Through The Looking-Glass

By Lewis Carroll

After stepping through the looking glass, Lewis Carroll’s beloved heroine Alice finds herself yet again in an enchanting alternate world where she meets The White Knight, The Jabberwock and Tweedledee and Tweedledum, and re-encounters the nonsensical Red Queen. Filled with Carroll’s delightfully absurd characters and elaborately complex happenings, Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There exemplifies the literary nonsense genre that Carroll helped popularize in the nineteenth century.

Most adaptations of Lewis Carroll’s beloved books have combined the stories featured in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass including the 1951 animated Disney film Alice in Wonderland. More recently, director Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland (2010) used Wonderland lore to create an entirely new storyline about Alice and many of the other characters made famous by Carroll’s novels.

HarperPerennial Classics brings great works of literature to life in digital format, upholding the highest standards in ebook production and celebrating reading in all its forms. Look for more titles in the HarperPerennial Classics collection to build your digital library.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Apr 9, 2013
• ISBN: 9781443417525

Lewis Carroll

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, aka Lewis Carroll (1832–1898), was an English writer, mathematician, logician, deacon and photographer. He is most famous for his timeless classics, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. His work falls within the genre of ‘literary nonsense’, and he is renowned for his use of word play and imagination. Carroll’s work has been enjoyed by many generations across the globe.

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Through_Interior_Cover.jpg

Through the

Looking-Glass

by Lewis Carroll

HarperPerennialClassicsLogo.jpg

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Prologue

Preface

Chapter 1—Looking-Glass House

Chapter 2—The Garden of Live Flowers

Chapter 3—Looking-Glass Insects

Chapter 4—Tweedledum and Tweedledee

Chapter 5—Wool and Water

Chapter 6—Humpty Dumpty

Chapter 7—The Lion and the Unicorn

Chapter 8—‘It’s My Own Invention’

Chapter 9—Queen Alice

Chapter 10—Shaking

Chapter 11—Waking

Chapter 12—Which Dreamed It?

About the Author

About the Series

Copyright

About the Publisher

Prologue

Child of the pure unclouded brow

And dreaming eyes of wonder!

Though time be fleet, and I and thou

Are half a life asunder,

Thy loving smile will surely hail

The love-gift of a fairy-tale.

I have not seen thy sunny face,

Nor heard thy silver laughter;

No thought of me shall find a place

In thy young life’s hereafter—

Enough that now thou wilt not fail

To listen to my fairy-tale.

A tale begun in other days,

When summer suns were glowing—

A simple chime, that served to time

The rhythm of our rowing—

Whose echoes live in memory yet,

Though envious years would say forget.

Come, hearken then, ere voice of dread,

With bitter tidings laden,

Shall summon to unwelcome bed

A melancholy maiden!

We are but older children, dear,

Who fret to find our bedtime near.

Without, the frost, the blinding snow,

The storm-wind’s moody madness—

Within, the firelight’s ruddy glow,

And childhood’s nest of gladness.

The magic words shall hold thee fast:

Thou shalt not heed the raving blast.

And though the shadow of a sigh

May tremble through the story,

For happy summer days gone by,

And vanish’d summer glory—

It shall not touch with breath of bale

The pleasance of our fairy-tale.

Preface to Sixty-First Thousand

As the chess-problem, given on the previous page, has puzzled some of my readers, it may be well to explain that it is correctly worked out, so far as the moves are concerned. The alternation of Red and White is perhaps not so strictly observed as it might be, and the castling of the three Queens is merely a way of saying that they entered the palace; but the check of the White King at move 6, the capture of the Red Knight at move 7, and the final checkmate of the Red King, will be found, by anyone who will take the trouble to set the pieces and play the moves as directed, to be strictly in accordance with the laws of the game.

The new words, in the poem Jabberwocky, have given rise to some differences of opinion as to their pronunciation: so it may be well to give instructions on that point also. Pronounce slithy as if it were the two words sly, the: make the g hard in gyre and gimble: and pronounce rath to rhyme with bath.

For this sixty-first thousand, fresh electrotypes have been taken from the wood-blocks (which, never having been used for printing from, are in as good condition as when first cut in 1871), and the whole book has been set up afresh with new type. If the artistic qualities of this reissue fall short, in any particular, of those possessed by the original issue, it will not be for want of painstaking on the part of author, publisher, or printer.

I take this opportunity of announcing that the Nursery Alice, hitherto priced at four shillings, net, is now to be had on the same terms as the ordinary shilling picture-books-although I feel sure that it is, in every quality (except the text itself, in which I am not qualified to pronounce), greatly superior to them. Four shillings was a perfectly reasonable price to charge, considering the very heavy initial outlay I had incurred: still, as the Public have practically said, "We will not give more than a shilling for a picture-book, however artistically got-up," I am content to reckon my outlay on the book as so much dead loss, and, rather than let the little ones, for whom it was written, go without it, I am selling it at a price which is, to me, much the same thing as giving it away.

Christmas, 1896

Chapter 1

Looking-Glass House

One thing was certain, that the white kitten had had nothing to do with it—it was the black kitten’s fault entirely. For the white kitten had been having its face washed by the old cat for the last quarter of an hour (and bearing it pretty well, considering); so you see that it couldn’t have had any hand in the mischief.

The way Dinah washed her children’s faces was this: first she held the poor thing down by its ear with one paw, and then with the other paw she rubbed its face all over, the wrong way, beginning at the nose: and just now, as I said, she was hard at work on the white kitten, which was lying quite still and trying to purr—no doubt feeling that it was all meant for its good.

But the black kitten had been finished with earlier in the afternoon, and so, while Alice was sitting curled up in a corner of the great armchair, half talking to herself and half asleep, the kitten had been having a grand game of romps with the ball of worsted Alice had been trying to wind up, and had been rolling it up and down till it had all come undone again; and there it was, spread over the hearth-rug, all knots and tangles, with the kitten running after its own tail in the middle.

‘Oh, you wicked little thing!’ cried Alice, catching up the kitten, and giving it a little kiss to make it understand that it was in disgrace. ‘Really, Dinah ought to have taught you better manners! You ought, Dinah, you know you ought!’ she added, looking reproachfully at the old cat, and speaking in as cross a voice as she could manage—and then she scrambled back into the armchair, taking the kitten and the worsted with her, and began winding up the ball again. But she didn’t get on very fast, as she was talking all the time, sometimes to the kitten, and sometimes to herself. Kitty sat very demurely on her knee, pretending to watch the progress of the winding, and now and then putting out one paw and gently touching the ball, as if it would be glad to help, if it might.

‘Do you know what tomorrow is, Kitty?’ Alice began. ‘You’d have guessed if you’d been up in the window with me—only Dinah was making you tidy, so you couldn’t. I was watching the boys getting in sticks for the bonfire—and it wants plenty of sticks, Kitty! Only it got so cold, and it snowed so, they had to leave off. Never mind, Kitty, we’ll go and see the bonfire tomorrow.’ Here Alice wound two or three turns of the worsted round the kitten’s neck, just to see how it would look: this led to a scramble, in which the ball rolled down upon the floor, and yards and yards of it got unwound again.

‘Do you know, I was so angry, Kitty,’ Alice went on as soon as they were comfortably settled again, ‘when I saw all the mischief you had been doing, I was very nearly opening the window, and putting you out into the snow! And you’d have deserved it, you little mischievous darling! What have you got to say for yourself? Now don’t interrupt me!’ she went on, holding up one finger. ‘I’m going to tell you all your faults. Number one: you squeaked twice while Dinah was washing your face this morning. Now you can’t deny it, Kitty: I heard you! What’s that you say?’ (pretending that the kitten was speaking.) ‘Her paw went into your eye? Well, that’s your fault, for keeping your eyes open—if you’d shut them tight up, it wouldn’t have happened. Now don’t make any more excuses, but listen! Number two: you pulled Snowdrop away by the tail just as I had put down the saucer of milk before her! What, you were thirsty, were you? How do you know she wasn’t thirsty too? Now for number three: you unwound every bit of the worsted while I wasn’t looking!

‘That’s three faults, Kitty, and you’ve not been punished for any of them yet. You know I’m saving up all your punishments for Wednesday week—Suppose they had saved up all my punishments!’ she went on, talking more to herself than the kitten. ‘What would they do at the end of a year? I should be sent to prison, I suppose, when the day came. Or—let me see—suppose each punishment was to be going without a dinner: then, when the miserable day came, I should have to go without fifty dinners at once! Well, I shouldn’t mind that much! I’d far rather go without them than eat them!

‘Do you hear the snow against the window-panes, Kitty? How nice and soft it sounds! Just as if

Reviews for Through The Looking-Glass

[littlerob · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I love all things Alice. This edition has beautiful illustrations by Bessie Pease Gutmann.

[etxgardener · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Alice and her cat Dinah step through the looking glass and enter a kingdom of strange creatures and have many adventures. Every once in a while you must re-read these classics.

[cayenneellis · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I just wrote a big review and accidentally deleted it. Sigh.This was a good book. I definitely enjoyed it! But I don't think it really stood up to the first Alice. This nonsense book seemed a little more nonsensical, with less rhyme or reason behind it. The sense that I think I was supposed make out of it came to me later than it should have; the kittens = the queens? Whoops! I did really enjoy the inclusion of all the poetry in this volume, however, and I was also surprised at the inclusion of so much iconic Alice canon such as Tweedledum and Tweedledee as well as The Jabberwocky. I would recommend this book if for no other reason than what an easy read it was, even if you're worried you might not like it - I read it start to finish cover to cover. It was definitely cute and worth reading.

[something_-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I didn't love this one as much as I loved the first one, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, which immediately became one of my favourite books. The translation of the poems left a lot to be desired, though that is always a difficult thing to make sound right in a translation. On the other hand, all the word plays one could probably find in english were much harder to come across in portuguese. Also, I dare say the world on the other side of the mirror came across as perhaps a bit too scattered. I plan on giving the english version a go as soon as I get my hands into a copy though.

[breton07 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I liked this edition so much. I enjoyed re-reading the book since my childhood. However, being able to see how Lewis Carroll's own illustrations influenced Sir John Tenniel's was inspiring! Their collaboration really worked!I've always felt this book was a second home for me. I had a chance to read about the world as its crazy self. It is a coming of age story about a girl who is curious, outspoken, and opinionated. A great fantasy novel reflects who we are-sometimes hugely important, sometimes small and inconsequential. One of my favorite poems,"Jabberwocky", is in this book.-Breton W Kaiser Taylor

[nx74defiant · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

My favorite. I love this book. The Jaberwarky, Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum and every thing else. I prefer this book to Alice in Wonderland.

[glennbell_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This book is even worse than Alice in Wonderland due to the lack of sense. Although the story is supposed to be a dream, one would hope for some value from the story. There are some bright spots in that some humor can be found. I do not see the value in reading this story.

[benuathanasia · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Far more intriguing than the original. I enjoyed the chessboard theme.

[thedivineoomba · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I've been staying away from this book, I think it was because there was a made for TV movie based on this book that I saw as a kid, and it was rather scary....However, this book is not scary at all, I was expecting more Jabberwocky, and outside of a poem, there was no mention of it all. Generally, this book is nonsensical, with flashes of logic. There is no rhyme or reason to what Alice does, its just nonsensical encounter after nonsensical encounter. This book doesn't have much of relation to the Alice in Wonderland, being set in a different game entirely.I think I preffered the first book better than the second. In this book, Alice has no real reason for doing what she does, just that it happens.Overall, its a fast read and rather enjoyable.

[readandfindout · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

4.5 stars. Going into it, I expected that I was only going to enjoy select parts of this book. I'm pleased to say that I was wrong! Though the majority of this book is nonsensical, the word play throughout is so fun and endearing. I really loved the whimsy.

[gagirl101 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I honestly didn't care much for this book. I enjoyed the Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum but the queens just annoyed me half the time and I thought that it could have been better developed overall.

[britt84 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

When I first read 'Through the Looking Glass' I really didn't like it as much as I had liked 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland', but I find that it has grown on me with a number of re-readings. I think 'Through the Looking Glass' is perhaps a bit more difficult, or more 'mature' than Alice. Or perhaps I'm just more familiar with Alice and therefore liked it better to begin with... Either way, I think reading it several times has opened my eyes to more of the symbolism in the novel, and has very much increased my enjoyment of it, and I think it's definitely worth the effort of getting more closely aquainted with it.

[behemothing-2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

"The shop seemed to be full of all manner of curious things-- but the oddest part of it all was, that whenever she looked hard at any shelf, to make out exactly what it had on it, that particular shelf was always quite empty: though the others round it were crowded as full as they could hold."

[aliceanna-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Not nearly so good as "Wonderland." Wonderland used more of a central theme. The theme of this one, crossing a very wacky chessboard on the way to becoming a queen, is easily forgotten and the adventures seem choppier. But all in all, some wonderful writing for children. Carroll was extremely creative!

[raselyem7 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Much better than Alice in Wonderland.

[wagner5sarah35 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Instead of a rabbit-hole, this time Alice falls through a mirror in her parlor into the fantastical realm of Wonderland. She encounters Humpty Dumpty, a variety of monarchs, and has the chance to become a queen if she can venture through a countryside arranged as a chessboard. Similar to the previous novel in its nonsensical happenings, Through the Looking-Glass nevertheless dives further into questions about life, knowledge, and perception than Alice in Wonderland.

[librarycatnip · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Much better than Alice in Wonderland.

[joeydag · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

High school. There was a time when I tried to read everything I could find by Carroll

[thatotter-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards.

[lilibrarian · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In this sequel to Alice in Wonderland, Alice goes through a mirror, meets the red and white queens, and becomes part of a life-sized chess game with very interesting and unusual characters.

[shanaqui_1 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Nope, nope, nope, don't like it, can't like it, don't want to like it.Well, actually, probably if I had a really good annotated edition and an in-depth class on it, I could learn to appreciate it. But Lewis Carroll's nonsense just drives me bonkers, and how I'm going to write my essay on this, I don't know. The books are very well done, considering the idea is that they're Alice's dreams (spoiler!) and they definitely manage dream logic very well, but that's not something I'm interested in reading.I mean, my own dreams are annoying enough. I woke up from light sleep last night with these words in my head: 'Are you going to take this seriously, or are you a doughnut?' WHAT. Brain, you make no sense.

[cyderry · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

First, I never realized that there were separate adventures for Alice and I was startled to find that one of them included Humpty Dumpty. This was a fun few hours reliving a story from childhood.

[jrissman_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Through the Looking-Glass (1871) by Lewis Carroll is a funny, relatively short romp through an amusing phantasmagoric countryside. Based on a movie that I saw when I was little, I half-expected this novel to be darker than "Alice in Wonderland," but it's not the case.The story follows Alice as she encounters odd people and creatures, transitioning from one scene to another with the swiftness and inexplicability of a dream. The vast majority of the book is dialogue- Alice only occasionally does anything other than travel or converse. Carroll aims to be funny, and he sometimes succeeds. Overwhelmingly, the humor comes from clever wordplay (words with double meanings, expressions taken literally, etc.), along with the randomness and silliness of some of the non-sequitur comments made by various characters. Alice herself is quite accepting and mostly plays a "straight man" to play off of the Wonderland denizens' eccentricities.One of the highlights of the book is its poetry. Roughly five or six times, Alice encounters someone who sings or recites rhyming verses, which seldom fail to be humorous and enjoyable. The most famous, and probably best, of these is the poem Jabberwocky, but it is not the only good one. I rather liked the one sung by the White Knight shortly before he took his leave of Alice.Despite the book's short length, I did start to tire of it by the end. There is only some much clever wordplay and zany dialogue one can take before it starts to lose its impact. In some ways, the story feels incomplete. It has lots of characters and scenes, but it seems to be in need of a plot. Randomly wandering or transitioning from scene to scene, with only a vague goal (progress on a metaphorical chessboard), is not very satisfying. I think Through the Looking Glass could have been a genuinely great novel if Carroll had figured out how to put more direction and meaning in the story without losing Wonderland's silly charm.

[bereneezypie · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Although I like this book, I didn't find it nearly as entertaining as Alice in Wonderland. In Wonderland, it seemed as if the silliness came natural, whereas this book seemed to be forcing it a little (at the times it was silly).

[trilliams · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Less of a commentary than the first book, more of a child-sized acid trip (if that's a thing). Also, Humpty Dumpty is an ass, but you knew that.

[lucybrown_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Alice is (exactly) six months older then when she fell down the rabbit hole into Wonderland. This perhaps is the reason for what I found to be the greatest difference in Alice's adventures in Wonderland and those she had in the Looking-Glass world. Wonderland borders on the nightmarish. Alice is often quite frightened and totally flummoxed by her situations. So distraught is she at one point she ends up swimming in a pool of her own tears. Of course, those tears had been shed when she was much bigger, and, woe, she has shrunk again. In Looking Glass, Alice sometimes becomes irritated with the seeming lack of rationality possessed by the citizens of this backwards world, but rarely to the point of tears or anger. Through her greater maturity at times she is able to remember she is in a mirror land, and her knowledge of the game of chess allows some glimmer of understanding as well. Still some of the word play is a source of perplexity, especially in the case of the words "jam" (iam),the Latin word for a now meaning at that previous time, not meaning at this time, and the rowing terms "feather" and "crab." Besides in Looking-Glass world Alice as a more definite and positive goal - becoming Queen. The "adults" while sometimes vexing or demanding are never as threatening as those of Wonderland. No one is threatening "off with her head." Poor little hedgehogs are not being knocked about by poor flamingos at the Queen's Croquet game. In fact of the inhabitants such as the White Queen and White Knight are endearing in their eccentricity drawing from Alice a bemused sympathy and affection. Yes, Alice faces frustration but as a now older child she takes it in stride. Frequently she thinks about how it would be best not to get into an argument. She has become more disciplined, diplomatic and acquiescent since Wonderland.

There are the obvious differences, one story features characters which are cards, the other chess pieces which explains the oddness of their movements, or in the case of the sleeping king, non-movement. Through the Looking Glass begins the night before Guy Fawkes with Alice indoors watching snow fall on the fields of Oxford. The summer garden where Alice followed the rabbit is covered with snow. Not surprisingly in her new dream she goes into a lush, garden world.

While there are more songs and poems, though Alice rather wishes there weren't, there is less political satire. There have been attempts to interpret the Walrus and the Carpenter as combination portrayal as Buddha/Ganesha and the Carpenter as Christ, the interpretation falls apart when one finds it was John Tenniel who chose the Carpenter from three choices offered by author.

Through the Looking Glass is an amusing book though for me, it lacked Wonderland's psychological and satirical punch. I also miss the fiery, contentious Alice of Wonderland. Alice has grown up quite nicely-perhaps too nicely to be as much fun. However, it is easy to get caught up in Looking-Glass's whimsy. One can't help loving the White Knight who for all of his inventiveness never manages to stay on his horse. What's to be done; that is just the nature of a knight in chess, always confined to their hurky-gurky movement. Never a straight path for them. So it seems with most of us.

My cat, Lucia, would like to point out that Kitty is an offensive name for a cat. She says one should no more name a cat Kitty, than name a baby Baby. Though pleasant enough has a term of endearment, it is no name at all for a cat. She would happily lend her own name in any future revisions of the book. She also says the name Snowdrop is beneath comment.

[sbloom42 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

While this book is chock full of puns and wordplay, I didn't like it as much as "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland". The structure of the story is setup so that Alice moves from square to square across a chessboard in her dream, and I found the linerality of that movement much less enjoyable to read than the circularity of "Wonderland". Lewis Carroll also breaks into the story multiple times to tell the reader how Alice interpreted her dream upon waking, and I found that to be intrusive. I'd much rather have the author leave me guessing about whether or not the story is a dream, as he does through most of "Wonderland". But I did enjoy the wordplay and how most of the characters in Alice's dream interpret words and phrases literally and how that leads to miscommunications. I think this is a good story for children who are slightly older than ones who would enjoy "Wonderland".

[ninacaramelita · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

To celebrate the release of Alice Through the Looking Glass, I've challenged myself by rereading Through the Looking-Glass in Finnish : Alice peilintakamaassa. ~ June 2016

[ombwarrior47 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I honestly didn't care much for this book. I enjoyed the Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum but the queens just annoyed me half the time and I thought that it could have been better developed overall.

[marsap_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Through the Looking Glass is the sequel to Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Set about 6 months, Alice again enters a fantastical world, but this time climbing through a mirror into the world that she can see beyond it. The looking-glass world she enters takes the form of a giant chessboard, the squares divided by hedges and brooks. Nothing is quite what it seems. Carroll explores concepts of mirror imagery, time running backward, and strategies of chess, through stories and characters of the Red and White Queens, the White Knight (who is my favorite character), Tweedledee and Tweedledum, Humpty Dumpty and more. The book is full of full of humor, word play, puzzles and rhymes and well as two poems that have taken on a life of their own "Jabberwocky" and "The Walrus and the Carpenter." Though I enjoyed Alice’s Adventure—this sequel was a nice treat—perfect for the whole family. 4 out of 5 stars.