting reimaginings.

On July 4, 1862, English mathematician and logician Charles Dodgson boarded a small boat with a few friends. Among them was a little girl named Alice Liddell. To entertain her and her sisters as they floated down the river between Oxford and Godstow, Dodgson fancied a whimsical story, which he’d come to publish three years later under the pseudonymLewis Carroll. Alice in Wonderland went on to become one of the most beloved children’s books of all time, and my all-time favorite.

In the century and a half since Sir John Tenniel’s original illustrations, the Carroll classic has sprouted everything from a pop-up book adaptation to a witty cookbook to a quantum physics allegory, and hundreds of artists around the world have reimagined it with remarkable creative vision. After my recent highlights of the best illustrations for Tolkien’s The Hobbit, here come the loveliest visual interpretations of the timeless book./.../