Alice in Wonderland is a classic piece in children’s lirature. It has been translated in so many different languages and has so many different version that Morton N. Cohen says it’s only second to the bible. There are many different rumors as to how Alice in Wonderland was created (the most popular being that Lewis Carroll was on an ecstasy trip; which I have seen no evidence of thus far). You would think that Lewis Carroll must have spent half of his life creating the fantastical world of Alice, would it surprise you that Lewis Carroll actually made the story up in only half a day! Lewis Carroll, better known as Charles L. Dodgson to his friends, was doing a favor for a fellow colleague by taking his three daughters and a friend on a boat trip in 1862. This afternoon is often referred to as the “golden afternoon” because it was at this time that all of the little girls started to get bored and fidgety on the boat and it was at this moment that Dodgson decided to tell a tale to the girls to come them down. You see, even though Dodgson was the very image of a boring man (he was a mathematician and was very shy, no one would think he held an ounce of creativity), he already had the experience of story telling off the top of his head. Dodgson was the eldest son of ten children and the responsibility of caring for and entertaining the children was often left to him. And thus, the story of Alice began, on that very boat trip. Dodgson uses many names that are familiar to him and the three girls, for example, his favorite of the three was Alice Liddell, which is why he named the main character Alice; his friend on the boat was named Robinson Duckworth and acted as the inspiration for the duck in the book; and lastly, Cheshire was a town he was fond of which inspired the Cheshire Cat. Dodgson himself said that the book would have never been written if it were not for Alice Liddell who upon hearing the story was very fascinated and harassed Dodgson for weeks until he agreed to make a paper copy for her so she could read it whenever she wanted. It took a couple of years, but Dodgson finally wrote one single copy of the tale. The book was displayed in Alice Liddell’s father’s office who was the dean of the school at that time and had many visitors. All of the visitors would sit to read the Alice book as soon as the saw it and became fascinated with it, eventually urging Dodgson to write an official copy and get it published.