Lewis Carroll published Alice Through the Looking Glass in 1871.
It begins in the same way as Alice in Wonderland, with Alice’s fantastic imagination.
Alice is sitting at home playing with her three kittens: Dinah, Kitty, and Snowdrop.
The setting is mid winter with snow falling outside.
Alice asks Kitty if she can play Chess.
Alice observes that if Kitty sat up and folded her arms, she would look exactly like the
Red Queen.
Then, Alice threatens to put kitty through the mirror on the mantle.
Alice imagine's this mirror leads to the Looking-glass house.
This Looking-glass house is the mirror reflection of her house.
So, everything is opposite in that world.
Like a moth to a flame, Alice climbs up on the mantle and goes right through the mirror.
She jumps down into the parallel world of the Looking-glass house.
Here, she realizes things are quite different.
The chimney has a face, and the chess pieces are walking around.
When the White Queen rushes past the White King, she knocks him down.
Alice immediately wants to help and picks them both up and moves them to where they
were headed.
But, this is disorientating for the small chess pieces and they are completely out of
breath.
Next, Alice gets distracted by a curious book and finds it’s titled “Jabberwocky”.
She walks out of the house and into a beautiful garden in full summer.
Alice tries to venture up a nearby hill to get a better view of the garden.
But, she keeps finding herself coming right back to the house.
Getting frustrated, she wishes that the flowers in the garden could talk.
To her surprise, they can!
The Red Queen comes in and is very confrontational with Alice.
Alice defuses the tension a little, and they walk together to the top of the hill.
Alice gets a little time to sit and lookout.
She realizes that this land is divided like a giant chessboard.
The Red Queen grants Alice’s wish to be a pawn, and tells her she will be a pawn for
the White Queen.
The Red Queen adds that if Alice manages to reach the 8th tile, then she will become a
Queen herself.
As a pawn, Alice can go 2 spaces on her first move.
Next, Alice is on a train but finds herself without a ticket.
After a moment she feels the train rising up to jump over a small brook.
In the next moment, she finds herself next to a tree talking to a bug.
She heads forward towards the 8th square.
Alice needs to go through a forest where everything loses its name.
She meets a fawn and walks with it until they reach an open field and the names of things
return.
Then, the fawn realizes that Alice is a human and sprints away.
Then, Alice meets Tweedledee and Tweedledum.
They are twins, and each has the ending of their name written on their collar.
Unfortunately, Tweedledee begins reading Alice the longest poem he knows.
The poem's title is The Walrus and the Carpenter.
When the group sees the Red King napping on the grass, Alice asks the twins what he’s
dreaming of.
Here, Tweedledee says one of the most famous lines of the novel.
He says that the Red King is dreaming of Alice.
They warn her not to wake him up, otherwise she will cease to exist.
Then, the two twins prepare to fight until 6pm when they will stop for dinner.
But, a massive crow flies over which frightens them and Alice runs for the trees.
In the woods, Alice runs into a terrified White Queen.
The Queen offers to hire Alice and give her jam every other day.
When Alice is confused about how she could receive jam every other day, but never today,
the White Queen chalks it up to living backwards.
The Queen elaborates and says that time runs backwards here.
For example, the Kings Messenger is in prison now.
Next week is his trial.
And finally, after his trial he will commit the crime.
Alice looks up and she’s in a strange shop run by an old Sheep.
Alice wants to buy an egg, but when she goes to pick it up it just gets further and further
away.
Then, the egg starts growing and turns into Humpty Dumpty!
She’s certain it’s Humpty Dumpty, because he’s sitting high up on a narrow wall.
Alice tries to be nice and advises him to get down from the wall, but Humpty Dumpty
is only rude to her.
Humpty Dumpty does help her translate the Jabberwocky book.
Then, he falls and nearly all the king's horses and men come to rescue him.
Alice speaks with the King, his messengers, the Unicorn and Lion but gets overwhelmed
by the noise.
She puts her hands over her head and wishes they would be quiet.
And after awhile, they all disappear.
When she gets back up she wonders if she was only dreaming of them, but she finds a cake
from their visit.
Then, an enemy Red Knight comes in and takes Alice as his prisoner.
But, she’s rescued by a White Knight.
The White Knight is clumsy, but they do make their way forward.
On their way, Alice asks if he made his own helmet - which he admits that he did.
Finally, Alice reaches the 8th and final step and she's crowned a Queen.
When she meets up with the White and Red Queen’s they claim that she can’t be a real queen
until she passes an examination.
Then the two queens invite each other to Alice’s dinner party later that afternoon.
They go to the dinner party, but the Queens keep up their confusing behavior.
Listening to them is like trying to decipher a riddle.
Alice gets frustrated, grabs the Red Queen and shakes her with all her might.
Suddenly, she realizes the Red Queen was actually Kitty.
The book ends with Alice wondering who dreamed of who: her or the Red King?