Explore Chapter 1 of "Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland" with the original English text, English translation, detailed IELTS vocabulary and explanations, and audio of the English original. Listen and improve your reading skills.
Alice was starting to feel very bored from sitting by her sister on the riverbank with nothing to do. Once or twice, she had peeked into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations. "And what is the use of a book," thought Alice, "without pictures or conversation?"
So she was thinking to herself (as best she could, because the hot day made her feel sleepy and dull), whether making a daisy chain would be fun enough to be worth getting up and picking daisies. Just then, a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her.
There was nothing very strange about that; Alice didn't find it odd to hear the Rabbit say to itself, "Oh dear! Oh dear! I'll be late!" (Later, when she thought about it, she realized she should have been surprised, but at the time it seemed normal). But when the Rabbit took a watch out of its waistcoat pocket, looked at it, and hurried on, Alice jumped up. It suddenly occurred to her that she had never seen a rabbit with a waistcoat pocket or a watch. Full of curiosity, she ran across the field after it and was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit hole under the hedge.
Right away, Alice went down after it, without thinking about how she would get out again.
The rabbit hole went straight like a tunnel for a while, then suddenly went steeply down. It happened so fast that Alice didn't have time to stop before she found herself falling down a very deep well.
Either the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly, because she had plenty of time as she fell to look around and wonder what would happen next. First, she tried to look down to see what she was falling towards, but it was too dark to see anything. Then she looked at the sides of the well and saw they were full of cupboards and bookshelves. Here and there, she saw maps and pictures hanging on pegs. She took a jar from one shelf as she passed; it was labeled "ORANGE MARMALADE", but to her disappointment, it was empty. She didn't want to drop the jar in case it hurt someone, so she managed to put it into a cupboard as she fell past.
"Well!" thought Alice to herself, "after falling like this, I won't mind tumbling down stairs! Everyone at home will think I'm so brave! Why, I wouldn't even mention it if I fell off the roof of the house!" (Which was probably true.)
Down, down, down. Would the fall never end! "I wonder how many miles I've fallen by now?" she said out loud. "I must be getting close to the center of the earth. Let me see: that would be four thousand miles down, I think—" (Alice had learned things like this in school, and though no one was there to hear, she thought it was good practice to say it) "—yes, that's about right—but then I wonder what Latitude or Longitude I'm at?" (Alice didn't know what Latitude or Longitude meant, but she thought they were grand words to say.)
Soon she started again. "I wonder if I'll fall right through the earth! How funny it will be to come out among people who walk upside down! The Antipathies, I think—" (she was glad no one was listening because it didn't sound right) "—but I'll have to ask them what the country is called. Please, Ma'am, is this New Zealand or Australia?" (and she tried to curtsey as she spoke—imagine curtseying while falling! Do you think you could do it?) "And she'll think I'm an ignorant little girl for asking! No, I better not ask: maybe I'll see it written somewhere."
Down, down, down. With nothing else to do, Alice soon started talking again. "Dinah will miss me a lot tonight, I think!" (Dinah was the cat.) "I hope they remember to give her a saucer of milk at tea time. Dinah, my dear! I wish you were here with me! There are no mice in the air, I'm afraid, but you might catch a bat, and that's like a mouse, you know. But do cats eat bats, I wonder?" Here Alice began to feel sleepy and went on saying to herself, dreamily, "Do cats eat bats? Do cats eat bats?" and sometimes, "Do bats eat cats?" Since she couldn't answer either question, it didn't matter how she said it. She felt herself dozing off and had just started to dream that she was walking hand in hand with Dinah, asking her seriously, "Now, Dinah, tell me the truth: did you ever eat a bat?" when suddenly, thump! thump! she landed on a pile of sticks and dry leaves, and the fall was over.
Alice wasn't hurt at all, and she jumped up right away. She looked up, but it was all dark above; in front of her was another long passage, and the White Rabbit was still in sight, hurrying down it. There was no time to waste: Alice ran like the wind and was just in time to hear it say, as it turned a corner, "Oh my ears and whiskers, how late it's getting!" She was close behind when she turned the corner, but the Rabbit was gone. She found herself in a long, low hall, lit by a row of lamps hanging from the roof.
There were doors all around the hall, but they were all locked. After Alice had gone down one side and up the other, trying every door, she walked sadly down the middle, wondering how she would ever get out.
Suddenly, she found a little three-legged table made of solid glass. There was nothing on it except a tiny golden key. Alice's first thought was that it might open one of the doors, but alas! The locks were too big, or the key was too small, so it wouldn't open any of them. However, on her second time around, she found a low curtain she hadn't noticed before, and behind it was a little door about fifteen inches high. She tried the little golden key in the lock, and to her great joy, it fit!
Alice opened the door and saw that it led to a small passage, not much bigger than a rat hole. She knelt down and looked along the passage into the most beautiful garden she had ever seen. How she wanted to get out of the dark hall and wander among the bright flowers and cool fountains, but she couldn't even get her head through the doorway. "And even if my head could go through," thought poor Alice, "it wouldn't be much use without my shoulders. Oh, how I wish I could fold up like a telescope! I think I could if I only knew how to start." For so many strange things had happened lately that Alice began to think few things were truly impossible.
There seemed no point in waiting by the little door, so she went back to the table, half hoping to find another key or a book of rules on how to fold up like a telescope. This time, she found a little bottle on it ("which definitely wasn't here before," said Alice), and around the neck of the bottle was a paper label with the words "DRINK ME" beautifully printed in large letters.
It was easy to say "Drink me," but wise little Alice wasn't going to do that quickly. "No, I'll check first," she said, "and see if it's marked 'poison' or not." She had read stories about children who got burned, eaten by wild beasts, and other bad things because they didn't remember simple rules their friends taught them: like a red-hot poker will burn you if you hold it too long; and if you cut your finger deeply with a knife, it usually bleeds. And she never forgot that if you drink from a bottle marked "poison," it will likely make you sick sooner or later.
However, this bottle wasn't marked "poison," so Alice dared to taste it. Finding it very tasty (it had a mix of flavors like cherry tart, custard, pineapple, roast turkey, toffee, and hot buttered toast), she quickly drank it all.
"What a strange feeling!" said Alice. "I must be folding up like a telescope."
And so she was: she was now only ten inches tall, and her face lit up at the thought that she was now the right size to go through the little door into the lovely garden. First, though, she waited a few minutes to see if she would shrink further. She felt a bit nervous about this. "For it might end," Alice said to herself, "with me going out completely, like a candle. I wonder what I would be like then?" And she tried to imagine what a candle flame is like after the candle is blown out, since she couldn't remember ever seeing such a thing.
After a while, seeing nothing more happened, she decided to go into the garden right away. But, alas for poor Alice! When she got to the door, she realized she had forgotten the little golden key. When she went back to the table for it, she found she couldn't reach it. She could see it clearly through the glass, and she tried hard to climb up one of the table legs, but it was too slippery. After tiring herself out trying, the poor little thing sat down and cried.
"Come on, there's no use crying like that!" said Alice to herself, rather sharply. "I advise you to stop right now!" She often gave herself good advice (though she rarely followed it), and sometimes she scolded herself so harshly that it brought tears to her eyes. Once, she remembered trying to box her own ears for cheating herself in a game of croquet she was playing against herself, for this curious child loved pretending to be two people. "But it's no use now," thought poor Alice, "to pretend to be two people! Why, there's hardly enough of me left to make one decent person!"
Soon, her eye caught a little glass box under the table. She opened it and found a very small cake inside, with the words "EAT ME" beautifully marked in currants. "Well, I'll eat it," said Alice, "and if it makes me grow bigger, I can reach the key; and if it makes me grow smaller, I can crawl under the door. So either way, I'll get into the garden, and I don't care which happens!"
She ate a little bit and said anxiously to herself, "Which way? Which way?", holding her hand on top of her head to feel which way she was growing. She was surprised to find she stayed the same size. Of course, this usually happens when you eat cake, but Alice had gotten so used to expecting only strange things to happen that normal life seemed dull and stupid.