It's a cool July day. A young girl is tired of window-shopping in Oxford Street, when a white rabbit runs past her looking at his watch. "Oh dear! Oh dear! It's 3 o'clock already. I shall be too late!" Without thinking, she chases after the rabbit and they disappear down the escalator into Oxford Street Underground station. As the girl steps onto an Underground train, something remarkable happens and an adventure begins that takes her back in time to meet the characters of Wonderland. In a tale that links the world of Lewis Carroll with today's London Underground, the reader is transported to be a special guest at a mad tea-party, to do battle with the Red Queen and her Guards, chase round the London Underground system and fight the terrifying Jabberwock. The first underground railway in the world opened in London in 1863 just a year after Lewis Carroll first told Alice Liddell the story that became Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Did Carroll travel on those underground steam trains? Did he tell stories as he went? Here, Carroll has begun a new tale about the Wonderland characters going on a day-trip to London. With the story unfinished, the Hatter, the March Hare, the Dormouse and all are left stranded in the Underground, waiting to be rescued by a modern-day Alice. But will Alice ever come?Peter Lawrence pays tribute to Carroll's imagination and verbal brilliance with this modern adaptation of the author's much-loved characters and themes. Illustrated by award-winning wood engraver Andrew Davidson, Alice's Adventures on the London Underground will appeal to the many readers of Carroll's classic stories.
