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Page last updated at 17:52 GMT, Thursday, 4 March 2010

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In pictures: Alice in Wonderland illustrations

John Tenniel's original illustration from Alice in Wonderland

Alice in Wonderland was written by Lewis Carroll, after he was asked to write down stories he'd told to a friend's children.

The book was first printed in 1865 and was illustrated by artist John Tenniel. These images are from an 1882 edition of the book.

The book proved so enormously popular that Carroll wrote a sequel, while he was staying at the family home in Guildford, called "Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There".

The images in "Through the Looking Glass" were also drawn by Tenniel, who had considered turning down the offer to illustrate the second book.

Eventually agreeing with a certain amount of reluctance, he is alleged to have said he would do it “at such spare times as he can find”.

Although he was a popular topical cartoonist in his day, he is best known for these illustrations which brought Carroll's extraordinary characters to life.

His illustrations were painstakingly engraved onto wooden blocks and then printed using a woodcut process. If you run a finger over the pages you can still feel the slightly raised ink.

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