Alice's Looking Glass Wonderland Quiz

Answer: Both books

The Oxford mathematician Charles Dodgson, published his books using the pseudonym Lewis Carroll. The character in the book was almost certainly named for the daughter of Dodgson's Oxford colleague Henry Liddell, dean of Christ Church Oxford. In 1862 Dodgson retold his stories, which he had begun some years before, to ten-year old Alice and her two sisters as they were being rowed on the Isis, and she asked him to write them down, which he did. He gave her the manuscript, using the title "Alice's Adventures Underground". Three years later the story was published as "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" by Lewis Carroll.

It is generally accepted that the Alice in the book was about seven years old, which is what the real Alice was when the story-telling began.

Answer: Wonderland

Smiling by showing one's teeth was called "grinning like a Cheshire Cat" before Carroll introduced him in his Wonderland book. Its trick of disappearing gradually from the tail up led to an interesting philosophical discussion in the book when the King of Hearts ordered it to be beheaded. Can you behead someone who has no body?

Answer: Neither book

"The Hunting of the Snark" is a poem by Lewis Carroll published in 1876.
Carroll included several of the made-up words from his poem "The Jabberwocky", which is included in "Looking Glass". There are eight hunters all with names beginning with B, including the Baker who at the end finds the Snark, and mysteriously disappears, because "the Snark was a Boojum, you see."

Answer: Looking Glass

The White Knight (strictly speaking the White King's Knight according to Carroll's list of characters in the book) has a fight with the Red Knight following rules that Alice fails to understand, and they agree that he has won. He then accompanies Alice for a while, occasionally falling off his horse, telling her about a number of impractical inventions of his, and finishing by reciting a poem whose name is "Haddock's Eyes".

The poem is actually "A-Sitting on a Gate", its name is the thing that is called "Haddock's Eyes"!

Answer: Looking Glass

The Walrus and the Carpenter, who lead young oysters to their doom, appear indirectly in "Looking Glass" as characters in a poem recited by Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Although it was quite likely only intended as an amusing nonsense poem, many scholars have proposed various interpretation on its meaning.

Answer: Wonderland

Three inches high and blue in colour, the caterpillar is argumentative in a philosophical way, encouraging Alice (also three inches high at the time) to think about who she really is. In the end he helps Alice to control her height by eating different sides of the mushroom on which he was sitting.

Answer: Both books

The March Hare appears presiding over the Tea party scene in "Wonderland", where Alice surmises that as it is May he shouldn't be as mad as he was in March. "As mad as a March Hare" was - and still is - a common expression in England.

He also appears as the White King's messenger in "Looking Glass", here called Haigha, pronounced Hay-er.

Answer: Wonderland

The put-upon Bill is sent to try to extricate Alice when she has grown to monster size and is stuck in the White Rabbit's house. Trying to get down the chimney, he is sent flying through the air by a blow from Alice's foot. He appears later as a juror in the trial near the end of "Wonderland", when his squeaky pencil provokes Alice into removing it, to his bewilderment.

Answer: Looking Glass

After stepping through the mirror into Looking Glass world, Alice finds a copy of a poem written in reverse, which she is able to read by holding it up to the mirror. This is the famous Jabberwocky, renowned now as a great nonsense poem, but which Alice in the book found rather puzzling.

Answer: Neither book

Carroll wrote a long book titled "Sylvie and Bruno", published in two parts in 1889 and 1893. The main characters are the fairies Lady Sylvie, and her young brother Bruno, who frequently has to be corrected for his faulty use of logic. Often expressing Dodgson's thoughts in mathematics and logic, the book has never been well received by the general public.

Answer: Looking Glass

Tenniel portrays the two as fat brothers wearing school caps, who agree with each other in everything, including that they must have a battle - which they never do because a black crow appears and frightens them away. The whole scene is apparently derived by Carroll from a nursery rhyme.
"Tweedledum and Tweedledee
Agreed to have a battle;
For Tweedledum said Tweedledee
Had spoiled his nice new rattle.
Just then flew down a monstrous crow,
As black as a tar-barrel;
Which frightened both the heroes so,
They quite forgot their quarrel."

Answer: Wonderland

Compared to the Queen of Hearts, who is frequently ordering someone to be beheaded, the King of Hearts quietly pardons many victims (but not all). On the other hand, he seems blustering and confused when he is the Judge in the trial of the Knave of Hearts, with irrelevant questions like asking the cook, "What are tarts made of?"

Answer: Looking Glass

Although the Queens in both books are red, in Wonderland she is a playing card (Queen of Hearts), while in Looking Glass she is a chess piece (Red Queen). It is conventional in chess for the two sides to be called White and Black - white goes first, and the white queen starts on a white square.

When other colours are used, such as red in the book, it is the lighter colour that is treated as white, while the darker is black. Carroll uses white and red, so red is treated as the conventional black.

Answer: Both books

In Wonderland it is the Cheshire Cat that tells Alice about both the Hare and the Hatter, "both mad". Later she finds them both having a tea party, the Hatter wearing a top hat with the label 10/6 on it.

The character also appears in "Looking Glass", with the name Hatta, where he is punished for a crime he has yet to commit, which the White Queen explains often happens.

Answer: Wonderland

This mixed up creature has the body of a turtle, but according to Tenniel's original drawing, the head and feet of a cow. He tells Alice that he was taught at school by a person called Tortoise, giving rise to the awful pun when Alice asks why he was called that, "because he taught us, of course".

Mock turtle soup was a popular dish in Victorian times.