Six Impossible Things Trivia Quiz

Answer: The Cheshire Cat

The wide grin of the Cheshire Cat appears first in "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland", and the Cat both amuses and perplexes Alice during her adventures. The book was written for a young friend named Alice Liddell, and Dodgson (who took the pen-name Lewis Carroll) presented her with a hand-written copy before its publication in 1865.

Answer: The Walrus

The poem "The Walrus and The Carpenter" was another gem found in the 1872 novel "Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There". In this nonsense poem, at which Carroll excelled, the Walrus was walking with the Carpenter, idly wondering if the sand could be cleared away. Some young oysters chose to walk along with them and discoursed about the sea and the weather... but never made it home to their beds, as the Walrus and Carpenter ate them up!

The poem of "The Walrus and the Carpenter" was told by the characters Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

Answer: Euclid

"Euclid and his Modern Rivals" was a defense of Euclid against 13 geometry books that were commonly in use at the time Lewis Carroll published the book. In it Carroll argued that the theories and teaching methods described in Euclid's works from 300 BCE were more suited to instruct than any of the textbooks of his era.

Answer: White Queen

The White Queen offers Alice the empty promise of a treat that can never be fulfilled, since yesterday has gone and tomorrow is never here yet.

The White Queen is played by Anne Hathaway and the Mad Hatter by Johnny Depp in the 2010 film "Alice in Wonderland". Though liberties were taken with the script, it was a suitably ludicrous portrayal of the Lewis Carroll novel "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland".

Answer: Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There

Released in 1871, "Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There" was a sequel to the 1865 novel "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland". The Jabberwocky was the source of words such as 'chortle' and 'galumph' and is written in a confusing manner intended to convey that it was part of a dream.

Answer: Guildford

Lewis Carroll suffered from several maladies over the course of his life. While a child he developed a fever that left him deaf in one ear and at the age of 17 he had a tenuous battle with whooping cough. His pneumonia that ended up causing his death occurred after he had influenza. Carroll was buried at the Mount Cemetery in Guildford. In 2015 Guildford had a population of about 80,000 and it is located about halfway between London and Portsmouth on the A3 road.

Answer: The Duchess

The excessively ugly Duchess is initially very rude when she meets Alice in the Lewis Carroll book "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland". She lives in a small palace outside the Caterpillar's forest. As an antagonist of the Queen to Hearts, she becomes almost crushingly friendly towards Alice later in the book.

Answer: Alfred Tennyson

In addition to Tennyson, Lewis Carroll also did sitting portrait photographs of Michael Faraday and Lord Salisbury. He was such a prodigious photographer that he had his own studio with over 3,000 images by the time he quit the hobby in 1880.

Answer: Through the Looking-glass

Lewis Carroll was a logician, mathematician and master of word games - he popularised word games that were the precursor to Scrabble. Often hard to understand, in Sylvie and Bruno he presents the following humorous explanation of a logical argument:

"For a complete logical argument", Arthur began with admirable solemnity, "we need two prim Misses-"

"Of course!" she interrupted. "I remember that word now. And they produce-"

"A Delusion," said Arthur.

"Ye-es?" she said dubiously. "I don't seem to remember that so well. But what is the whole argument called?"

"A Sillygism."

Answer: Breakfast

At a rare moment when the Queen of Hearts was not calling for someone's beheading, she made the curious pronouncement that she practices believing impossible things and suggests that Alice, in the novel 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' should try it!