Lewis Carroll's 1865 novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland satirizes Victorian class, law, and education

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, known as Lewis Carroll, released Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in 1865, drawing inspiration from a boat ride with the Liddell sisters, particularly Alice. As both a mathematician and an Anglican deacon, Carroll used characters like the Queen of Hearts, who ridicules social hierarchy, and the White Rabbit, symbolizing the pressures faced by lower officials, to critique Victorian society. The trial of the Knave of Hearts serves as a satire of Victorian judicial systems, echoing themes found in Charles Dickens's Bleak House (1853) and Oliver Twist (1839). Carroll's celebration of curiosity and whimsical logic challenges the era's conformity, while Alice embodies his Christian principles of humility and compassion, further enhanced by John Tenniel's illustrations that provoke thought on childhood, education, and identity.