In 1864, two years after telling young Alice Liddell the tale of the white rabbit, Lewis Carroll wrote down the story for her. In Carroll's hand and with his own drawings, that 90-page manuscript – the forerunner of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland – is now one of the British Library's treasures. After an illustrated introduction by Sally Brown telling the story of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, the Liddell sisters and the origins of Alice, this book presents a facsimile of the original manuscript.

As well as the complete Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass (with John Tenniel's original illustrations) and The Hunting of the Snark, this edition contains the whole bewildering range of Carroll's verses, puzzles, 'phantasmagoria' and stories, plus a miscellany of letters and prose pieces on topics that include women students, vivisection and dining-room etiquette.