Which do you think it was?
A boat beneath a sunny sky,
Lingering onward dreamily
In an evening of July –
Children three that nestle near,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Pleased a simple tale to hear –
Long has paled that sunny sky:
Echoes fade and memories die.
Autumn frosts have slain July.
Still she haunts me, phantomwise,
Alice moving under skies
Never seen by waking eyes.
Children yet, the tale to hear,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Lovingly shall nestle near.
In a Wonderland they lie,
Dreaming as the days go by,
Dreaming as the summers die:
Ever drifting down the stream –
Lingering in the golden gleam –
Life, what is it but a dream?
THE END
PUFFIN CLASSICS
Through the
Looking-Glass
With Puffin Classics, the adventure isn’t
over when you reach the final page.
Want to discover more about your favourite
characters, their creators and their worlds?
Read on…
CONTENTS
AUTHOR FILE
WHO’S WHO IN THROUGH THE
LOOKING-GLASS
SOME INTERESTING INFORMATION
SOME THINGS TO THINK ABOUT…
SOME THINGS TO DO…
ALL ABOUT CHESS
AN ALICE GLOSSARY
AUTHOR FILE
NAME: Charles Lutwidge Dodgson; better known as Lewis Carroll
BORN: 27 January 1832 in Daresbury, England
DIED: 14 January 1898 in Guildford, England
NATIONALITY: English
LIVED: Cheshire, Yorkshire, Oxfordshire, Surrey
MARRIED: Never married
What was he like?
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson was a rather shy, sensitive boy but he was always full of ingenious ideas. As one of the eldest of a family of eleven children, he entertained his siblings with magic tricks, puzzles, number games and word games, all of which he created himself, and he produced magazines full of stories, nonsense rhymes and drawings.
The young adult Charles Dodgson was tall, slender, with curling brown hair and blue eyes. Despite remaining a shy and rather private man, he was an entertaining character who became one of the most famous writers of his day.
Where did he grow up?
Charles was born in the north of England in the small Cheshire village of Daresbury, where his father was the parish priest. In 1843 the family moved to Croft in Yorkshire and lived in a rectory with a large garden for the children. Charles was educated at home by his parents until the age of twelve, and then at Richmond School, where he was a boarder. At fourteen he was sent to Rugby boarding school, but here he was very lonely and miserable. He was often bullied for his lack of sporting ability and his stammer, something which was to plague him throughout his life. Nevertheless he was a brilliant scholar and went to Oxford University, where he gained a First Class Honours degree in mathematics.
Charles stayed on at Christ Church College, Oxford, as a tutor in mathematics, and one of the conditions of his residency was that he took holy orders. So in 1861 Charles was ordained and became known as the Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, but he never went into the priesthood.
What did he do apart from writing books?
Apart from teaching, Charles Dodgson had many hobbies and interests. He was a keen photographer and became one of the best portrait photographers of his time. He enjoyed theatre and opera, and loved playing games such as croquet, billiards and chess. He created logic puzzles and games, and made up stories and rhymes for his many child friends. He wrote letters and kept diaries and was very meticulous, making lists and keeping records of everything that he did.
Why did he change his name to Lewis Carroll?
Charles wrote his mathematical books under his real name, but he wanted to be known by a different name for his children’s books so he invented the pen-name Lewis Carroll. He got this name by translating his first two names, Charles Lutwidge, into Latin as Carolus Ludovicus, and then anglicizing and reversing their order.
English Latin English
Charles Carolus Carroll
Lutwidge Ludovicus Lewis
Where did he get the idea for Alice’s adventures?
Charles wrote Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass for the children of Henry Liddell, the Dean of Christ Church College, one of whom was called Alice. It all began one summer’s day in 1862 when Charles and his friend Reverend Robinson Duckworth took Alice and her two sisters on a boating trip. To keep them amused he told a delightful tale involving Alice and a White Rabbit, and he wove into the story many of the places and things which they’d seen on their outings in Oxford. Charles based Through the Looking-Glass on the game of chess, played on a giant chessboard with fields for squares. Most of the main characters whom Alice meets in the story are represented by a chess piece, with Alice herself being a White Pawn.
What did people think of Through the Looking-Glass when it was first published?
The public had to wait six years for the sequel to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. But when Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, with John Tenniel’s outstanding illustrations, appeared in Christmas 1871, readers were, once again, full of praise. (Sometimes the publication date of Through the Looking-Glass is listed as 1872, as recorded on the title page, but the book came out in December of the year before.) Both volumes of Alice became an integral part of childhood – and they still are today. Many of the characters – the Mad Hatter, the March Hare, Tweedledum and Tweedledee and Humpty Dumpty – have become household names, made famous through literature, television and film. Film director Tim Burton is currently working on a remake of Disney’s Alice in Wonderland, due out in March 2010.
What about the illustrations in Through the Looking-Glass?
Sir John Tenniel was a well-known illustrator and political cartoonist of the day. Each illustration was drawn on boxwood and then sent to the engravers, who engraved the block for printing. Curiously, Tenniel’s interpretation of Alice Liddell, for whom the Alice books were written, is nothing like the real Alice, who had dark hair.
What other books did Lewis Carroll write?
Under his real name, Charles wrote many mathematical books, his most important works being Euclid and His Modern Rivals (1879) and Curiosa Mathematica (1888). Writing as Lewis Carroll for children, he produced stories and poems, including Phantasmagoria & Other Poems (1869), a collection of humorous poems; The Hunting of the Snark (1876), which has been called ‘the longest and best sustained nonsense poem in the English language’; A Tangled Tale (1885), designed to interest children in mathematics; and Sylvie and Bruno (1889) and Sylvie and Bruno Concluded, a two-volume novel. But it is for Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and the sequel, Through the Looking-Glass (1871), that Lewis Carroll became so well known.
WHO’S WHO IN THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS
Alice – an imaginative little girl aged seven and a half. Alice is playing a game of ‘let’s pretend’ with Kitty when she passes through the large looking-glass over the fireplace into the Looking-glass House and a world where everything is in reverse.
Kitty – the mischievous black kitten who, according to Alice, causes her to go through the looking-glass.
The White Queen – the White Queen is a friend to Alice, and makes her one of her Pawns. She is rather eccentric and suddenly turns into a sheep.
The White King – he is an important part of the game of chess, although he does not interact with Alice as much as the White Queen and the Red Queen.
The Red Queen – (not to be confused with the Queen of Hearts in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland) is firm but fair, even though she is on
the opposing side in the game of chess. She explains the rules to Alice and gives her advice on how to behave as a Queen.
The Red King – doesn’t move throughout the game and when Alice first meets him he is fast asleep. The chess game ends when Alice puts him into checkmate.
Lily – a White Pawn and the White King and Queen’s daughter.
Tiger-Lily – one of the flowers Alice meets in the garden.
Goat, Beetle, Horse, Gnat – characters in the carriage on Alice’s train journey through the third square.
Rocking-horse-fly – one of the Looking-glass insects.
The Walrus – he eats the oysters in Tweedledum and Tweedledee’s poem.
The Carpenter – a character from Tweedledum and Tweedledee’s poem.
The Sheep – the White Queen turns into the sheep, who sits in a chair, knitting.
Tweedledum and Tweedledee – the nursery-rhyme characters who befriend Alice and help her on her journey.
Humpty Dumpty – Alice comes across Humpty Dumpty sitting on a high, narrow wall. He’s rather haughty and rude, but because he seems to understand lots of words, Alice asks him to explain the meaning of the unusual words in the poem ‘Jabberwocky’.
Haigha and Hatta – the White King’s messengers.
The Lion and the Unicorn – they fight each other for the White King’s crown.
The White Knight – Alice’s clumsy but helpful friend who rescues her from the Red Knight, who tries to take her prisoner.
SOME INTERESTING INFORMATION
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass are still in print today, over a century after their publication. They remain, next to the Bible and the works of Shakespeare, among the world’s most widely translated works of literature. Translations are available in over seventy languages, including Yiddish and Swahili.
Several words from Lewis Carroll’s nonsense poems have become part of the English language, such as ‘chortle’, which combines ‘snort’ and ‘chuckle’, from the poem ‘Jabberwocky’, and ‘galumph’ which combines ‘gallop’ and ‘triumph’.
Dodgson was also an inventor. He devised the Wonderland Postage-Stamp Case in 1889 – a wallet with slots for stamps – to encourage letter-writing. He is also said to have popularized the Word Ladder game (changing one word into another by altering one letter at a time).
Lewis Carroll lies buried in the Mount Cemetery, Guildford. The plaque outside his Guildford home, The Chestnuts, was designed by local children, who have managed to incorporate many of his characters. However, an attempt was made to steal the plaque in 2005 so it was removed for safekeeping.
From January 1861 until his death in 1898, Lewis Carroll kept records of all the letters that he wrote. The record contains 98,721 letters!
SOME THINGS TO THINK ABOUT…
The looking-glass allows Alice to enter a mirror-world, full of new and familiar people. Who would you like to see through your own looking-glass?
Alice meets many different characters in the Through the Looking-Glass. Who is your favourite and why? Who do you like the least?
Imagine you are a set designer for a new theatre production of Through the Looking-Glass. Think how you would portray the countryside as a chessboard.
How do John Tenniel’s illustrations support the story and characters? Do you think the story would be as effective without illustrations?
There are thousands of children’s books set in fantasy worlds. What do you think it is about Alice’s adventures that has made them so popular?
SOME THINGS TO DO…
Write a description of Alice – how do you think she changes throughout the story?
Compose your own ‘Jabberwocky’-style poem and write it backwards!
Imagine you have found a looking-glass world of your own – draw all the interesting characters you would like to meet.
Design new outfits for Tweedledum and Tweedledee!
Learn how to play chess (if you don’t already know) and challenge your friends to a tournament.
Pick your favourite letter from the alphabet, bearing in mind all your responses must begin with this letter. Then:
Choose a name
Choose a place – can be a country, city, town or village
Choose a type of food
Choose a sport
Now, using those responses, write a short story including all those words!
Make your own Humpty Dumpty:
Take a large egg.
Make a tiny hole at the bottom of the eggshell using a needle, and drain the egg into an empty bowl. Be careful not to crack the egg and have it splatter everywhere! Ask an adult to help you just in case.
Now you can start the decorating. Remember to give it eyes, nose and a mouth to smile with!
Have a go at making a looking-glass-inspired plum cake. Remember to slice it and offer it to everyone just as Alice did. Once again, ask an adult to help you with this easy recipe:
Plum Cake
Ingredients:
150g (⅔ cup) butter
150g (¾ cup) unrefined golden caster sugar
3 large eggs
75g (¾ cup) plain flour
1½ teaspoons baking powder
100g (1¼ cups) ground almonds
16 plums, stoned and quartered
Set the oven at 180°C/355°F, gas mark 4.
Grease and line the base of a square cake tin, about 6cm deep.
Beat the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy, the colour of vanilla ice cream.
Beat the eggs lightly with a fork and then add them bit by bit to the butter and sugar.
Sift the flour and baking powder together and fold them gently into the mixture.
Fold in the ground almonds.
Scrape the mixture into the lined cake tin.
Halve the plums, remove the stones and cut each half in two. Place the quartered plums on the cake mixture.
Bake for 40–45 minutes, and then test to see if it is done by inserting a skewer. If it comes out clean, without any wet cake mixture sticking to it, then the cake is ready.
Remove the cake from the oven and leave to cool in the tin for 15 minutes before turning out on to a cake plate.
ALL ABOUT CHESS
Did you know that chess is the oldest game of skill in the world? It is believed to have originated in India over 5,000 years ago from a game known as Chaturanga, which refers to the four parts of an Indian army: the soldier, the elephant, the chariot and the horse. It was brought to Europe in the tenth century and adapted there into the game we know today as chess.
The first chessboard with alternating light and dark squares – as it appears today – was made in Europe in 1090.
The Isle of Lewis chess pieces are the oldest surviving complete chess set known. Discovered on the Isle of Lewis, they are made from walrus tusks and show their characters in a range of bad moods, from anger to depression.
The folding chessboard was invented in 1125 by a priest. At the time the Church forbade priests to play chess, so he disguised his chessboard by making one that looked like two books lying together.
There are six different pieces in a game of chess:
The King – the most valuable piece because capturing him ends the game, the king can move in any direction but only one square at a time.
The Bishop – moves in a diagonal direction on the board and can capture any opposing chess piece as long as no other piece stands in its way.
The Rook (or Castle) – moves straight up and down or from left to right. The rook can capture any other chess piece in its path, but cannot jump over another piece. The Queen – the most powerful chess piece; she can move in all directions.
The Knight – moves in an L-shape around the board and can jump over other pieces.
Pawns – these are the least powerful pieces on the chessboard and can only move forwards.
The word ‘checkmate’ actually derives from a Persian phrase, shah mat, which means ‘the king is defeated’
.
Robert James ‘Bobby’ Fischer (9 March 1943 – 17 January 2008) was an American chess Grandmaster, and the eleventh World Chess Champion. He is widely considered one of the greatest chess players of all time.
A game of chess can last hours or minutes depending on the skill, or luck, of the players. One of the longest games recorded was held in Yugoslavia in 1989. The game involved 269 moves and took over twenty hours, ending in a draw.
GLOSSARY
bolster – a long pillow or cushion that is often put across the bed underneath the regular pillows
chimney-piece – the shelf that projects from wall above the fireplace, also known as the mantlepiece
cinders – the burnt-out fragments that are left after a wood or coal-burning fire
cravat – a piece of silk or other fine cloth worn by men round the neck in a slipknot
fender – a low metal guard surrounding an open fire to keep falling coals in the hearth
farthing – a quarter of an old penny
finger-posts – sign-posts
frumenty – a sweet, spicy porridge made from wheat
gimblet – a handtool for making holes
hearth – the floor of a fireplace
mayhap – perhaps or maybe
memorandum – a written reminder
Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There Page 11