Timeline
26 chapters
BOOK 1Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
CHAPTER 1
I: Down the Rabbit-Hole
Bored beside her sister on a riverbank, Alice chases a waistcoat-wearing White Rabbit and tumbles down a deep well into a strange underground world. In a lamp-lit hall, she discovers a tiny door opening onto a beautiful garden, then drinks a bottle that shrinks her—only to find she cannot reach the key; her curiosity and resourcefulness are threaded with bewilderment and frustration as she tries another transformation with a marked cake.
CHAPTER 2
II: The Pool of Tears
Growing first to more than nine feet and then shrinking to two, Alice struggles to reach the garden door and wrestles with the unsettling question of who she is. Her tears become a pool in the hall, where she falls in and meets a Mouse; after repeatedly offending it by mentioning cats and dogs, she joins it and a gathering of animals as they swim toward shore. The chapter’s playful absurdity is threaded with loneliness, confusion, and Alice’s growing need for companionship.
CHAPTER 3
III: A Caucus-Race and a Long Tale
On the riverbank, still soaked from the pool of tears, Alice joins a strange gathering of birds and animals as they attempt to dry themselves. A nonsensical race ends with everyone declared a winner, and Alice awards comfits and a thimble; afterward, her misunderstanding of the Mouse’s sad tale drives it away, while her cheerful praise of her cat Dinah frightens the other creatures off. Left alone and lonely, Alice begins to cry again, then looks up at the sound of approaching footsteps.
CHAPTER 4
IV: The Rabbit Sends in a Little Bill
Mistaken for the Rabbit’s housemaid, Alice enters his home and drinks from a bottle that makes her grow until she is wedged inside the tiny room. As the Rabbit and his servants struggle to remove her, Alice kicks Bill from the chimney, escapes by shrinking with a pebble-turned-cake, and flees into the wood. There she narrowly avoids an enormous playful puppy before encountering a hookah-smoking Caterpillar atop a mushroom; her bewilderment and fear mingle with curiosity about this strange world.
CHAPTER 5
V: Advice from a Caterpillar
In a strange wood, Alice debates identity and change with a languid Caterpillar, recites a distorted poem, and receives a piece of mushroom that can alter her size. Growing enormous, she is mistaken for a serpent by a nest-guarding Pigeon; nibbling the mushroom brings her back to her usual height. Still bewildered but more resourceful, Alice finds a tiny house and shrinks herself to nine inches before approaching it.
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CHAPTER 6
VI: Pig and Pepper
Outside the Duchess’s house, Alice witnesses two absurd footmen exchange the Queen’s croquet invitation, then enters a smoke-filled kitchen where pepper, flying cookware, and the Duchess’s violent treatment of her baby create chaos. Alice carries the baby outside, where it transforms into a pig; afterward, she meets the grinning Cheshire Cat, whose riddling advice points her onward. Leaving the woods behind, Alice approaches the March Hare’s strange house, still curious but wary of the madness around her.
CHAPTER 7
VII: A Mad Tea-Party
Alice joins the March Hare, Hatter, and sleepy Dormouse for an absurd, endless tea-party, where riddles, broken time, and a nonsensical story frustrate her patience. Fed up with their rudeness, she leaves and discovers a door in a tree; using the key and a saved piece of mushroom, she returns to her former size and enters the garden. The chapter’s playful disorientation gives way to Alice’s renewed resolve and delight.
CHAPTER 8
VIII: The Queen’s Croquet-Ground
In the Queen of Hearts’ garden, Alice encounters playing-card gardeners secretly painting white roses red, then defies the Queen’s threats and protects them from execution. Swept into a chaotic croquet game played with living creatures and shifting soldiers, Alice grows more confident even as the Queen’s arbitrary violence unsettles her. The Cheshire Cat’s appearance sparks a dispute over whether it can be executed without a body, leaving the royal court in confusion as its head vanishes.
CHAPTER 9
IX: The Mock Turtle’s Story
Alice walks with the newly agreeable Duchess, whose relentless moralizing and sharp chin are cut short when the Queen appears and threatens her; the Duchess flees, and Alice returns to the croquet-ground amid the Queen’s chaotic threats and mass arrests. The Queen sends Alice with the Gryphon to meet the tearful Mock Turtle, who begins recounting his underwater schooling through comic wordplay and absurd lessons. The chapter shifts from tense courtly menace to a melancholy, playful conversation, with Alice curious but repeatedly chastened by her companions.
CHAPTER 10
X: The Lobster Quadrille
The Mock Turtle and Gryphon describe the absurd Lobster Quadrille, then dance around Alice while the Turtle sings; their comic lessons about sea creatures and wordplay turn into a recital in which Alice’s verses emerge jumbled by the dance. When the Mock Turtle begins a mournful song about beautiful soup, news that a trial is beginning sends the trio hurrying away, leaving its refrain fading behind them. The chapter’s playful nonsense carries a wistful undertone, while Alice shifts from timid audience to reluctant performer before being swept into a new adventure.
CHAPTER 11
XI: Who Stole the Tarts?
At the King and Queen of Hearts’ chaotic trial, Alice watches the jurors scribble nonsense and the witnesses—a nervous Hatter and a pepper-wielding cook—offer little useful evidence about the stolen tarts. As the court descends into absurdity, Alice begins growing again, while the Queen’s threats and the King’s muddled questioning make the proceedings both comic and menacing. The chapter ends with Alice startled to hear her own name called as the next witness.
CHAPTER 12
XII: Alice’s Evidence
In the court, Alice’s growing confidence exposes the King and Queen’s absurd, unjust proceedings: she challenges their rules, dismisses the nonsensical evidence, and refuses to be intimidated. When the court turns into a flying pack of cards, she wakes beside her sister on the riverbank, and the setting shifts from Wonderland to a quiet summer afternoon. As Alice runs off, her sister imagines the child grown, still carrying her loving heart and the power to pass wonder on to others.
BOOK 2Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There
CHAPTER 1
Introduction by Chris Riddell
Chris Riddell reflects on the contrasting appeal of *Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland* and *Through the Looking-Glass*, comparing their worlds, characters, and reversed logic. He celebrates the latter’s poems—especially “The Walrus and the Carpenter” and “Jabberwocky”—and explains how Carroll’s imaginative language has shaped his own work as a political cartoonist. The tone is playful and affectionate, ending with Riddell choosing the looking-glass world as his favorite.
CHAPTER 2
1. Looking-Glass House
While reprimanding and playing with her kitten, Alice imagines the world behind the looking-glass and discovers that its surface has become a passage. In the strange mirrored room, she encounters living chess pieces, helps the White Queen and King, and reads the puzzling poem “Jabberwocky”; curious and buoyant, she then floats down the stairs to explore the garden.
CHAPTER 3
2. The Garden of Live Flowers
Alice struggles to reach the hill through a path that repeatedly carries her back to the house, then discovers a garden of talking flowers whose teasing introduces her to the Red Queen. The Queen leads Alice across the chessboard-like country in a breathless run that leaves them where they began, explains that Alice is a pawn moving toward becoming a queen, and disappears after giving her instructions. The chapter’s playful, bewildering landscape mirrors Alice’s growing curiosity and her uneasy adjustment to a world governed by strange rules.
CHAPTER 4
3. Looking-Glass Insects
Alice surveys the strange landscape, then finds herself aboard a train whose talking passengers mock and confuse her before a leap over a brook leaves her beneath a tree with the melancholy Gnat. As they discuss fantastical insects and the possibility of losing her name, the Gnat vanishes; Alice enters a nameless wood, forgets who she is, and regains her name while traveling with a Fawn that flees upon recognizing her as human. Still determined to reach the Eighth Square, she follows the baffling signs toward Tweedledum’s and Tweedledee’s house, ending with an unexpected encounter.
CHAPTER 5
4. Tweedledum and Tweedledee
In the darkening wood, Alice meets the solemnly absurd Tweedle brothers, dances with them, and listens to their poem about the Walrus and the Carpenter. Their claim that she exists only in the Red King’s dream unsettles her, but she brushes away her tears and turns back toward finding her way out. When Tweedledum discovers his broken rattle, the brothers prepare for a battle—until a huge black crow sweeps toward them, sending them fleeing as Alice takes shelter among the trees.
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CHAPTER 6
5. Wool and Water
Alice helps the disheveled White Queen dress and learns that in her backward-moving world, events and memories unfold in reverse; their conversation veers from comic confusion to the Queen’s shrieks and Alice’s loneliness. As the Queen chases her shawl, the wood gives way to a dark shop where an old Sheep knits and sells curious goods, and Alice is swept into a boat ride before returning to the shop to buy an egg. The chapter’s playful, dreamlike transformations mingle wonder with frustration as Alice discovers a world where things evade her grasp and even the setting shifts around her.
CHAPTER 7
6. Humpty Dumpty
In a strange forest, Alice finds Humpty Dumpty perched precariously on a narrow wall and endures his insults, riddles, and arguments about names and the meaning of words. Their conversation shifts from his promised royal rescue and un-birthday arithmetic to his fanciful explanations of “Jabberwocky” and an unfinished poem; when Humpty dismisses her, Alice walks away, only for a sudden crash to shake the forest.
CHAPTER 8
7. The Lion and the Unicorn
Alice emerges from a chaotic forest of stumbling soldiers and meets the White King, whose absurd exchange with the breathless Messenger Haigha leads them toward the town. There she watches the Lion and the Unicorn fight over the King’s crown, pause for refreshments, and trade comic insults; Alice’s encounter with the Unicorn turns mutual disbelief into a playful bargain of belief. The chapter’s shifting spectacle—from forest to battlefield—keeps its whimsical, topsy-turvy humor, until the drums erupt and Alice flees the deafening noise.
CHAPTER 9
8. ‘It’s My Own Invention’
After the vanished battle, Alice is caught between the Red and White Knights, whose absurd combat ends with the Red Knight riding away and the gentle, hapless White Knight escorting her through the wood. His inventions, endless tumbles, and melancholy song turn the journey into a comic, dreamlike farewell; as the sun gilds the scene, Alice watches him disappear, then crosses the final brook into the Eighth Square and discovers a crown on her head. The mood shifts from bewilderment and playful absurdity to tender sadness, then to delighted anticipation as Alice becomes a Queen.
CHAPTER 10
9. Queen Alice
Newly crowned Alice is subjected to the Queens’ absurd examination, then finds herself ushered into a chaotic feast where talking food, unruly guests, and impossible rules overwhelm her. As the dinner dissolves into flying tableware and vanishing Queens, Alice’s frustration turns to decisive action: she overturns the table and confronts the shrunken Red Queen.
CHAPTER 11
12. Which Dreamed It?
Awakening from her looking-glass dream, Alice playfully addresses her kittens as the Red and White Queens, imagining the dream’s characters in their familiar forms. She wonders whether she or the Red King dreamed the other, then the closing poem recalls the childhood boat trip that inspired the tale and reflects on memory, time, and life as a dream.
CHAPTER 12
Read On
This supplementary chapter shifts from Alice’s Looking-glass adventure to an illustrated guide to Lewis Carroll, the story’s characters, and the chess ideas behind its world. It offers historical context, discussion questions, creative activities, a recipe, chess facts, and a glossary, maintaining a playful, inviting tone that encourages readers to explore and imagine beyond the story.
CHAPTER 13
Read More
Dorothy and her companions press toward the Emerald City, crossing a forest where the Cowardly Lion carries them over a gulf and the group outwits two fearsome Kalidahs by dropping their bridge. Emerging into a sunny landscape, they build a raft to cross a swift river, but the current sweeps them away from the yellow-brick road and leaves the Scarecrow stranded midstream; the Lion swims the others to shore. Their resourcefulness and loyalty sustain them through danger, though the journey grows uncertain as they find themselves far from their path.
CHAPTER 14
The Story of Puffin
Puffin celebrates its long history, tracing its roots to Allen Lane’s invention of the quality paperback in 1935 and the growth of children’s books that followed. From the first Puffin Picture Books and the debut of Worzel Gummidge to Kaye Webb’s Puffin Club, the chapter warmly honors generations of young readers and promises that there is a Puffin for everyone.
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