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Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (commonly shortened to Alice in Wonderland) is an 1865 novel written by English author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll. It tells of a girl named Alice who falls down a rabbit hole into a fantasy world populated by peculiar, anthropomorphic creatures. The tale plays with logic, giving the story lasting popularity with adults as well as children. It is considered to be one of the best examples of the literary nonsense genre, and its narrative course and structure, characters and imagery have been enormously influential in both popular culture and literature, especially in the fantasy genre.

Alice was published in 1865, three years after the Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson and the Reverend Robinson Duckworth rowed in a boat, on 4 July 1862, up the Isis with the three young daughters of Henry Liddell (the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University and Dean of Christ Church): Lorina Charlotte Liddell (aged 13, born 1849) ("Prima" in the book's prefatory verse); Alice Pleasance Liddell (aged 10, born 1852) ("Secunda" in the prefatory verse); Edith Mary Liddell (aged 8, born 1853) ("Tertia" in the prefatory verse).
The journey began at Folly Bridge near Oxford and ended five miles away in the village of Godstow. During the trip the Reverend Dodgson told the girls a story that featured a bored little girl named Alice who goes looking for an adventure. The girls loved it, and Alice Liddell asked Dodgson to write it down for her. He began writing the manuscript of the story the next day, although that earliest version no longer exists. The girls and Dodgson took another boat trip a month later when he elaborated the plot to the story of Alice, and in November he began working on the manuscript in earnest.
To add the finishing touches he researched natural history for the animals presented in the book, and then had the book examined by other children—particularly the children of George MacDonald. He added his own illustrations but approached John Tenniel to illustrate the book for publication, telling him that the story had been well liked by children.
On 26 November 1864 he gave Alice the handwritten manuscript of Alice's Adventures Under Ground, with illustrations by Dodgson himself, dedicating it as "A Christmas Gift to a Dear Child in Memory of a Summer's Day". Some, including Martin Gardner, speculate there was an earlier version that was destroyed later by Dodgson when he wrote a more elaborate copy by hand.
But before Alice received her copy, Dodgson was already preparing it for publication and expanding the 15,500-word original to 27,500 words, most notably adding the episodes about the Cheshire Cat and the Mad Tea-Party.

Chapter 1 – Down the Rabbit Hole: Alice is feeling bored while sitting on the riverbank with her sister, when she notices a talking, clothed White Rabbit with a pocket watch run past. She follows it down a rabbit hole when suddenly she falls a long way to a curious hall with many locked doors of all sizes. She finds a small key to a door too small for her to fit through, but through it she sees an attractive garden. She then discovers a bottle on a table labelled "DRINK ME", the contents of which cause her to shrink too small to reach the key which she has left on the table. A cake with "EAT ME" on it causes her to grow to such a tremendous size her head hits the ceiling.
Chapter 2 – The Pool of Tears: Alice is unhappy and cries as her tears flood the hallway. After shrinking down again due to a fan she had picked up, Alice swims through her own tears and meets a Mouse, who is swimming as well. She tries to make small talk with him in elementary French (thinking he may be a French mouse) but her opening gambit "Où est ma chatte?" (that is "Where is my cat?") offends the mouse.
Chapter 3 – The Caucus Race and a Long Tale: The sea of tears becomes crowded with other animals and birds that have been swept away by the rising waters. Alice and the other animals convene on the bank and the question among them is how to get dry again. The Mouse gives them a very dry lecture on William the Conqueror. A Dodo decides that the best thing to dry them off would be a Caucus-Race, which consists of everyone running in a circle with no clear winner. Alice eventually frightens all the animals away, unwittingly, by talking about her (moderately ferocious) cat.
Chapter 4 – The Rabbit Sends a Little Bill: The White Rabbit appears again in search of the Duchess's gloves and fan. Mistaking her for his maidservant, Mary Ann, he orders Alice to go into the house and retrieve them, but once she gets inside she starts growing. The horrified Rabbit orders his gardener, Bill the Lizard, to climb on the roof and go down the chimney. Outside, Alice hears the voices of animals that have gathered to gawk at her giant arm. The crowd hurls pebbles at her, which turn into little cakes. Alice eats them, and they reduce her again in size.
Chapter 5 – Advice from a Caterpillar: Alice comes upon a mushroom and sitting on it is a blue Caterpillar smoking a hookah. The Caterpillar questions Alice and she admits to her current identity crisis, compounded by her inability to remember a poem. Before crawling away, the caterpillar tells Alice that one side of the mushroom will make her taller and the other side will make her shorter. She breaks off two pieces from the mushroom. One side makes her shrink smaller than ever, while another causes her neck to grow high into the trees, where a pigeon mistakes her for a serpent. With some effort, Alice brings herself back to her usual height. She stumbles upon a small estate and uses the mushroom to reach a more appropriate height.

Chapter 6 – Pig and Pepper: A Fish-Footman has an invitation for the Duchess of the house, which he delivers to a Frog-Footman. Alice observes this transaction and, after a perplexing conversation with the frog, lets herself into the house. The Duchess's Cook is throwing dishes and making a soup that has too much pepper, which causes Alice, the Duchess, and her baby (but not the cook or grinning Cheshire Cat) to sneeze violently. Alice is given the baby by the Duchess and to her surprise, the baby turns into a pig. The Cheshire Cat appears in a tree, directing her to the March Hare's house. He disappears but his grin remains behind to float on its own in the air prompting Alice to remark that she has often seen a cat without a grin but never a grin without a cat.
Chapter 7 – A Mad Tea-Party: Alice becomes a guest at a "mad" tea party along with the March Hare, the Hatter, and a very tired Dormouse who falls asleep frequently, only to be violently woken up moments later by the March Hare and the Hatter. The characters give Alice many riddles and stories, including the famous 'Why is a raven like a writing desk?'. The Hatter reveals that they have tea all day because Time has punished him by eternally standing still at 6 pm (tea time). Alice becomes insulted and tired of being bombarded with riddles and she leaves claiming that it was the stupidest tea party that she had ever been to.

Chapter 8 – The Queen's Croquet Ground: Alice leaves the tea party and enters the garden where she comes upon three living playing cards painting the white roses on a rose tree red because The Queen of Hearts hates white roses. A procession of more cards, kings and queens and even the White Rabbit enters the garden. Alice then meets the King and Queen. The Queen, a figure difficult to please, introduces her trademark phrase "Off with his head!" which she utters at the slightest dissatisfaction with a subject. Alice is invited (or some might say ordered) to play a game of croquet with the Queen and the rest of her subjects but the game quickly descends into chaos. Live flamingos are used as mallets and hedgehogs as balls and Alice once again meets the Cheshire Cat. The Queen of Hearts then orders the Cat to be beheaded, only to have her executioner complain that this is impossible since the head is all that can be seen of him. Because the cat belongs to the Duchess, the Queen is prompted to release the Duchess from prison to resolve the matter.
Chapter 9 – The Mock Turtle's Story: The Duchess is brought to the croquet ground at Alice's request. She ruminates on finding morals in everything around her. The Queen of Hearts dismisses her on the threat of execution and she introduces Alice to the Gryphon, who takes her to the Mock Turtle. The Mock Turtle is very sad, even though he has no sorrow. He tries to tell his story about how he used to be a real turtle in school, which the Gryphon interrupts so they can play a game.
Chapter 10 – Lobster Quadrille: The Mock Turtle and the Gryphon dance to the Lobster Quadrille, while Alice recites (rather incorrectly) "'Tis the Voice of the Lobster". The Mock Turtle sings them "Beautiful Soup" during which the Gryphon drags Alice away for an impending trial.
Chapter 11 – Who Stole the Tarts?: Alice attends a trial whereby the Knave of Hearts is accused of stealing the Queen's tarts. The jury is composed of various animals, including Bill the Lizard, the White Rabbit is the court's trumpeter, and the judge is the King of Hearts. During the proceedings, Alice finds that she is steadily growing larger. The dormouse scolds Alice and tells her she has no right to grow at such a rapid pace and take up all the air. Alice scoffs and calls the dormouse's accusation ridiculous because everyone grows and she cannot help it. Meanwhile, witnesses at the trial include the Hatter, who displeases and frustrates the King through his indirect answers to the questioning, and the Duchess's cook.
Chapter 12 – Alice's Evidence: Alice is then called up as a witness. She accidentally knocks over the jury box with the animals inside them and the King orders the animals be placed back into their seats before the trial continues. The King and Queen order Alice to be gone, citing Rule 42 ("All persons more than a mile high to leave the court"), but Alice disputes their judgement and refuses to leave. She argues with the King and Queen of Hearts over the ridiculous proceedings, eventually refusing to hold her tongue. The Queen shouts her familiar "Off with her head!" but Alice is unafraid, calling them out as just a pack of cards; just as they start to swarm over her. Alice's sister wakes her up for tea, brushing what turns out to be some leaves and not a shower of playing cards from Alice's face. Alice leaves her sister on the bank to imagine all the curious happenings for herself.

The following is a list of main characters in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
Alice
The White Rabbit
The Mouse
The Dodo
The Lory
The Eaglet
The Duck
Pat
Bill the Lizard
The Caterpillar
The Duchess
The Cheshire Cat
The March Hare
The Hatter
The Dormouse
The Queen of Hearts
The Knave of Hearts
The King of Hearts
The Gryphon
The Mock Turtle

In The Annotated Alice, Martin Gardner provides background information for the characters. The members of the boating party that first heard Carroll's tale show up in Chapter 3 ("A Caucus-Race and a Long Tale"). Alice Liddell herself is there, while Carroll is caricatured as the Dodo (because Dodgson stuttered when he spoke, he sometimes pronounced his last name as Dodo-Dodgson). The Duck refers to Canon Duckworth, and the Lory and Eaglet to Alice Liddell's sisters Lorina and Edith.
Bill the Lizard may be a play on the name of British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli. One of Tenniel's illustrations in Through the Looking-Glass — the 1871 sequel to Alice — depicts the character referred to as the "Man in White Paper" (whom Alice meets as a fellow passenger riding on the train with her) as a caricature of Disraeli, wearing a paper hat. The illustrations of the Lion and the Unicorn (also in Looking-Glass) also bear a striking resemblance to Tenniel's Punch illustrations of Gladstone and Disraeli.
The Hatter is most likely a reference to Theophilus Carter, a furniture dealer known in Oxford for his unorthodox inventions. Tenniel apparently drew the Hatter to resemble Carter, on a suggestion of Carroll's. The Dormouse tells a story about three little sisters named Elsie, Lacie, and Tillie. These are the Liddell sisters: Elsie is L.C. (Lorina Charlotte), Tillie is Edith (her family nickname is Matilda), and Lacie is an anagram of Alice.
The Mock Turtle speaks of a Drawling-master, "an old conger eel", who came once a week to teach "Drawling, Stretching, and Fainting in Coils". This is a reference to the art critic John Ruskin, who came once a week to the Liddell house to teach the children drawing, sketching, and painting in oils. (The children did, in fact, learn well; Alice Liddell, for one, produced a number of skillful watercolours.)
The Mock Turtle also sings "Turtle Soup". This is a parody of a song called "Star of the Evening, Beautiful Star", which was performed as a trio by Lorina, Alice and Edith Liddell for Lewis Carroll in the Liddell home during the same summer in which he first told the story of Alice's Adventures Under Ground.

Carroll wrote multiple poems and songs for Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, including:
"All in the golden afternoon..."—the prefatory verse, an original poem by Carroll that recalls the rowing expedition on which he first told the story of Alice's adventures underground
"How Doth the Little Crocodile"—a parody of Isaac Watts' nursery rhyme, "Against Idleness and Mischief"
"The Mouse's Tale"—an example of concrete poetry
"You Are Old, Father William"—a parody of Robert Southey's "The Old Man's Comforts and How He Gained Them"
The Duchess's lullaby, "Speak roughly to your little boy..."—a parody of David Bates' "Speak Gently"
"Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Bat"—a parody of Jane Taylor's "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star"
"The Lobster Quadrille"—a parody of Mary Botham Howitt's "The Spider and the Fly"
"'Tis the Voice of the Lobster"—a parody of Isaac Watts' "The Sluggard"
"Beautiful Soup"—a parody of James M. Sayles's "Star of the Evening, Beautiful Star"
"The Queen of Hearts"—an actual nursery rhyme
"They told me you had been to her..."—the White Rabbit's evidence

Most of the book's adventures may have been based on and influenced by people, situations and buildings in Oxford and at Christ Church, e.g., the "Rabbit Hole," which symbolized the actual stairs in the back of the main hall in Christ Church. A carving of a griffon and rabbit, as seen in Ripon Cathedral, where Carroll's father was a canon, may have provided inspiration for the tale.
Since Carroll was a mathematician at Christ Church, it has been suggested that there are many references and mathematical concepts in both this story and Through the Looking-Glass; examples include:
In chapter 1, "Down the Rabbit-Hole", in the midst of shrinking, Alice waxes philosophic concerning what final size she will end up as, perhaps "going out altogether, like a candle"; this pondering reflects the concept of a limit.
In chapter 2, "The Pool of Tears", Alice tries to perform multiplication but produces some odd results: "Let me see: four times five is twelve, and four times six is thirteen, and four times seven is—oh dear! I shall never get to twenty at that rate!" This explores the representation of numbers using different bases and positional numeral systems: 4 × 5 = 12 in base 18 notation, 4 × 6 = 13 in base 21 notation, and 4 × 7 could be 14 in base 24 notation. Continuing this sequence, going up three bases each time, the result will continue to be less than 20 in the corresponding base notation. (After 19 the product would be 1A, then 1B, 1C, 1D, and so on.)
In chapter 7, "A Mad Tea-Party", the March Hare, the Hatter, and the Dormouse give several examples in which the semantic value of a sentence A is not the same value of the converse of A (for example, "Why, you might just as well say that 'I see what I eat' is the same thing as 'I eat what I see'!"); in logic and mathematics, this is discussing an inverse relationship.
Also in chapter 7, Alice ponders what it means when the changing of seats around the circular table places them back at the beginning. This is an observation of addition on the ring of integers modulo N.
The Cheshire cat fades until it disappears entirely, leaving only its wide grin, suspended in the air, leading Alice to marvel and note that she has seen a cat without a grin, but never a grin without a cat. Deep abstraction of concepts, such as non-Euclidean geometry, abstract algebra, and the beginnings of mathematical logic, was taking over mathematics at the time Dodgson was writing. Dodgson's delineation of the relationship between cat and grin can be taken to represent the very concept of mathematics and number itself. For example, instead of considering two or three apples, one may easily consider the concept of 'apple', upon which the concepts of 'two' and 'three' may seem to depend. A far more sophisticated jump is to consider the concepts of 'two' and 'three' by themselves, just like a grin, originally seemingly dependent on the cat, separated conceptually from its physical object.
Mathematician Melanie Bayley asserted in the magazine of The New Scientist that Dodgson wrote Alice in Wonderland in its final form as a scathing satire on new modern mathematics that were emerging in the mid-19th century.
It has been suggested by several people, including Martin Gardner and Selwyn Goodacre, that Dodgson had an interest in the French language, choosing to make references and puns about it in the story. It is most likely that these are references to French lessons—a common feature of a Victorian middle-class girl's upbringing. For example, in the second chapter Alice posits that the mouse may be French. She therefore chooses to speak the first sentence of her French lesson-book to it: "Où est ma chatte?" ("Where is my cat?"). In Henri Bué's French translation, Alice posits that the mouse may be Italian and speaks Italian to it.
Pat's "Digging for apples" could be a cross-language pun, as pomme de terre (literally; "apple of the earth") means potato and pomme means apple, which little English girls studying French would easily guess.
In the second chapter, Alice initially addresses the mouse as "O Mouse", based on her memory of the noun declensions "in her brother's Latin Grammar, 'A mouse — of a mouse — to a mouse — a mouse — O mouse!'" These words correspond to the first five of Latin's six cases, in a traditional order established by medieval grammarians: mus (nominative), muris (genitive), muri (dative), murem (accusative), (O) mus (vocative). The sixth case, mure (ablative) is absent from Alice's recitation.
In the eighth chapter, three cards are painting the roses on a rose tree red, because they had accidentally planted a white-rose tree that The Queen of Hearts hates. Red roses symbolized the English House of Lancaster, while white roses were the symbol for their rival House of York. This scene is an allusion to the Wars of the Roses.

The book Alice in Wonderland failed to be named in an 1888 poll of the most popular children’s stories. Generally it received poor reviews with reviewers giving more credit to Tenniel's illustrations than to Carroll’s story. At the release of Through the Looking-Glass, the first Alice tale gained in popularity and by the end of the 19th century Sir Walter Besant wrote that Alice in Wonderland "was a book of that extremely rare kind which will belong to all the generations to come until the language becomes obsolete".

In 1865, Dodgson's tale was published as Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by "Lewis Carroll" with illustrations by John Tenniel. The first print run of 2,000 was held back because Tenniel objected to the print quality. A new edition, released in December of the same year, but carrying an 1866 date, was quickly printed. As it turned out, the original edition was sold with Dodgson's permission to the New York publishing house of Appleton. The binding for the Appleton Alice was virtually identical to the 1866 Macmillan Alice, except for the publisher's name at the foot of the spine. The title page of the Appleton Alice was an insert cancelling the original Macmillan title page of 1865, and bearing the New York publisher's imprint and the date 1866.
The entire print run sold out quickly. Alice was a publishing sensation, beloved by children and adults alike. Among its first avid readers were Queen Victoria and the young Oscar Wilde. The book has never been out of print. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland has been translated into at least 97 languages. There have now been over a hundred editions of the book, as well as countless adaptations in other media, especially theatre and film.
The book is commonly referred to by the abbreviated title Alice in Wonderland, an alternative title popularized by the numerous stage, film and television adaptations of the story produced over the years. Some printings of this title contain both Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There.

Publication timeline
The following list is a timeline of major publication events related to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland:

1865: First UK edition (the second printing).
1865: First US edition (the first printing of above).
1869: Alice's Abenteuer im Wunderland is published in German translation by Antonie Zimmermann.
1869: Aventures d'Alice au pays des merveilles is published in French translation by Henri Bué.
1870: Alice's Äfventyr i Sagolandet is published in Swedish translation by Emily Nonnen.
1871: Dodgson meets another Alice during his time in London, Alice Raikes, and talks with her about her reflection in a mirror, leading to another book Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, which sells even better.
1872: Le Avventure di Alice nel Paese delle Meraviglie is published in Italian translation by Teodorico Pietrocòla Rossetti.
1882: Selchow & Righter publishes The Game of Alice in Wonderland, the first game based on the book.
1886: Carroll publishes a facsimile of the earlier Alice's Adventures Under Ground manuscript.
1890: Carroll publishes The Nursery "Alice", a special edition "to be read by Children aged from Nought to Five".
1905: Mrs J. C. Gorham publishes Alice's Adventures in Wonderland retold in words of one syllable in a series of such books published by A. L. Burt Company, aimed at young readers.
1906: First translation into Finnish by Anni Swan (Liisan seikkailut ihmemaailmassa).
1907: Copyright on Alice's Adventures in Wonderland expires in UK, and so the tale enters the public domain. At least 8 new editions are published in that year alone.
1916: Publication of the first edition of the Windermere Series, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Illustrated by Milo Winter.
1928: The manuscript of Alice's Adventures Under Ground that Carroll wrote and illustrated and that he had given to Alice Liddell was sold at Sotheby's on April 3. It sold to Philip Rosenbach for ₤15,400, a world record for the sale of a manuscript at the time.
1960: American writer Martin Gardner publishes a special edition, The Annotated Alice, incorporating the text of both Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. It has extensive annotations explaining the hidden allusions in the books, and includes full texts of the Victorian era poems parodied in them. Later editions expand on these annotations.
1961: The Folio Society publication with 42 illustrations by John Tenniel.
1998: Lewis Carroll's own copy of Alice, one of only six surviving copies of the 1865 first edition, is sold at an auction for US$1.54 million to an anonymous American buyer, becoming the most expensive children's book (or 19th-century work of literature) ever sold, up to that time.
2008: Folio Alice's Adventures Under Ground facsimile edition (limited to 3,750 copies, boxed with The Original Alice pamphlet).
2009: Children’s book collector and former American football player Pat McInally reportedly sold Alice Liddell’s own copy at auction for $115,000

Cinema and television
Main article: Films and television programmes based on Alice in Wonderland

Alice in the trailer for Disney's animated version
The book has inspired numerous film and television adaptations. The following list is of direct adaptations of Adventures in Wonderland (sometimes merging it with Through the Looking-Glass), not other sequels or works otherwise inspired by the works (such as Tim Burton's 2010 film Alice in Wonderland):
Alice in Wonderland (1903 film), silent film, directed by Cecil Hepworth and Percy Stow, with May Clark as Alice, UK
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1910 film), silent film, directed by Edwin Stanton Porter
Alice in Wonderland (1915 film), silent film, directed by W. W. Young
Alice in Wonderland (1931 film), talkie, directed by Bud Pollard
Alice in Wonderland (1933 film), directed by Norman Z. McLeod, US
Alice in Wonderland (1937 TV program), directed by George More O'Ferrall
Alice (1946 TV program), on BBC, starring Vivian Pickles directed by George More O'Ferrall, UK
Alice in Wonderland (1949 film), live-action/stop motion film, animation directed by Dallas Bower
Alice in Wonderland (1951 film), traditional animation, Walt Disney Animation Studios, US
Alice in Wonderland (1955 TV program), a live television adaptation of the 1932 Broadway version of the novel, co-written by Eva LeGallienne and directed by George Schaefer for the Hallmark Hall of Fame
Alice in Wonderland (1965), TV movie directed by Dennis Potter
Alice in Wonderland, 1966 animated Hanna-Barbera TV movie, with Janet Waldo as Alice
Alice in Wonderland (1966 television film), BBC television play directed by Jonathan Miller, UK
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1972 film) starring Fiona Fullerton as Alice
Alice in Wonderland (1976), Porn-musical von Bud Townsend
Alice in Wonderland (1983 television film), PBS Great Performances presentation of a 1982 stage play which was in turn a revival of the 1932 LeGalienne/Schaefer production
Alice in Wonderland (1985) is a two-part film adaptation of Lewis Carroll's Alice books. An Irwin Allen production, it was a special made for television and used a huge all-star cast of notable actors and actresses.
Alice in Wonderland (1986 TV program), BBC, directed by Barry Letts and starring Kate Dorning
Alice (1988 film) by Jan Švankmajer, stop motion and live action
Alice in Wonderland, a 1999 television movie first shown on NBC and then shown on British television on Channel 4
"Alice's Adventures in Wonderland the 150th Anniversary Animated Edition (2012 film)," produced by Walrus and Carpenter Productions, is a narrated and animated telling of the complete "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" that is optimized to play on tablet devices.
Comic books
The book has also inspired numerous comic book adaptations:
Walt Disney's Alice in Wonderland (Dell Comics, 1951)
Walt Disney's Alice in Wonderland (Gold Key Comics, 1965)
Walt Disney's Alice in Wonderland (Whitman, 1984)
"The Complete Alice in Wonderland" (Dynamite Entertainment, 2005)
Live performance
With the immediate popularity of the book, it did not take long for live performances to begin. One early example is Alice in Wonderland, a musical play by H. Saville Clark (book) and Walter Slaughter (music), which played in 1886 at the Prince of Wales Theatre in London.
As the book and its sequel are Carroll's most widely recognized works, they have also inspired numerous live performances, including plays, operas, ballets, and traditional English pantomimes. These works range from fairly faithful adaptations to those that use the story as a basis for new works. An example of the latter is The Eighth Square, a murder mystery set in Wonderland, written by Matthew Fleming and music and lyrics by Ben J. Macpherson. This goth-toned rock musical premiered in 2006 at the New Theatre Royal in Portsmouth, England. The TA Fantastika, a popular Black light theatre in Prague performs "Aspects of Alice"; written and directed by Petr Kratochvíl. This adaptation is not faithful to the books, but rather explores Alice's journey into adulthood while incorporating allusions to the history of Czech Republic.
Over the years, many notable people in the performing arts have been involved in Alice productions. Actress Eva Le Gallienne famously adapted both Alice books for the stage in 1932; this production has been revived in New York in 1947 and 1982. One of the most well-known American productions was Joseph Papp's 1980 staging of Alice in Concert at the Public Theater in New York City. Elizabeth Swados wrote the book, lyrics, and music. Based on both Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, Papp and Swados had previously produced a version of it at the New York Shakespeare Festival. Meryl Streep played Alice, the White Queen, and Humpty Dumpty. The cast also included Debbie Allen, Michael Jeter, and Mark Linn-Baker. Performed on a bare stage with the actors in modern dress, the play is a loose adaptation, with song styles ranging the globe.
Similarly, the 1992 operatic production Alice used both Alice books as its inspiration. It also employs scenes with Charles Dodgson, a young Alice Liddell, and an adult Alice Liddell, to frame the story. Paul Schmidt wrote the play, with Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan writing the music. Although the original production in Hamburg, Germany, received only a small audience, Tom Waits released the songs as the album Alice in 2002.
In 2011 a play by Christopher Wheeldon and Nicholas Wright  were commissioned for The Royal Ballet entitled "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" which premiered February 28 of the year. The ballet was based on the novel written by Lewis Carroll in which Wheeldon grew up reading as a child. The ballet stays generally faithful to the original story written by Carroll, and had some critics claiming maybe too faithful. The ballet overall stays generally light hearted for its running of an hour and forty minutes. "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" ballet played at the Royal Opera House in London until March 15, 2011, and it will be returning again March 17, 2012 through April 16, 2012.
Works influenced

Alice and the rest of Wonderland continue to inspire or influence many other works of art to this day, sometimes indirectly via the Disney movie, for example. The character of the plucky, yet proper, Alice has proven immensely popular and inspired similar heroines in literature and pop culture, many also named Alice in homage.

The Picture of Dorian Gray is the only published novel by Oscar Wilde, appearing as the lead story in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine on 20 June 1890, printed as the July 1890 issue of this magazine. The magazine's editors feared the story was indecent as submitted, so they censored roughly 500 words, without Wilde's knowledge, before publication. But even with that, the story was still greeted with outrage by British reviewers, some of whom suggested that Wilde should be prosecuted on moral grounds, leading Wilde to defend the novel aggressively in letters to the British press. Wilde later revised the story for book publication, making substantial alterations, deleting controversial passages, adding new chapters and including an aphoristic Preface which has since become famous in its own right. The amended version was published by Ward, Lock and Company in April 1891. Some scholars believe that Wilde would today have wanted us to read the version he originally submitted to Lippincott's.
The novel tells of a young man named Dorian Gray, the subject of a painting by artist Basil Hallward. Basil is impressed by Dorian's beauty and becomes infatuated with him, believing his beauty is responsible for a new mode in his art. Dorian meets Lord Henry Wotton, a friend of Basil's, and becomes enthralled by Lord Henry's world view. Espousing a new hedonism, Lord Henry suggests the only things worth pursuing in life are beauty and fulfilment of the senses. Realizing that one day his beauty will fade, Dorian (whimsically) expresses a desire to sell his soul to ensure the portrait Basil has painted would age rather than he. Dorian's wish is fulfilled, and when he subsequently pursues a life of debauchery, the portrait serves as a reminder of the effect each act has upon his soul, with each sin displayed as a disfigurement of his form, or through a sign of aging.
The Picture of Dorian Gray is considered a work of classic Gothic fiction with a strong Faustian theme.

The novel begins on a beautiful summer day with Lord Henry Wotton, a strongly-opinionated man, observing the sensitive artist Basil Hallward painting the portrait of a handsome young man named Dorian Gray, who is Basil's ultimate muse. After hearing Lord Henry's world view, Dorian begins to think beauty is the only worthwhile aspect of life. He wishes that the portrait Basil painted would grow old in his place. Under the influence of Lord Henry (who relishes the hedonic lifestyle and is a major exponent thereof), Dorian begins to explore his senses. He discovers amazing actress Sibyl Vane, who performs Shakespeare plays in a dingy theatre. Dorian approaches her and soon proposes marriage. Sibyl, who refers to him as "Prince Charming", swoons with happiness, but her protective brother James tells her that if "Prince Charming" harms her, he will certainly kill him.
Dorian invites Basil and Lord Henry to see Sibyl perform in Romeo and Juliet. Sibyl, whose only knowledge of love was love of theatre, casts aside her acting abilities through the experience of true love with Dorian. Disheartened, Dorian rejects her, saying her beauty was in her acting, and he is no longer interested in her. When he returns home, he notices that his portrait has changed. Dorian realizes his wish has come true – the portrait now bears a subtle sneer and will age with each sin he commits, while his own appearance remains unchanged.
He decides to reconcile with Sibyl, but Lord Henry later informs him that she has killed herself by swallowing prussic acid. Dorian realizes that lust and looks are where his life is headed and he needs nothing else. Over the next 18 years, he experiments with every vice, mostly under the influence of a "poisonous" French decadence novel, a present from Lord Henry. The title is never revealed in the novel, but at Oscar Wilde's trial he admitted that he had 'had in mind' Joris-Karl Huysmans's À Rebours ('Against Nature').

One night, before he leaves for Paris, Basil arrives to question Dorian about rumours of his indulgences. Dorian does not deny his debauchery. He takes Basil to the portrait, which is as hideous as Dorian's sins. In anger, Dorian blames Basil for his fate and stabs Basil to death. He then blackmails an old friend named Alan Campbell, a chemist, into destroying Basil's body. Wishing to escape the guilt of his crime, Dorian travels to an opium den. James Vane is present there and attempts to shoot Dorian after he hears someone refer to Dorian as "Prince Charming". However, he is deceived when Dorian fools James into thinking he is too young to have been involved with Sibyl 18 years earlier. James releases Dorian but is approached by a woman from the opium den who chastises him for not killing Dorian, revealing Dorian has not aged for 18 years. James attempts to run after him, only to find Dorian long gone.
While at dinner, Dorian sees James stalking the grounds and fears for his life. However, during a game-shooting party a few days later, a lurking James is accidentally shot and killed by one of the hunters. After returning to London, Dorian tells Lord Henry that he will be good from now on, and has started by not breaking the heart of his latest innocent conquest named Hetty Merton. Dorian wonders if the portrait has begun to change back, now that he has given up his immoral ways. He unveils the portrait to find it has become worse. Seeing this, he realizes that the motives behind his "self-sacrifice" were merely vanity, curiosity, and the quest for new emotional experiences.
Deciding that only full confession will absolve him, he decides to destroy the last vestige of his conscience. In a rage, he picks up the knife that killed Basil Hallward and plunges it into the painting. His servants wake hearing a cry from inside the locked room, and passers by on the street fetch the police. The servants find Dorian's body, stabbed in the heart and suddenly aged, withered and horrible. It is only through the rings on his hand that the corpse can be identified. Beside him, however, the portrait has reverted to its original form.

Characters:
In a letter, Wilde said the main characters were reflections of himself: "Basil Hallward is what I think I am: Lord Henry is what the world thinks me: Dorian is what I would like to be—in other ages, perhaps".
The main characters are:
Dorian Gray – a handsome and narcissistic young man who becomes enthralled with Lord Henry's idea of a new hedonism. He begins to indulge in every kind of pleasure, moral and immoral, which eventually leads to his own societal demise.
Basil Hallward – an artist who becomes infatuated with Dorian. Dorian helps Hallward realize his artistic potential, as Basil's portrait of Dorian proves to be his finest work. A deeply moral man, he is later murdered by Gray.
Lord Henry "Harry" Wotton – an imperious and decadent dandy who is a friend to Basil initially, but later becomes more intrigued with Dorian's beauty. Extremely witty, he is seen as a critique of Victorian culture at the end of the century, espousing a view of indulgent hedonism. He conveys to Gray his world view, and Dorian becomes corrupted as he attempts to emulate him, though Basil points out to Harry that "You never say a moral thing, and you never do a wrong thing."
Other characters include:
Sibyl Vane – a beautiful and talented, but poor, actress and singer, with whom Dorian falls in love. Her love for him ruins her acting ability, as she no longer finds pleasure in portraying fictional love when she is experiencing love in reality. She commits suicide after learning that Dorian no longer loves her. Lord Henry likens her to Ophelia.
James Vane – Sibyl's brother, a sailor who leaves for Australia. He is extremely protective of his sister, especially as their mother cares only for Dorian's money. He is hesitant to leave his sister, believing Dorian will harm her and promises to take vengeance if any harm should befall his sister. After Sibyl's death he becomes obsessed with killing Dorian and begins to stalk him. He dies in a hunting accident. His pursuit of revenge against Dorian Gray for the death of his sister emulates the role of Laertes, Ophelia's brother in Hamlet.
Alan Campbell – a chemist and one-time friend of Dorian; he ended their friendship when Dorian's reputation began to come into question. Dorian blackmails him into disposing of Basil's body; Campbell later commits suicide.
Lord Fermor – Lord Henry's uncle, who informs his nephew about Dorian Gray's lineage.
Victoria, Lady Wotton – Lord Henry's wife, who only appears once in the novel. Her husband treats her with disdain; she later divorces him.

On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection; Or, The Preservation ...

-Included TOC for Reader.

-Included biography the author.

This is example in ebook ;

Present distribution cannot be accounted for by differences in physical conditions. Importance of barriers. Affinity of the productions of the same continent. Centres of creation. Means of dispersal, by changes of climate and of the level of the land, and by occasional means. Dispersal during the Glacial period co-extensive with the world.

In considering the distribution of organic beings over the face of the globe, the first great fact which strikes us is, that neither the similarity nor the dissimilarity of the inhabitants of various regions can be accounted for by their climatal and other physical conditions. Of late, almost every author who has studied the subject has come to this conclusion. The case of America alone would almost suffice to prove its truth: for if we exclude the northern parts where the circumpolar land is almost continuous, all authors agree that one of the most fundamental divisions in geographical distribution is that between the New and Old Worlds; yet if we travel over the vast American continent, from the central parts of the United States to its extreme southern point, we meet with the most diversified conditions; the most humid districts, arid deserts, lofty mountains, grassy plains, forests, marshes, lakes, and great rivers, under almost every temperature. There is hardly a climate or condition in the Old World which cannot be paralleled in the New—at least as closely as the same species generally require; for it is a most rare case to find a group of organisms confined to any small spot, having conditions peculiar in only a slight degree; for instance, small areas in the Old World could be pointed out hotter than any in the New World, yet these are not inhabited by a peculiar fauna or flora. Notwithstanding this parallelism in the conditions of the Old and New Worlds, how widely different are their living productions!

In the southern hemisphere, if we compare large tracts of land in Australia, South Africa, and western South America, between latitudes 25 deg and 35 deg, we shall find parts extremely similar in all their conditions, yet it would not be possible to point out three faunas and floras more utterly dissimilar. Or again we may compare the productions of South America south of lat. 35 deg with those north of 25 deg, which consequently inhabit a considerably different climate, and they will be found incomparably more closely related to each other, than they are to the productions of Australia or Africa under nearly the same climate. Analogous facts could be given with respect to the inhabitants of the sea.

The Art of War is an ancient Chinese military treatise attributed to Sun Tzu (also referred to as "Sun Wu" and "Sunzi"), a high-ranking military general, strategist and tactician, and it was believed to have been compiled during the late Spring and Autumn period or early Warring States period. The text is composed of 13 chapters, each of which is devoted to one aspect of warfare. It is commonly known to be the definitive work on military strategy and tactics of its time. It has been the most famous and influential of China's Seven Military Classics, and: "for the last two thousand years it remained the most important military treatise in Asia, where even the common people knew it by name." It has had an influence on Eastern and Western military thinking, business tactics, legal strategy and beyond.

This is a new and freshly published edition of this culturally important work by Jacob Grimm, which is now, at last, again available to you.

Get the PDF and EPUB NOW as well. Included in your purchase you have Grimm's Fairy Tales in EPUB AND PDF format to read on any tablet, eReader, desktop, laptop or smartphone simultaneous - Get it NOW.

Enjoy this classic work today. These selected paragraphs distill the contents and give you a quick look inside Grimm's Fairy Tales:

Look inside the book:

In the morning came the fox again and met him as he was beginning his journey, and said, 'Go straight forward, till you come to a castle, before which lie a whole troop of soldiers fast asleep and snoring: take no notice of them, but go into the castle and pass on and on till you come to a room, where the golden bird sits in a wooden cage; close by it stands a beautiful golden cage; but do not try to take the bird out of the shabby cage and put it into the handsome one, otherwise you will repent it.' ...Poor Sultan, who was lying close by them, heard all that the shepherd and his wife said to one another, and was very much frightened to think tomorrow would be his last day; so in the evening he went to his good friend the wolf, who lived in the wood, and told him all his sorrows, and how his master meant to kill him in the morning.

About Jacob Grimm, the Author:

The Scarlet Letter is an 1850 romantic work of fiction in a historical setting, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. It is considered to be his magnum opus. Set in 17th-century Puritan Boston, Massachusetts during the years 1642 to 1649, it tells the story of Hester Prynne, who conceives a daughter through an adulterous affair and struggles to create a new life of repentance and dignity. Throughout the book, Hawthorne explores themes of legalism, sin, and guilt.

In June 1642, in the Puritan town of Boston, a crowd gathers to witness an official punishment. A young woman, Hester Prynne, has been found guilty of adultery and must wear a scarlet A on her dress as a sign of shame. Furthermore, she must stand on the scaffold for three hours, exposed to public humiliation. As Hester approaches the scaffold, many of the women in the crowd are angered by her beauty and quiet dignity. When demanded and cajoled to name the father of her child, Hester refuses.
As Hester looks out over the crowd, she notices a small, misshapen man and recognizes him as her long-lost husband, who has been presumed lost at sea. When the husband sees Hester's shame, he asks a man in the crowd about her and is told the story of his wife's adultery. He angrily exclaims that the child's father, the partner in the adulterous act, should also be punished and vows to find the man. He chooses a new name — Roger Chillingworth — to aid him in his plan.
Reverend John Wilson and the minister of her church, Arthur Dimmesdale, question Hester, but she refuses to name her lover. After she returns to her prison cell, the jailer brings in Roger Chillingworth, a physician, to calm Hester and her child with his roots and herbs. Dismissing the jailer, Chillingworth first treats Pearl, Hester's baby, and then demands to know the name of the child's father. When Hester refuses, he insists that she never reveal that he is her husband. If she ever does so, he warns her, he will destroy the child's father. Hester agrees to Chillingworth's terms even though she suspects she will regret it.
Following her release from prison, Hester settles in a cottage at the edge of town and earns a meager living with her needlework. She lives a quiet, somber life with her daughter, Pearl. She is troubled by her daughter's unusual character. As an infant, Pearl is fascinated by the scarlet A. As she grows older, Pearl becomes capricious and unruly. Her conduct starts rumors, and, not surprisingly, the church members suggest Pearl be taken away from Hester.
Hester, hearing the rumors that she may lose Pearl, goes to speak to Governor Bellingham. With him are Reverends Wilson and Dimmesdale. When Wilson questions Pearl about her catechism, she refuses to answer, even though she knows the correct response, thus jeopardizing her guardianship. Hester appeals to Reverend Dimmesdale in desperation, and the minister persuades the governor to let Pearl remain in Hester's care.
Because Reverend Dimmesdale's health has begun to fail, the townspeople are happy to have Chillingworth, a newly arrived physician, take up lodgings with their beloved minister. Being in such close contact with Dimmesdale, Chillingworth begins to suspect that the minister's illness is the result of some unconfessed guilt. He applies psychological pressure to the minister because he suspects Dimmesdale to be Pearl's father. One evening, pulling the sleeping Dimmesdale's vestment aside, Chillingworth sees something startling on the sleeping minister's pale chest: a scarlet A.
Tormented by his guilty conscience, Dimmesdale goes to the square where Hester was punished years earlier. Climbing the scaffold, he sees Hester and Pearl and calls to them to join him. He admits his guilt to them but cannot find the courage to do so publicly. Suddenly Dimmesdale sees a meteor forming what appears to be a gigantic A in the sky; simultaneously, Pearl points toward the shadowy figure of Roger Chillingworth. Hester, shocked by Dimmesdale's deterioration, decides to obtain a release from her vow of silence to her husband. In her discussion of this with Chillingworth, she tells him his obsession with revenge must be stopped in order to save his own soul.
Several days later, Hester meets Dimmesdale in the forest, where she removes the scarlet letter from her dress and identifies her husband and his desire for revenge. In this conversation, she convinces Dimmesdale to leave Boston in secret on a ship to Europe where they can start life anew. Renewed by this plan, the minister seems to gain new energy. Pearl, however, refuses to acknowledge either of them until Hester replaces her symbol of shame on her dress.
Returning to town, Dimmesdale loses heart in their plan: He has become a changed man and knows he is dying. Meanwhile, Hester is informed by the captain of the ship on which she arranged passage that Roger Chillingworth will also be a passenger.
On Election Day, Dimmesdale gives what is declared to be one of his most inspired sermons. But as the procession leaves the church, Dimmesdale stumbles and almost falls. Seeing Hester and Pearl in the crowd watching the parade, he climbs upon the scaffold and confesses his sin, dying in Hester's arms. Later, witnesses swear that they saw a stigma in the form of a scarlet A upon his chest. Chillingworth, losing his revenge, dies shortly thereafter and leaves Pearl a great deal of money, enabling her to go to Europe with her mother and make a wealthy marriage.
Several years later, Hester returns to Boston, resumes wearing the scarlet letter, and becomes a person to whom other women turn for solace. When she dies, she is buried near the grave of Dimmesdale, and they share a simple slate tombstone with a scarlet A.

The experience of Hester and Dimmesdale recalls the story of Adam and Eve because, in both cases, sin results in expulsion and suffering. But it also results in knowledge—specifically, in knowledge of what it means to be immoral. For Hester, the scarlet letter functions as "her passport into regions where other women dared not tread", leading her to "speculate" about her society and herself more "boldly" than anyone else in New England.
As for Dimmesdale, the "cheating minister", his sin gives him "sympathies so intimate with the sinful brotherhood of mankind, so that his chest vibrate in unison with theirs." His eloquent and powerful sermons derive from this sense of empathy. The narrative of the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale is quite in keeping with the oldest and most fully authorized principles in Christian thought. His "Fall" is a descent from apparent grace to his own damnation; he appears to begin in purity but he ends in corruption. The subtlety is that the minister's belief is his own cheating, convincing himself at every stage of his spiritual pilgrimage that he is saved.
The rose bush, its beauty a striking contrast to all that surrounds it—as later the beautifully embroidered scarlet A will be–is held out in part as an invitation to find "some sweet moral blossom" in the ensuing, tragic tale and in part as an image that "the deep heart of nature" (perhaps God) may look more kind on the errant Hester and her child than her Puritan neighbors do. Throughout the work, the nature images contrast with the stark darkness of the Puritans and their systems.
Chillingworth's misshapen body reflects (or symbolizes) the anger in his soul, which builds as the novel progresses, similar to the way Dimmesdale's illness reveals his inner turmoil. The outward man reflects the condition of the heart; an observation thought to be inspired by the deterioration of Edgar Allan Poe, whom Hawthorne "much admired".
Although Pearl is a complex character, her primary function within the novel is as a symbol. Pearl herself is the embodiment of the scarlet letter, and Hester rightly clothes her in a beautiful dress of scarlet, embroidered with gold thread, just like the scarlet letter upon Hester's bosom.

Another theme is the extreme legalism of the Puritans and how Hester chooses not to conform to their rules and beliefs. Hester was rejected by the villagers even though she spent her life doing what she could to help the sick and the poor. Because they rejected her, she spent her life mostly in solitude, and wouldn't go to church. As a result, she retreats into her own mind and her own thinking. Her thoughts begin to stretch and go beyond what would be considered by the Puritans as safe or even Christian. She still sees her sin, but begins to look on it differently than the villagers ever have. She begins to believe that a person's earthly sins don't necessarily condemn them. She even goes so far as to tell Dimmesdale that their sin has been paid for by their daily penance and that their sin won't keep them from getting to heaven, however, the Puritans believed that such a sin surely condemns. But Hester had been alienated from the Puritan society, both in her physical life and spiritual life. When Dimmesdale dies, she knows she has to move on because she can no longer conform to the Puritans' strictness. Her thinking is free from religious bounds and she has established her own different moral standards and beliefs.

It was long thought that Hawthorne originally planned The Scarlet Letter to be a shorter novelette which was part of a collection to be named Old Time Legends and that his publisher, James Thomas Fields, convinced him to expand the work to a full-length novel. This is not true: Fields persuaded Hawthorne to publish The Scarlet Letter alone (along with the earlier-completed "Custom House" essay) but he had nothing to do with the length of the story. Hawthorne's wife Sophia later challenged Fields' claims a little inexactly: "he has made the absurd boast that he was the sole cause of the Scarlet Letter being published!" She noted that her husband's friend Edwin Percy Whipple, a critic, approached Fields to consider its publication. The manuscript was written at the Peter Edgerley House in Salem, Massachusetts, still standing as a private residence at 14 Mall Street. It was the last Salem home where the Hawthorne family lived.
The Scarlet Letter was published as a novel in the spring of 1850 by Ticknor & Fields, beginning Hawthorne's most lucrative period. When he delivered the final pages to Fields in February 1850, Hawthorne said that "some portions of the book are powerfully written" but doubted it would be popular. In fact, the book was an instant best-seller though, over fourteen years, it brought its author only $1,500. Its initial publication brought wide protest from natives of Salem, who did not approve of how Hawthorne had depicted them in his introduction "The Custom-House". A 2,500-copy second edition of The Scarlet Letter included a preface by Hawthorne dated March 30, 1850, that stated he had decided to reprint his introduction "without the change of a word... The only remarkable features of the sketch are its frank and genuine good-humor... As to enmity, or ill-feeling of any kind, personal or political, he utterly disclaims such motives".
The Scarlet Letter was also one of the first mass-produced books in America. Into the mid-nineteenth century, bookbinders of home-grown literature typically hand-made their books and sold them in small quantities. The first mechanized printing of The Scarlet Letter, 2,500 volumes, sold out within ten days, and was widely read and discussed to an extent not much experienced in the young country up until that time. Copies of the first edition are often sought by collectors as rare books, and may fetch up to around $18,000 USD.

On its publication, critic Evert Augustus Duyckinck, a friend of Hawthorne's, said he preferred the author's Washington Irving-like tales. Another friend, critic Edwin Percy Whipple, objected to the novel's "morbid intensity" with dense psychological details, writing that the book "is therefore apt to become, like Hawthorne, too painfully anatomical in his exhibition of them". Most literary critics praised the book but religious leaders took issue with the novel's subject matter. Orestes Brownson complained that Hawthorne did not understand Christianity, confession, and remorse. A review in The Church Review and Ecclesiastical Register concluded the author "perpetrates bad morals."
 Henry James once said of the novel, "It is beautiful, admirable, extraordinary; it has in the highest degree that merit which I have spoken of as the mark of Hawthorne's best things--an indefinable purity and lightness of conception...One can often return to it; it supports familiarity and has the inexhaustible charm and mystery of great works of art."
The book's immediate and lasting success are due to the way it addresses spiritual and moral issues from a uniquely American standpoint. In 1850, adultery was an extremely risqué subject, but because Hawthorne had the support of the New England literary establishment, it passed easily into the realm of appropriate reading. It has been said that this work represents the height of Hawthorne's literary genius, dense with terse descriptions. It remains relevant for its philosophical and psychological depth, and continues to be read as a classic tale on a universal theme.

The following are historical and Biblical references that appear in The Scarlet Letter.
Anne Hutchinson, mentioned in Chapter 1, The Prison Door, was a religious dissenter (1591–1643). In the 1630s she was excommunicated by the Puritans and exiled from Boston and moved to Rhode Island.
Ann Hibbins, who historically was executed for witchcraft in Boston in 1656, is depicted in The Scarlet Letter as a witch who tries to tempt Prynne to the practice of witchcraft.
Richard Bellingham, who historically was the governor of Massachusetts and deputy governor at the time of Hibbins's execution, was depicted in The Scarlet Letter as the brother of Ann Hibbins.
Martin Luther (1483–1545) was a leader of the Protestant Reformation in Germany.
Sir Thomas Overbury and Dr. Forman were the subjects of an adultery scandal in 1615 in England. Dr. Forman was charged with trying to poison his adulterous wife and her lover. Overbury was a friend of the lover and was perhaps poisoned.
John Winthrop (1588–1649), second governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
King's Chapel Burying Ground, mentioned in the final paragraph, exists; the Elizabeth Pain gravestone is traditionally considered an inspiration for the protagonists' grave.
The story of King David and Bathsheba is depicted in the tapestry in Mr. Dimmesdale's room (chapter 9). (See II Samuel 11-12 for the Biblical story.)

The Scarlet Letter has been adapted to numerous films, plays and operas and remains frequently referenced in modern popular culture. The Scarlet Letter was also the basis for the 2010 film Easy A, the story of Olive Penderghast (Emma Stone) who experiences the same isolation Hester Prynne undergoes in the novel, but in a reversed way. In the film, she was originally singled out for being the only virgin girl on campus, and becomes popular after she tells the school that she had sex with a homosexual male classmate, who was also picked on for his sexuality. The plot of the novel The Brooklyn Follies by Paul Auster revolves around the manuscript of The Scarlet Letter.

The Count of Monte Cristo (1845) is an adventure novel by French author Alexandre Dumas (père) (1802-1870) who also wrote the famous classic "The Three Musketeers". 

Mermaids Classics, an imprint of Mermaids Publishing brings the very best of old classic literature to a modern era of digital reading by producing high quality books in ebook format. All of the Mermaids Classics epublications are reproductions of classic antique books that were originally published in print format, mostly over a century ago and are now republished in digital format as ebooks. Begin to build your collection of digital books by looking for more literary gems from Mermaids Classics.

Peter Pan is a character created by Scottish novelist and playwright J. M. Barrie. A mischievous boy who can fly and who never ages, Peter Pan spends his never-ending childhood adventuring on the small island of Neverland as the leader of his gang the Lost Boys, interacting with mermaids, Native Americans, fairies, pirates, and occasionally ordinary children from the world outside of Neverland. In addition to two distinct works by Barrie, the character has been featured in a variety of media and merchandise, both adapting and expanding on Barrie's works.

Peter Pan first appeared in a section of The Little White Bird, a 1902 novel written by Barrie for adults.
The character's best-known adventure debuted on 27 December 1904, in the stage play Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up. The play was adapted and expanded somewhat as a novel, published in 1911 as Peter and Wendy (later as Peter Pan and Wendy, and still later as Peter Pan).
Following the highly successful debut of the 1904 play, Barrie's publishers, Hodder and Stoughton, extracted chapters 13–18 of The Little White Bird and republished them in 1906 under the title Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, with the addition of illustrations by Arthur Rackham.

Barrie never described Peter's appearance in detail, even in the novel Peter and Wendy, leaving much of it to the imagination of the reader and the interpretation of anyone adapting the character. Barrie mentions in Peter and Wendy that Peter Pan still had all of his baby teeth. He describes him as a beautiful boy with a beautiful smile, "clad in skeleton leaves and the juices that flow from trees". In the play, Peter's outfit is made of autumn leaves and cobwebs. His name and playing the flute suggest the mythological character Pan.
Traditionally, the character has been played on stage by an adult woman.
In Peter Pan in Scarlet, Geraldine McCaughrean adds to the description of his appearance, mentioning his blue eyes, and saying that his hair is light (or at least any colour lighter than black). In this novel, Never Land has moved on to autumn, so Peter wears a tunic of jay feathers and maple leaves. In the Starcatcher stories written by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson, Peter has carrot-orange hair and bright blue eyes.
In the Disney films, Peter wears an outfit that was easier to animate, consisting of a short-sleeved green tunic and tights apparently made of cloth, and a cap with a red feather in it. He has pointed elf-like ears, and his hair is a very red auburn. In the live-action 2003 film, he is portrayed by Jeremy Sumpter, who has blond hair and blue eyes, and his outfit is made of leaves and vines. In Hook, he is played as an adult by Robin Williams with dark brown hair, but in flashbacks to his youth his hair is light brown. In this film his ears appear pointed only when he is Peter Pan, not Peter Banning; his Pan clothing resembles the Disney outfit.

The notion of a boy who would never grow up was based on J. M. Barrie's older brother who died in an ice-skating accident the day before he turned 14, and thus always stayed a young boy in his mother's mind. The "boy who wouldn't grow up" has appeared at a variety of ages. In his original appearance in The Little White Bird he was only seven days old. Although his age is not stated in Barrie's later play and novel, his characterization is clearly years older. The book states that he has all of his baby teeth, and Barrie's intended model for the statue of Peter that was erected in Kensington Gardens was a set of photos of Michael Llewelyn Davies taken at the age of six. Early illustrations of the character generally appeared to be that age or perhaps a few years older. In the 1953 Disney adaptation and its 2002 sequel, Peter appears to be in late childhood, between 10 and 13 years old. (The actor who provided the voice in 1953 was 15-year-old Bobby Driscoll.) In the 2003 film, Jeremy Sumpter was 13 at the time filming started; by the end of filming he was 14 and had grown several inches taller. In the movie Hook, Peter is said to have left Neverland many years earlier, forsaking his eternal youth and ageing normally. When remembering his buried past, Peter is shown as a baby, and little boy, and also a near-teenager, suggesting that the ageing process does not entirely stop in Neverland until puberty or just before, or that Peter aged a little bit every time he left Neverland to come to the real world. When Peter says, "I remember you being a lot bigger," in the final duel, Hook answers, "to a 10-year-old I'm huge." He is portrayed by Robin Williams, who turned 40 during production of the film.

Peter is mainly an exaggerated stereotype of a boastful and careless boy. He is quick to point out how great he is, even when such claims are questionable (such as when he congratulates himself for Wendy's successful re-attachment of his shadow). In the book and play, as well as both film adaptations, Peter either symbolises or personifies the selfishness of childhood, shown in Barrie's work through constant forgetfulness and self-centred behaviour.
Peter has a nonchalant, devil-may-care attitude, and is fearlessly cocky when it comes to putting himself in danger. Barrie writes that when Peter thought he was going to die on Marooners' Rock, he felt scared, yet he felt only one shudder run through him when any other person would have felt scared up until death. With his blithe attitude towards death, he says, "To die will be an awfully big adventure". He repeats this line as an adult in the film Hook during the battle with Hook near the film's climax. He then inverts the phrase at the film's very end claiming "To live will be an awfully big adventure". This line was actually taken from the end of the last scene in the play, when the unseen and unnamed narrator ponders what might have been if Peter has stayed with Wendy, so that his cry might have become "To live would be an awfully big adventure!" "but he can never quite get the hang of it".
In some variations of the story and some spin-offs, Peter can also be quite selfish and arrogant. In the Disney adaptation, Peter appears very judgemental and pompous (for instance, he calls the Lost Boys "blockheads", and when the Darling children say that they should leave for home at once, he misunderstands their wish and angrily assumes that they want to grow up). Nonetheless, he has a strong sense of justice and is always quick to assist those in danger.
In the 2003 live-action film, Peter Pan is sensitive about the subject of "growing up". When confronted by Hook about Wendy's growing up, marrying and eventually "shutting the window" on Peter, he becomes very depressed and finally gives up on Wendy.

Peter's archetypal ability is his unending youth. In Peter and Wendy, it is explained that Peter must forget his own adventures and what he learns about the world in order to stay childlike. The fact that the other Lost Boys are growing up and able to be killed in Peter and Wendy contradicts this idea. The unauthorized prequels by Barry and Pearson attribute Peter's everlasting youth to his exposure to starstuff, a magical substance which has fallen to earth.
Peter's ability to fly is explained somewhat, but inconsistently. In The Little White Bird he is able to fly because he – like all babies – is part bird. In the play and novel, he teaches the Darling children to fly using a combination of "lovely wonderful thoughts" (which became "happy thoughts" in Disney's film) and fairy dust; it is unclear whether he is serious about "wonderful thoughts" being required (it was stated in the novel that this was merely a silly diversion from the fairy dust being the true source), or whether he requires the fairy dust himself. However, in Barrie's Dedication to the play Peter Pan, The boy who wouldn't grow up, the author attributes the idea of fairy dust being necessary for flight to more practical considerations:
...after the first production I had to add something to the play at the request of parents (who thus showed that they thought me the responsible person) about no one being able to fly until the fairy dust had been blown on him; so many children having gone home and tried it from their beds and needed surgical attention. - J.M. Barrie
In Hook, the adult Peter is unable to fly until he remembers his "happy thought". The ability to fly is also attributed to starstuff – apparently the same thing as fairy dust – in the Starcatchers prequels.
Peter has an effect on the whole of Never Land and its inhabitants when he is there. Barrie states that although Never Land appears different to every child, the island "wakes up" when he returns from his trip to London. In the chapter "The Mermaid Lagoon" in the book Peter and Wendy, Barrie writes that there is almost nothing that Peter cannot do. He is a skilled swordsman, rivalling even Captain Hook, whose hand he cut off in a duel. He has remarkably keen vision and hearing. He is skilled in mimicry, copying the voice of Hook, and the tick-tock of the Crocodile. In the 2003 film, the mermaids speak by making dolphin-like noises, which Peter can both understand and speak.
In both Peter Pan and Wendy and Peter Pan in Scarlet, there are various mentions of Peter's ability to imagine things into existence, such as food, though this ability plays a more central role in Peter Pan in Scarlet. He also creates imaginary windows and doors as a kind of physical metaphor for ignoring or shunning his companions. He is said to be able to feel danger when it is near. In Peter Pan in Scarlet, it says that when Curly's puppy licks Peter, it licks off a lot of fairy dust, which may be interpreted to mean that he has become fairy-like to the point of producing his own dust, but could also simply mean that he spends so much time with fairies that he is coated in their dust.
In Peter and Wendy, Barrie states that the Peter Pan legend Mrs Darling heard as a child was that when children died, he accompanied them part of the way to their destination so that they would not be scared; he thus resembles the Greek god Hermes in his role as a psychopomp.
In the original play, Peter states that no one must ever touch him (though he does not know why), and the stage instructions specify that no one does so throughout the play. Wendy approaches Peter to give him a "thimble" (kiss), but is prevented by Tinker Bell.

Peter does not know his parents. In Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens Barrie wrote that he left them as an infant, and seeing the window closed and a new baby in the house when he returned some time later, he assumed they no longer wanted him. In Starcatchers he is said to be an orphan, though his friends Molly and George discover who his parents are in Rundoon. In Hook, Peter remembers his parents, specifically his mother, who wanted him to grow up and go to the best schools in London to become a judge like his father and have a family of his own. After Peter "ran away" to Neverland, he returned to find his parents forgot about him and had another child (the gender of Peter's sibling is revealed to be another boy in Peter and Wendy).
Peter is the leader of the Lost Boys, a band of boys who were lost by their parents, and came to live in Neverland; it is reported that he "thins them out" when they start to grow up. He is best friends with Tinker Bell, a common fairy who is often jealously protective of him. His arch-enemy is Captain Hook, whose hand he cut off in a duel. Hook's crew, including Smee and Starkey, also consider him a foe. The Starcatchers books introduce additional foes: Slank, Lord Ombra, and Captain Nerezza.
From time to time Peter visits the real world, particularly around Kensington Gardens, and befriends children there. Wendy Darling, whom he recruited to be his "mother", is the most significant of them; he also brings her brothers John and Michael to Neverland at her request. It is hinted that Wendy has romantic feelings for Peter. In the 2003 film Peter Pan, the feeling is mutual, as the only unhappy thoughts that Captain Hook is able to use to take away Peter's ability to fly are thoughts of Wendy leaving him, growing up, and replacing him with a husband; Wendy is also able to save Peter by giving him her hidden kiss (signifying that Peter is her true love), which once again gives him the will to live. He later befriends Wendy's daughter Jane (and her subsequent daughter Margaret), and Peter and Wendy says that he will continue this pattern indefinitely. In Starcatchers he previously befriends Molly Aster and young George Darling.
Peter appears to be known to all the residents of Neverland, including the Native American princess Tiger Lily and her tribe, the mermaids, and the fairies.
In Hook, Peter states that the reason he wanted to grow up was to be a father. He married Wendy's granddaughter, Moira, and they have two children, Jack and Maggie.
In the 1953 Disney film version it is hinted at the end that Wendy's father George also met Peter Pan once and went to Neverland, when Mr. Darling, seeing the Pirate Ship flying through the air, remarks that he has a strange feeling he has seen the ship before, when he was very young.
In the adaptation of Peter Pan by French comic artist Loisel, Peter Pan is a bastard child and is kicked out of the house by his abusive mother. He does not have a good relationship with her; he tries to win her love by procuring gold for her from Neverland, yet she rejects him countless times. She is later murdered, but Peter Pan eventually forgets her death and seems to remember his mother as a kindhearted, beautiful woman and believes she is still alive; the series also implies that Hook is his father, as Hook has a photo of Peter's mother, but this point is never developed in the series.
In the 2011 Neverland TV miniseries, the origin story of Peter Pan is discussed. It is hinted at at multiple points throughout the TV special that Peter and Tiger Lily have romantic feelings for each other. It is also mentioned that James "Jimmy" Hook was originally a friend of Peter's. Prior to the film, Hook loved Peter's mother and murdered Peter's father. Feeling guilty after Peter's mother died, Hook took care of Peter, until later on when Peter finds out and becomes angry with Hook, sparking his hatred towards him. The hatred became mutual when Peter (as in other adaptations) cut off Hook's hand and fed it to a crocodile.

Of the stories written about Peter Pan, several have gained widespread notability.
By Barrie
Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens: Infant Peter flies from his home, makes friends with fairies, and takes up residence in Kensington Gardens. It is a "book-within-a-book" that was first published in Barrie's The Little White Bird.
Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up (play) and Peter and Wendy (novel): Peter brings Wendy and her brothers to Never Land, where he has a climactic showdown with his nemesis, Captain Hook. This story was originally told in Barrie's stage play and novel, and repeatedly adapted in various media.
Later expansion
Hook (1991), a film by Steven Spielberg: Peter has grown up and is now a business attorney called Peter Banning. He has forgotten about his life in Never Land and has a wife and children of his own, having decided to remain with Wendy's granddaughter Moira during a later visit to Wendy. While the family is in London visiting a now elderly Wendy, Captain Hook abducts Peter's children to lure him back for a final duel to the death, prompting Peter to remember his past to save his children. Although he returns to London in the end, he notes that he will not forget his Lost Boys now, and comments at the conclusion that, although his adventures as Peter Pan are over, "To live would be an awfully big adventure".
Return to Never Land (2002), a Disney film: During World War II, Wendy's slightly war-hardened daughter Jane is taken to Neverland by Captain Hook, but Peter saves her and asks her to be the Lost Boys' new mother
Peter and the Starcatchers (2004), Peter and the Shadow Thieves (2006), Peter and the Secret of Rundoon (2007), Peter and the Sword of Mercy (2009), a series of novels by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson: Peter leaves a London orphanage for a series of adventures, which offer an origin story for Captain Hook, fairies, his abilities, and the Lost Boys.
Peter Pan in Scarlet (2006), a novel by Geraldine McCaughrean: Wendy, John, and most of the Lost Boys return to Neverland, where Peter has begun to take Captain Hook's place. It serves as an official sequel to Peter and Wendy.

The character of Peter Pan (or thinly disguised versions of him) has appeared in tributes and parodies and has been the subject of several later works of fiction. (See Works based on Peter Pan for notable examples.) J. R. R. Tolkien's biographer Humphrey Carpenter has speculated that Tolkien's impressions of a production of Barrie's Peter Pan in Birmingham in 1910 "may have had a little to do with" his original conception of the Elves of Middle Earth. Since featuring the character in their 1953 animated film, Walt Disney has continued to use him as one of their traditional characters, featuring him in the sequel film Return to Neverland and in their parks as a meetable character, and the focus of the dark ride, Peter Pan's Flight; he appears in House of Mouse, Mickey's Magical Christmas, and the Kingdom Hearts video games.
The name Peter Pan has been adopted for various purposes over the years. Three Thoroughbred racehorses have been given the name, the first born in 1904. It has been adopted by several businesses, including Peter Pan Bus Lines, Peter Pan peanut butter, and Peter Pan Records. An early 1960s program, in which Cuban children were sent unattended to Miami to escape mistreatment anticipated under the then-new Castro regime was called Operation Peter Pan (or Operación Pedro Pan). Dr. Dan Kiley popularized the Peter Pan syndrome (puer aeternus) in his 1983 book, The Peter Pan Syndrome: Men Who Have Never Grown Up, about individuals (usually male) with underdeveloped maturity; his next book, The Wendy Dilemma (1984), advises women romantically involved with "Peter Pans" how to improve their relationships. Patricia Craine's book, Wendy's Club: ...for women hooked on "Peter Pans" and how to break the addiction (2006), addresses the same target audience as Kiley's 1984 book. Japanese manga artist, Mayu Sakai, appropriated the English version of the term, puer aeternus, for her series, Peter Pan Syndrome. Peterpan is the former name for an Indonesian pop-rock band, now called Noah.
Peter Pan has appeared in a number of adaptations, sequels, and prequels. These include the 1953 Disney animated feature film Peter Pan, various stage musicals (including one by Jerome Robbins, starring Cyril Ritchard and Mary Martin, filmed for television), live-action feature films Hook (1991) and Peter Pan (2003), and the authorized sequel novel Peter Pan in Scarlet (2006). He has also appeared in various works not authorized by the holders of the character's copyright, which has lapsed in most parts of the world.
Peter Pan is depicted in public sculpture. The original statue in Kensington Gardens by sculptor George Frampton was commissioned by Barrie and erected overnight on 30 April 1912 as a May Day surprise to the children of London. There are seven statues cast from the original mould. The other six are located in:
Liverpool, England;
Brussels, Belgium
Camden, New Jersey, United States
Queens Gardens, Perth, Western Australia;
Toronto, Ontario, Canada;
Bowring Park, St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada.
Two statues by a different sculptor are in Kirriemuir, Scotland, the birthplace of J. M. Barrie.A bronze statue by Diarmuid Byron O'Connor was commissioned by Great Ormond Street Hospital in London and unveiled in 2000, showing Peter blowing fairy dust, with Tinker Bell added in 2005. A pair of statues by Cecil Thomas, one showing Peter Pan and Tinkerbell, and the other Wendy and the Darling children, have been located in Dunedin Botanic Gardens in Dunedin, New Zealand since the 1960s.