Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Summary | Chapter 1 Summary

The story begins with Alice sitting by her sister on the bank of a lake. Bored with the looking at her sister's book because it has no pictures, she grows sleepy. At that moment, a white rabbit dashes by, consulting his pocket watch and fretting about being late. At the time she sees nothing strange about this, but because she has never before seen a rabbit wearing a coat and carrying a watch, she immediately jumps up and follows him down a deep rabbit hole. Soon Alice is falling down what seems to be a bottomless pit.

It appears that "the well was very deep or she fell very slowly." So Alice has time, while falling, to study the sides of the well. These contain shelves with books, maps and various edibles that tempt her, but a jar marked "Orange Marmalade" turns out to be empty. She returns it carefully to a different shelf, so as to not drop it on anyone below. To pass the time and keep herself calm, Alice begins talking to herself, thinking how brave everyone will think her at home once they've heard of her adventure.

Alice also tries to cope with the bizarre situation by reasoning. Assuming that she's getting close to the center of the earth, she calculates how far she must have fallen, and even tries to determine her latitude and longitude, in spite of not knowing what these words actually mean. Yet since no one is there to appreciate her learning, or correct her mistakes, she just continues to wonder about her fate in a rambling, nonsensical way. What country will she encounter on the other side of the earth, and will they be walking upside down, she asks herself. How will she manage to curtsy while flying through the air, and how will she ask the name of the country without looking stupid?

To comfort herself, she reminisces about her home and her cat, Dinah, whom she wishes was with her. Could her pet manage to catch a bat in the air, she muses. "Do cats eat bats," she asks, and alternately, "Do bats eat cats?" Yet since she can't answer either question, the narrator points out, it's irrelevant which way around she asks it.

Alice's fall comes to an abrupt stop when she lands on a pile of dry leaves. Unhurt, she follows the rabbit into a long corridor. She finds herself alone in a well-lit hall full of locked doors on all sides, with no way out. A moment of anxiety is relieved when she finds a little golden key on a glass table; unfortunately this key fails to fit any of the doors. Yet when she looks a second time, she discovers a tiny door has appeared, the one for which the key is made. The door opens to reveal the loveliest garden she has ever seen, which she yearns to stroll around in. Sadly however, she is much too large to fit through the door. Wishing she could shut herself up like a telescope, Alice wanders around in search of a way to shrink herself down.

Sure enough, on the glass table appears a small bottle that says, "Drink Me." Having been taught not to consume just any unknown substance, Alice wisely checks the bottle for any labels marked 'poison.' Finding no such warning, she polishes off the liquid, noting that it tastes of many incompatible things, including custard, roast turkey, toffee, and buttered toast. And soon she is indeed shutting up like a telescope, until her height is just ten inches tall.

Her joy at being able to walk through the garden door is cut short as soon as she recalls that she'd left the key on the table, which is now far too high for her to reach. She sits down to cry for a long time, until finally she begins to scold herself for weeping and orders herself to stop immediately. (The narrator points out that Alice has a habit of talking with herself as if she were two people, even going to far as to hurt her own feelings at times. Alice takes her own advice and stops crying, whereupon she notices a tiny cake under the table that bears the provocative invitation, "Eat me." Alice nibbles the cake expectantly. When nothing happens right away, she devours it completely.