Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (1871) is Lewis Carroll's sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Alice climbs through the mirror above the fireplace into a world where everything is reversed and the landscape is a giant chessboard. There she meets Tweedledum and Tweedledee, Humpty Dumpty, the White Knight and the Red Queen.
The story
On a snowy November afternoon, Alice wonders what is on the other side of the drawing-room mirror and passes through it. In the Looking-Glass house she finds living chessmen and a book containing the nonsense poem Jabberwocky, which she can read only by holding it up to a mirror.
Outside, the country is divided into squares like a chessboard. Alice becomes a white pawn and sets off to reach the eighth square, where she will be a queen. On the way she meets talking flowers, the twins Tweedledum and Tweedledee, the White Queen, Humpty Dumpty, the Lion and the Unicorn, and the gentle White Knight.
A game of chess
Carroll built the story on a chess problem, set out at the beginning of the book, in which White wins in eleven moves. Its moves do not always follow the rules of chess, but Alice's journey across the board follows the stages of the game.
Everything in the Looking-Glass world is reversed: one has to walk away from a place to reach it, run very fast to stay in the same place, and the White Queen remembers things that will happen the following week.
Publication
The book was published by Macmillan in December 1871, dated 1872, with fifty illustrations by John Tenniel, who had also illustrated the first Alice book. It sold so quickly that Macmillan had to reprint it within weeks.
Many of its characters and poems, such as Jabberwocky and The Walrus and the Carpenter, have become as famous as those of Wonderland, and the two books are often published together or mixed in adaptations, notably in Walt Disney's 1951 film.
Anecdotes
The Wasp in a Wig
Tenniel persuaded Carroll to cut an episode in which Alice meets an old wasp wearing a yellow wig, saying that he could not see how to illustrate it. The galley proofs of the lost chapter turned up at an auction in 1974, and it was published in 1977.
The Red Queen in biology
In 1973 the American biologist Leigh Van Valen named an evolutionary theory after the Red Queen, who tells Alice that in her country one must run as fast as possible just to stay in the same place: species must keep evolving simply to survive alongside their competitors.
Frequently asked questions
Is Through the Looking-Glass a sequel?
Yes. It is the sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865), with the same heroine, Alice, six months older.
When was Through the Looking-Glass published?
In December 1871, although the first edition is dated 1872.
What is Jabberwocky?
A nonsense poem about the slaying of a monster, the Jabberwock, which Alice finds in a Looking-Glass book. Humpty Dumpty later explains some of its invented words.