'Alice in Wonderland': A Philly original?

All roads lead back to Philadelphia. You always suspected. This week comes further proof.

Alice's Adventures Under Ground, the original version of the children's classic that, 150 years ago, was published as Alice in Wonderland, returns to its onetime home, at 20th Street and Delancey Place, for four days, tomorrow through this weekend. The Rosenbach's exhibit about the book, featuring its local connection, lasts until May 15.

Wait. You didn't know Alice lived in Philly?

Sure did. Just like Kevin Bacon.

The tale of how one of the world's most famous manuscripts got here is somewhat complicated - though not quite as complicated as an underground adventure replete with wacky riddles and algebraic puzzles by a British parson-mathematician-photographer, real name, Charles Dodgson; pen name, Lewis Carroll. Still, like one ever-late white rabbit, it's a fairly fun tale (tail?) to follow.

On July 4, 1863, Dodgson and a buddy took family friend 10-year-old Alice Liddell (and two of her sisters) on a boating trip in Oxford, England. In the absence of iPods or a selfie stick, the children asked their chaperones to tell them a story. Dodgson obliged with a tale of a girl who follows a hare into his burrow.

After the river ride, Alice Liddell asked Dodgson to put his words on pages. Next Christmas, he presented her with Alice's Adventures Under Ground. He'd illustrated it himself. Nice gift.

The year after that, the author, now calling himself Carroll, collaborated with illustrator Sir John Tenniel on a double-sized version of the story, which, this time around, included one Cheshire Cat and a very Mad Hatter - but not a hint of that morbid morality of the Brothers Grimm and their ilk. The story was nothing but silly, smart fun. Queen Victoria was a fan. It was an instant hit.

The real Alice didn't have such luck. Liddell's favorite sister, Edith, died young. So did two of her three sons, in active duty in World War I. Liddell later became widowed, fell on hard times and, in 1928, had Sotheby's auction off her beloved Adventures Under Ground.

News of the highest bidder shocked international (especially British) society. He was an American. From Philly, no less. Center City book collector A.S.W. Rosenbach bought the book for 15,400 pounds - then about $77,000 - four times the reserve price.

Rosenbach added Alice to his collection, which today includes a 1733 edition of Poor Richard's Almanac and the manuscript of James Joyce's Ulysses. (Alas, the Maurice Sendak illustrations moved to Connecticut a few years ago.) In 1929, Adventures Under Ground went on public display at the Parkway Central branch of the Free Library.

But Rosenbach didn't keep the book forever.

He sold it to Camden phonograph co-creator Eldridge Johnson, who put it on display in New York on the centennial of Carroll's birth. Liddell crossed the pond for the occasion and took a last-minute side trip to Philly to have dinner at Rosenbachs'.

The petite chair that the 80-year-old Liddell sat in is in the current exhibit. People were smaller then.

In 1945, upon Johnson's death, the original Alice returned to the U.K., where it resides in the Treasures Gallery of the British Library. Its neighbors: a first folio by William Shakespeare and the Magna Carta.

So, yeah, the kid's book's a big deal.

For its 150th (really, its 151st) birthday, the no-touching tome flew first class - in its own seat, natch - across the Atlantic. It spent the summer at the Morgan Library & Museum, in New York City.

Yesterday, it traveled here, much like 10-year-old Alice Liddell, with a chaperone and entourage, arriving at the Rosenbach's side-by-side townhouses on a quiet block of Delancey Street, where it reposes under glass in a temperature-controlled room.

Overlooking the book are illustrated portraits of A.S.W. and brother Philip Rosenbach. The esteemed men's faces are nothing but serious. Their bodies, however, belong to Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

"Down The Rabbit Hole: Celebrating 150 Years of Alice in Wonderland," tomorrow-May 15, The Rosenbach, 2008-2010 Delancey Place (Alice's Adventures Under Ground on exhibit noon-

8 p.m. tomorrow-Sunday), $10,

$5 student, free under 13, 215-732-1600, rosenbach.org