The first French translation of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (there have been no less than seventeen others) was supervised by Lewis Carroll himself. In the opinion of many experts, and countless older and younger French readers, it is still the best. It has a remarkable freshness and originality, and admirably renders the English puns and parodies with French equivalents. 'How Doth the Little Crocodile?' for instance, is turned into a parody of La Fontaine, the staple of French lesson books. Carroll picked Henri Bu as translator on the recommendation of Bu 's father, who was an Oxford colleague. The younger Bu was just at the beginning of his career, and Carroll could not have known that he would go on to distinguish himself both as a translator and as an author and editor. Bu worked rapidly, and had the translation done in a couple of months. Carroll, on the other hand, spent another two years making certain of it. He solicited the opinions of many friends to test the puns and
