Short answers, pulled from the story.
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was first published in 1865 by Macmillan Publishers, printed by Richard Clay. Carroll had financed the print run himself after an earlier run of 2,000 copies was halted because illustrator John Tenniel was dissatisfied with the printing quality.
Alice Pleasance Liddell, daughter of Carroll's friend Henry Liddell, was the girl who inspired the character. Carroll first told the story during a boat trip on the river Isis on the 4th of July 1862, and Alice Liddell asked him to write it down. Scholars disagree about how closely the fictional Alice reflects the real girl.
John Tenniel, a cartoonist known for his work in Punch magazine, provided 42 wood-engraved illustrations for the 1865 published edition. Tenniel's black-and-white drawings remain the definitive depiction of the characters. Harry Theaker later coloured sixteen of Tenniel's plates in 1911, giving Alice her now-iconic blue dress.
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland has been translated into 174 languages. The first translations appeared in 1869, when German and French editions were published simultaneously.
F. J. Harvey Darton argued in a 1932 book that Alice ended an era of didacticism in children's literature, opening a new era aimed at delighting and entertaining readers rather than instructing them. Critics have also linked its nonsense tradition to later writers including James Joyce, Douglas Adams, and Dr. Seuss.
Carroll gave the handwritten illustrated manuscript to Alice Liddell on the 26th of November 1864. In 1928, it was sold at Sotheby's in London for 15,400 pounds, a world record for a manuscript sale at the time, to Philip Rosenbach of Philadelphia. Rosenbach later presented it to the British Library, where it is held today.