Before there was a Cheshire Cat, there was a handwritten book made for one particular child. Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures Under Ground began as a story told to Alice Liddell and her sisters during a boat trip in 1862.
Carroll wrote it out for Alice and illustrated the pages himself, presenting the manuscript to her in 1864. When the tale moved toward publication, he expanded and reshaped it: two chapters brought in characters including the Hatter and the Cheshire Cat, and John Tenniel supplied a new set of illustrations for the printed edition.
The manuscript lets us see a story changing audience. Private names and family references gave way to a more open, more elaborate Wonderland. Yet its first form was already a complete gift, made slowly in ink for a reader who had asked to keep the adventure.