Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (also known as Alice Through the Looking-Glass or simply Through the Looking-Glass) is a novel published on 27 December 1871 (though indicated as 1872)[1] by Lewis Carroll, a mathematics lecturer at Christ Church, University of Oxford, and the sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865). Alice again enters a fantastical world, this time by climbing through a mirror into the world that she can see beyond it. There she finds that, just like a reflection, everything is reversed, including logic (for example, running helps one remain stationary, walking away from something brings one towards it, chessmen are alive, nursery rhyme characters exist, and so on).
Through the Looking-Glass includes such verses as "Jabberwocky" and "The Walrus and the Carpenter", and the episode involving Tweedledum and Tweedledee. The mirror above the fireplace that is displayed at Hetton Lawn in Charlton Kings, Gloucestershire (a house that was owned by Alice Liddell's grandparents, and was regularly visited by Alice and Lewis Carroll) resembles the one drawn by John Tenniel and is cited as a possible inspiration for Carroll.[2] It prompted a newfound appreciation for its predecessor when it was published.[3]
Plot summary
Alice is playing with a white kitten (whom she calls "Snowdrop") and a black kitten (whom she calls "Kitty") while pondering what the world is like on the other side of a mirror's reflection. Climbing up onto a mantelpiece, she pokes at the wall-hung mirror behind a fireplace and discovers, to her surprise, that she can step through it. She ends up in a reflected version of her own house and finds a book with looking-glass poetry, "Jabberwocky", whose reversed printing she can read only by holding it up to the mirror. She also observes that the chess pieces have come to life, though they remain small enough for her to pick up.
Alice entering the looking-glass.
Upon leaving the house (where it had been a cold, snowy night), she enters a sunny spring garden where the flowers can speak. Elsewhere in the garden, Alice meets the Red Queen, who is now human-sized, and who impresses Alice with her ability to run at breathtaking speeds.
The Red Queen reveals that the entire countryside is laid out in squares, like a gigantic chessboard, and offers to make Alice a queen if she can move all the way to the eighth rank/row in a chess match. Alice is placed in the second rank as one of the White Queen'spawns, and begins her journey across the chessboard by boarding a train that jumps over the third row and directly into the fourth rank, thus acting on the rule that pawns can advance two spaces on their first move. She arrives in a forest where a gnat teaches her about the looking glass insects, creatures part bug part object (e.g., bread and butterfly, rocking horse fly), before flying away. Continuing her journey, Alice crosses the "wood where things have no names". There she forgets all nouns, including her own name. With the help of a fawn who has also forgotten his identity, she makes it to the other side, where they both remember everything. Realizing that he is a fawn, she is a human, and that fawns are afraid of humans, it runs off.
Alice meeting Tweedledum (centre) and Tweedledee (right)
She then meets the twin brothers Tweedledum and Tweedledee, whom she knows from the nursery rhyme. After reciting a poem, they draw Alice's attention to the Red King—sleeping under a nearby tree—and provoke her with idle philosophical banter that she is but an imaginary figure in his dreams. The brothers begin suiting up for battle, only to be frightened away by an enormous crow, as the nursery rhyme about them predicts.
The Red King dreaming
Alice next meets the White Queen, who is absent-minded but can remember future events before they have happened. Alice and the White Queen advance into the chessboard's fifth rank by crossing over a brook together, but at the very moment of the crossing, the Queen transforms into a talking Sheep in a small shop. Alice soon finds herself struggling to handle the oars of a small rowboat, where the Sheep annoys her with shouting about "crabs" and "feathers".
After crossing another brook into the sixth rank, Alice encounters Humpty Dumpty, who, besides celebrating his unbirthday, provides his own translation of the strange terms in "Jabberwocky". In the process, he introduces Alice to the concept of portmanteau words, before his inevitable fall.
The White Knight
"All the king's horses and all the king's men" come to Humpty Dumpty's assistance, and are accompanied by the White King, along with the Lion and the Unicorn, who proceed to act out a nursery rhyme by fighting with each other. The March Hare and Hatter[lower-alpha 1] appear in the guise of "Anglo-Saxon messengers" called "Haigha" and "Hatta".
Upon leaving the Lion and Unicorn to their fight, Alice reaches the seventh rank by crossing another brook into the forested territory of the Red Knight, who wants to capture the "white pawn"—Alice—until the White Knight comes to her rescue. Escorting her through the forest towards the final brook-crossing, the Knight recites a poem of his own composition and repeatedly falls off his horse.
Bidding farewell to the White Knight, Alice steps across the last brook, and is automatically crowned a queen, with the crown materialising abruptly on her head.[lower-alpha 2] She soon finds herself in the company of both the White and Red Queens, who confound Alice by using word play to thwart her attempts at logical discussion. They then invite one another to a party that will be hosted by Alice—of which Alice herself had no prior knowledge.
Alice arrives and seats herself at her own party, which quickly turns into chaos. Alice grabs the Red Queen, believing her to be responsible for all the day's nonsense, and begins shaking her.
Alice awakes in her armchair to find herself holding Kitty, whom she deduces to have been the Red Queen all along, with Snowdrop having been the White Queen. Alice then recalls the speculation of the Tweedle brothers, that everything may have been a dream of the Red King, and that Alice might herself be no more than a figment of his imagination.
One of the key motifs of Through the Looking-Glass is that of mirrors, including the use of opposites, time running backwards, and so on, not to mention the title of the book itself. In fact, the themes and settings of the book make it somewhat of a mirror image of its predecessor, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865). The first book begins in the warm outdoors, on 4 May;[lower-alpha 3] uses frequent changes in size as a plot device; and draws on the imagery of playing cards. The second book, however, opens indoors on a snowy, wintry night exactly six months later, on 4 November (the day before Guy Fawkes Night);[lower-alpha 4] uses frequent changes in time and spatial directions as a plot device; and draws on the imagery of chess.
Lewis Carroll's diagram of the story as a chess gameThe composition, according to Glen Downey
While the first Alice novel took playing cards as a theme, Through the Looking-Glass instead used chess; most of the main characters are represented by chess pieces, with Alice being a pawn. The looking-glass world consists of square fields divided by brooks or streams, and the crossing of each brook typically signifies a change in scene, with Alice advancing one square. At the book's beginning, Carroll provided and explained a chess composition with descriptive notation, corresponding to the events of the story. Although the piece movements follow the rules of chess, other basic rules are ignored: one player (White) makes several consecutive moves while the (Red/Black) opponent's moves are skipped, and a late check (12... Qe8+) is left undealt with. Carroll also explained that certain items listed in the composition do not have corresponding piece moves but simply refer to the story, e.g. the "castling of the three Queens, which is merely a way of saying that they entered the palace". Despite these liberties, the final position is an authentic checkmate.
The most extensive treatment of the chess motif in Carroll's novel was made by Glen Downey in his master's thesis, later expanded and incorporated into his dissertation on the use of chess as a device in Victorian fiction. In the former piece, Downey gave the composition's moves in algebraic notation: 1... Qh5 2. d4 3. Qc4 4. Qc5 5. d5 6. Qf8 7. d6 8. Qc8 9. d7 Ne7+ 10. Nxe7 11. Nf5 12. d8=Q Qe8+ 13. Qa6 14. Qxe8#.[4] In the latter piece, Downey treated the 21 items in the composition sequentially, identifying the above 16 coherent chess moves, and another five items as "non-moves" or pure story descriptors, per Carroll's qualification.[5]
The mating position nearly satisfies the conditions of a pure mate, a special type of checkmate where the mated king is prevented from moving to any of the adjacent squares in its field by exactly one enemy attack, among other conditions. The position is also nearly an ideal mate, a stronger form of pure mate in which every piece on the board of either colour contributes to the checkmate. The one feature of the position which prevents it from being either a pure or an ideal mate is that the Red (Black) King is unable to move to e3 for two reasons: the knight's attack, and the (sustained) attack of the newly promoted, mating queen. Although pure and ideal mates are "incidental" in real games, they are objects of aesthetic interest to composers of chess problems.[6]
Language
The White Queen offers to hire Alice as her lady's maid and to pay her "twopence a week, and jam every other day". Alice says that she does not want any jam today, to which the Queen replies, "you couldn't have it if you did want it. The rule is, jam tomorrow and jam yesterday—but never jam to-day." This is a reference to the rule in Latin that the word iam or jam—which means now, in the sense of already or at that time—cannot be used to describe now in the present, which is nunc in Latin. Therefore, "jam" is never available today.[7] This exchange is also a demonstration of the logical fallacy of equivocation.[8]
Lewis Carroll decided to suppress a scene involving what was described as "a wasp in a wig" (possibly a play on the commonplace expression "bee in the bonnet"). A biography of Carroll, written by Carroll's nephew, Stuart Dodgson Collingwood, suggests that one of the reasons for this suppression was a suggestion from his illustrator, John Tenniel,[11] who wrote in a letter to Carroll dated 1 June 1870:[12]
I am bound to say that the 'wasp' chapter doesn't interest me in the least, and I can't see my way to a picture. If you want to shorten the book, I can't help thinking—with all submission—that there is your opportunity.
For many years, no one had any idea what this missing section was or whether it had survived. In 1974, a document purporting to be the galley proofs of the missing section was auctioned at Sotheby's; the catalogue description, in part, read, "the proofs were bought at the sale of the author's…personal effects…Oxford, 1898". The document would be won by John Fleming, a Manhattan book dealer, for a bid of about US$832(equivalent to $5,140 in 2023).[13] The contents were subsequently published in Martin Gardner's More Annotated Alice (1990),[14] and are also available as a hardback book.[15]
The rediscovered section describes Alice's encounter with a wasp wearing a yellow wig, and includes a full previously unpublished poem. If included in the book, it would have followed, or been included at the end of, Chapter 8—the chapter featuring the encounter with the White Knight. The discovery is generally accepted as genuine, but the proofs have yet to receive any physical examination to establish age and authenticity.[16]
The missing episode was included in the 1998 TV film adaptation Alice through the Looking Glass, with the character being portrayed by Ian Richardson. It was also included in the 2010 graphic novel "The Complete Alice in Wonderland".
Alice in the Land in the Other Side of the Mirror (1982) is a 38-minute Soviet cutout-animated TV film produced by Kievnauchfilm studio and directed by Yefrem Pruzhanskiy.
Alice Through the Looking Glass (1987) is an animated TV movie starring Janet Waldo as the voice of Alice and The Red Queen, as well as the voices of Mr. T as the Jabberwock, Jonathan Winters, and Phyllis Diller.[22]
A 2-hour multimedia stage production (2007), conceived by Andy Burden, was produced by the Tobacco Factory. The show would be directed by Burden and written by Hattie Naylor, with music and lyrics by Paul Dodgson.[24]
The animated Alice in Wonderland (1951) is the most famous among all direct adaptions of Carroll's work. The film features several elements from Through the Looking-Glass, including the talking flowers, Tweedledee & Tweedledum, and "The Walrus and the Carpenter". The Unbirthbay celebration is held by the Mad Hatter and March Hare during the tea party scene.[28]
Nel Mondo Di Alice ("In the World of Alice") is a 1974 Italian TV series that covers both novels, particularly Through the Looking-Glass in episodes 3 and 4.[30]
Alice in Wonderland (1985) is a two-part TV musical produced by Irwin Allen that covers both books, and stars Natalie Gregory as Alice. In this adaptation, the Jabberwock materialises into reality after Alice reads "Jabberwocky", pursuing her throughout the second half of the musical.[31]
Fushigi no Kuni no Arisu (1985; Japanese: ふしぎの国のアリス) is an anime adaptation of the two novels in which later episodes adhere more closely with Through the Looking Glass.
Alice in Wonderland (1999), a made-for-TV Hallmark/NBC film with Tina Majorino as Alice, uses elements from Through the Looking Glass, such as the talking flowers, Tweedledee & Tweedledum, and "The Walrus and the Carpenter", as well as the chess theme, including the snoring Red King and White Knight.[32]
Alice (2009) is a Syfy TV miniseries that contains elements from both novels.[33]
Alice in Wonderland (2010), directed by Tim Burton, is a live-action Disney reboot that follows Alice at an adult age, containing elements from both books.[34]
Maidie Andrews as Alice in Alice Through the Looking-Glass at the Comedy Theatre, London during the Christmas period 1903–04. Pictured in The Tatler (January 1904)
Alice in Concert (1980), also known as Alice at the Palace, was a production written and produced by Elizabeth Swados. Performed on a bare stage, the production starred Meryl Streep in the role of Alice, with additional supporting cast by Mark Linn-Baker and Betty Aberlin.
Lookingglass Alice (2007) was an acrobatic interpretation of both novels, produced by the Lookingglass Theater Company, that performed in New York City, Philadelphia, and Chicago,[35] with a version of the show touring the rest of the United States.[36]
A 2-part production by Iris Theatre in London was staged in the summer of 2013, in which the second part consisted of Through the Looking-Glass. Both parts included Laura Wickham in the role of Alice.[37]
Alice (2010), written by Laura Wade, was a modern adaptation of both books that premiered at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield in 2010.[38]
Wonder.land (2015), a live musical by Moira Buffini and Damon Albarn, takes some characters from the second novel, notably Dum and Dee and Humpty Dumpty, while the Queen of Hearts and the Red Queen are merged into one character.
American McGee's Alice (2000) is a computer game in which the player takes the role of a teenage Alice fighting to reclaim her sanity. It was followed by a sequel, Alice: Madness Returns, in 2011.
Through the Looking-Glass (2011) was a ballet by American composer John Craton.
Through the Zombie Glass (2013) is a book by Gena Showalter.
"Jabberwocky" is a nonsense poem written by Lewis Carroll about the killing of a creature named "the Jabberwock". It was included in his 1871 novel Through the Looking-Glass, the sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865). The book tells of Alice's adventures within the back-to-front world of the Looking-Glass world.
Alice in Wonderland is a 1933 American pre-Code fantasy film adapted from the novels by Lewis Carroll. The film was produced by Paramount Pictures, featuring an all-star cast. It is all live action, except for the Walrus and The Carpenter sequence, which was animated by Harman-Ising Studio.
Alice in Wonderland is a 1985 American two-part made-for-television adventure family fantasy musical film of Lewis Carroll's books Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking-Glass (1871). An Irwin Allen production, it used a huge all-star cast of notable actors and actresses. The title role was played by Natalie Gregory, who wore a blonde wig for this miniseries. Alice in Wonderland was first telecast December 9, 1985, and December 10, 1985, at 8:00pm EST on CBS.
Tweedledum and Tweedledee are characters in an English nursery rhyme and in Lewis Carroll's 1871 book Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There. Their names may have originally come from an epigram written by poet John Byrom. The nursery rhyme has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 19800. The names have since become synonymous in western popular culture slang for any two people whose appearances and actions are identical.
Lewis Carroll's books Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking-Glass (1871) have been highly popular in their original forms, and have served as the basis for many subsequent works since they were published. They have been adapted directly into other media, their characters and situations have been appropriated into other works, and these elements have been referenced innumerable times as familiar elements of shared culture. Simple references to the two books are too numerous to list; this list of works based on Alice in Wonderland focuses on works based specifically and substantially on Carroll's two books about the character of Alice.
An unbirthday is an event celebrated on all days of the year which are not a person's birthday. It is a neologism which first appeared in Lewis Carroll's 1871 novel Through the Looking-Glass. The concept gave rise to "The Unbirthday Song" in the 1951 animated feature film Alice in Wonderland.
The Looking Glass Wars is a series of three novels by Frank Beddor, heavily inspired by Lewis Carroll's 1865 novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its 1871 sequel Through the Looking-Glass. The premise is that the two books written by Lewis Carroll are a distortion of the "true story".
Alice in Wonderland is a musical by Henry Savile Clarke and Walter Slaughter (music), based on Lewis Carroll's books Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking-Glass (1871). It debuted at the Prince of Wales's Theatre in the West End on 23 December 1886. Aubrey Hopwood (lyrics) and Walter Slaughter (music) wrote additional songs which were first used for the 1900 revival.
The Red King is a character who appears in Lewis Carroll's 1871 fantasy novel Through the Looking-Glass.
The White King is a fictional character who appears in Lewis Carroll's 1871 fantasy novel Through the Looking-Glass. Aside from Alice herself, he is one of the earliest chesspieces that are introduced into the story. Although he does not interact with Alice as much as the White Queen does, because Alice becomes a pawn on his side of the Chess-game, he is, on some levels, the most important character within the story at least as far as the game is concerned. He is not to be confused with the King of Hearts from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
The White Queen is a fictional character who appears in Lewis Carroll's 1871 fantasy novel Through the Looking-Glass.
Through the Looking Glass is a chamber opera by the Australian composer Alan John to a libretto by Andrew Upton, based on Lewis Carroll's 1871 book and on the life of Alice Liddell, the girl for whom Carroll wrote the story's 1865 prequel, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
Alice in Wonderland is a 1915 American silent film adaptation of Lewis Carroll's classic 1865 novel, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, directed and written by W. W. Young and starring Viola Savoy as Alice.
The Looking-Glass world is the setting for Lewis Carroll's 1871 children's novel Through the Looking-Glass.
A 1982 Broadway stage performance of Alice in Wonderland was telecast on PBS's Great Performances in 1983. Directed by Kirk Browning, it was produced by PBS affiliate WNET in New York. Black-and-white papier-mâché costumes aimed to re-create the book's original artwork by John Tenniel.
But Never Jam Today was a 1979 musical with music by Bert Keyes and Bob Larimer, lyrics by Larimer, and a book by both Larimer and Vinnette Carroll. The musical is based on the works of Lewis Carroll, and takes its title from the "jam tomorrow" discussion in Carroll's 1871 novel Through the Looking-Glass.
Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass is a 2001 stage adaptation of Lewis Carroll's 1865 novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and the 1871 novel Through the Looking-Glass. It was written by Adrian Mitchell. A 2 hour adaptation of both of Carroll's novels, it holds the distinction for currently being the most comprehensive stage adaptation of the books yet made, with the endings of both novels intact and only minor changes made for theatrical staging reasons.
Alice's Adventures Under Ground is a 2016 one-act opera by Gerald Barry to his own libretto, based on Lewis Carroll's 1865 children's book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its 1871 sequel Alice Through the Looking-Glass. First performed in a concert staging at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles on 22 November 2016, it received its stage premiere at the Royal Opera House on 3 February 2020. The staging was a joint production by the Royal Opera House, Irish National Opera and Dutch National Opera, and was directed by Antony McDonald.
Alice through the Looking Glass is a 1998 British fantasy television film, based on Lewis Carroll's 1871 book Through the Looking-Glass, and starring Kate Beckinsale.
Alice Through the Looking Glass (1966), was a live action musical film made for television, directed by Alan Handley, and based on Lewis Carroll's 1871 novel Through the Looking-Glass. The show aired November 6, 1966 on NBC television in the United States. Bob Mackie and Ray Aghayan worked together on the costume designs, which won them an Emmy Award in 1967.
↑ During the "Mad Tea-Party", Alice reveals that the date is "the fourth" and that the month is "May" (chap.7).
↑ In the first chapter, Alice speaks of the snow outside and the "bonfire" that "the boys" are building for a celebration "to-morrow," a clear reference to the traditional bonfires of Guy Fawkes Night that take place on 5 November. In Chapter 5, she affirms that her age is "seven and a half exactly."
↑ Downey, Glen (1998). "3"(PDF). The Truth about Pawn Promotion: The Development of the Chess Motif in Victorian Fiction (PhD). University of Victoria.
↑ Carroll, Lewis (1977). The Wasp in a Wig: A Suppressed Episode of 'Through The Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There. New York: Lewis Carroll Society of North America.
↑ Cleverdon, Douglas (1959). "Alice Through the Looking Glass". National Library of Australia (Podcast). London: Argo. Archived from the original on 10 April 2020. Retrieved 12 January 2023.
↑ fictionrare2 (29 September 2014), Nel mondo di Alice 3^p, archived from the original on 11 December 2021, retrieved 23 April 2016{{citation}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
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