"Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" by Lewis Carroll: Born Charles Lutwidge Dodgson in 1832, Lewis Carroll gained international acclaim, and perhaps eternal infamy, with the publication of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland," a bizarre fantasy full of puns, satire, and paradoxical logic.

The book opens with Alice, a lovely young girl, bored out of her mind on a picnic with her sister. At her wit's end, the lass suddenly spies a white rabbit. Now, ordinarily, spotting a rabbit in the country is hardly a significant occurrence; it's a momentary distraction at best. But this rabbit lifted a pocket watch from his waist-coat pocket and anxiously proclaimed, "Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late!" I've seen a monkey do that, monkeys are very dapper dressers and often prefer pocket watches to those of the wrist variety, but I've never known a rabbit to be so flashy. Alice takes off after the belated bunny, following it down a seemingly bottomless hole into wacky misadventure. And who doesn't like wacky misadventure?

Alice lands in Wonderland, a literal wonderful land of illogical inhabitants bent on lunacy. Her pursuit of the White Rabbit isn't successful, ending in a long hallway of locked doors. She finds a gold key on a glass table that opens one of them, but the entrance is only inches wide. She returns to the table and finds a bottle marked "DRINK ME." I know the feeling. Every bottle I see says "Drink me."

Alice bolts the beverage and shrinks in size. She rushes back to the little door to find it closed. Frustrated and scared, Alice sits down and cries until she finds a glass box with a cake inside. It's labeled "EAT ME," so she does, except this time she grows over nine feet tall. Cue the tears.

The White Rabbit scampers through, still hurrying to make his appointment, and drops a fan and a pair of gloves. In an attempt to calm down, Alice cools herself with the Rabbit's fan, discovering that it causes her to shrink smaller than ever. And now that she's so small, she's drowning in her earlier tears which have flooded the corridor. A well-meaning rat comes to the rescue, carrying her to the nearest shore where she spends several maddening minutes in conversation with the rat and other assorted animals and birds, including a Dodo.

When she finally does catch up to the White Rabbit, he mistakes her for his maid, ordering her to fetch his gloves. Alice does as she's told, but when she helps herself to a drink at the Rabbit's house, she grows enormous, filling the entire structure. The Rabbit and his friends make numerous aggravating attempts to extricate Alice, finally getting her to sample some cakes that cause her to drastically shrink. Fearing reprisal, the miniature Alice flees into the woods.

From there, Alice encounters a hookah smoking caterpillar who gives her a special mushroom which, depending on the side she eats, allows her to grow and shrink at will. Then she meets the Dutchess, a strange-looking lady with a penchant for peculiar patter, and the Cheshire Cat, a grinning feline capable of vanishing into thin air. The Cat is actually one of the most sane citizens of Wonderland, often marveling at the surrounding shenanigans.

The Cat directs Alice to a tea party where she meets the Mad Hatter, a poor salesman who had a fight with Time and is now stuck forever at 6:00 o'clock, sentenced to perpetually pour tea with his friends the March Hare, who revels in lunacy, and the Dormouse, a sleepy little fellow who's often the butt of his pals' playfulness.

Receiving little courtesy from the Hatter and Hare, Alice next wanders into a crazy croquet match with the King and Queen of Hearts, a pair of playing cards who rule the realm with ineffectual ease. The Queen is even more insane than the King is incompetent, maniacally screaming "Off with his head!" the moment anyone opposes her.

Alice doesn't have much fun playing croquet, since she can't quite master using a flamingo for a mallet or a hedgehog for a ball, but she happily retains her head, allowing her to meet the Mock Turtle, a despondent chap who constantly cries for no apparent reason.

Lastly, Alice attends the trial for the Knave of Hearts, who is accused of stealing tarts from the Queen. She begins growing larger during the proceedings, both in stature and attitude, drawing the ire of the court. All the various playing cards attack her, waking her from her dream and prompting her to tell her sister about her fantastic journey. Usually when such drunken mischief befalls me, I keep the details to myself, telling little more than a fake phone number.

Published in 1865, "Alice's Adventure's in Wonderland" was a remarkable success for Mr. Dodgson, who at the time was a somewhat shy, stammering mathematician at the Christ Church college in Oxford, England. He created the tale to entertain the three young daughters of Henry Liddell, the college dean. The Liddell girls, Lorina, Edith, and Alice, were very close to Dodgson, perhaps a bit too close. Rumors persist to this day that Dodgson was a pedophile, that he even asked the 11-year-old Alice to marry him. While there's no proof of the sordid story, there's certainly plenty of circumstantial evidence.

Dodgson, never known to have romantic relations with adult women, was a very accomplished photographer, specializing in portraits of young girls, particularly naked young girls. Art or perversion?

Dodgson kept a journal in which he repeatedly condemns himself as a sinner, fearing that God could never forgive him for his vile transgressions. Yet several pages have been removed from the diaries, leaving no accounts of the actual sins in question. It was often speculated that family members edited the journals after Dodgson's death to protect his name.

As an instructor at Christ College, Dodgson was required to take holy orders to retain his position, but he never did. While no explanation was ever given as to why he declined, or why he was allowed to maintain his post for the rest of his life, some believe guilt kept Dodgson from becoming a priest.

There was also Dodgson's sudden, unexpected breaking with the Liddell family. His rumored proposal to young Alice, and her family's subsequent refusal, is cited as the reason for the split.

Today, "Lewis Carroll" is almost universally accepted as a pedophile. But a contrarian argument is put forth in Karoline Leach's 1999 book, "In the Shadow of the Dreamchild." Ms. Leach dispels what she calls "The Carroll Myth," saying Dodgson's love for children has been grossly distorted. She claims he had numerous affairs with women, believing it's these romantic entanglements, including some with married women, that were cut from his journals in order to keep with traditional Victorian values. Ms. Leach's book remains a hot debate amongst literary scholars, with Dodgson's reputation hanging in the balance.

Whatever one believes about the man, there's no denying the creativity and boundless imagination of his work. Mr. Dodgson conceived some of Literature's most memorable characters and scenes, with modern audiences finding new meanings and interpretations with each reading.

It's doubtful Dodgson intentionally constructed such a subjective story, allowing its symbols and situations to comment on such topics as education, drug abuse, and sexuality. More than likely, he was simply employing his immense gifts as a writer and logician to amuse children. And the tale is distinctly personal, with most every character representing someone in Dodgson's life or times. Although he vehemently denied Alice was based on any living person, Dodgson did depict himself as the Dodo in Chapters Two and Three, while Lorina Liddell appears as the Lory, Edith Liddell is the Eaglet, and Alice, of course, plays Alice.

I had a bit of trouble getting into the book at first, but it was worth the effort. The Cheshire Cat's arrival really got things rolling, and the Mad Hatter's tea party with the March Hare and Dormouse is a spectacular achievement. I'd like to hang out with those dudes. And at about 140 pages, it's a quick read. So give it a whirl.

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