Image: Arthur Rackham, 1907
On the 4th of July 1862, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson told the story of "Alices' Adventures Underground" to Alice Liddell and her two sisters on a boating trip down the river Isis.
He based the central character on Alice herself, and wove into the story many of the places and things which they'd seen on their outings around Oxford.
Alice asked him to write it down, and the story became "Alices' Adventures in Wonderland", often shortened to "Alice In Wonderland".
As with the follow-up, "Through the Looking Glass", Charles Dodgson adopted the pen-name "Lewis Carroll".