On July 4, 1862, Charles Dodgson, a mathematician from Oxford, went on a boat trip up the Thames with his friend, Reverend Robinson Duckworth, Alice Liddell, and her two sisters, the daughters of the dean of Christ Church.

To entertain the girls, Dodgson began a fantastical tale about a young girl and her adventures in a world of make-believe.

There had been similar trips before, with similar tales soon forgotten. But on this occasion, the middle sister, 10-year-old Alice Liddell, insisted that Dodgson write it all down. 

The next day, he began writing the story that he would give to Alice as a Christmas gift in November 1864.

A year later, the book was published by Macmillan under his pseudonym Lewis Carroll and with illustrations by John Tenniel. 

Academics have struggled to explain why Alice became popular and made waves in children's literature. 

How does a world with a disappearing cat, crazy queen, and smoking caterpillar capture and hold readers' imaginations, young and old, from then to now? 

At the time, Carroll's books broke the rules in unprecedented new ways. They departed from prior children's literature, which served as strict moral compasses in Western puritanical society. 

Before 1865, the year Alice went to press, children did not read books with stammering rabbits or curious girls who were unafraid to speak their minds. Carroll's peculiar creations twist logic and language but still make sense.

By Carroll's death at 65 in 1898, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its 1871 sequel, Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, were among the century's most popular children's books.

By the early 1930s, they had inspired suffragettes, artistic endeavors, and movies, and they continue to do so now.

Alice in Wonderland changed literature forever by not trying to teach kids, just to entertain them.