Through the looking-glass

This 1872 sequel to Lewis Carroll's beloved Alice's Adventures in Wonderland finds the inquisitive heroine in a fantastic land where everything is reversed. Looking-glass land, a topsy-turvy world lurking just behind the mirror over Alice's mantel, is a fantastic realm of live chessmen, madcap kings and queens, strange mythological creatures, talking flowers and puddings, and rude insects. Brooks and hedges divide the lush greenery of looking-glass land into a chessboard, where Alice becomes a pawn in a bizarre game of chess involving Humpty Dumpty, Tweedledum and Tweedledee, the Lion and the Unicorn, the White Knight, and other nursery-rhyme figures. Promised a crown when she reaches the eighth square, Alice perseveres through a surreal landscape of amusing characters that pelt her with riddles and humorous semantic quibbles and regale her with memorable poetry, including the oft-quoted "Jabberwocky." This handsome, inexpensive edition, featuring the original John Tenniel illustrations, makes available to today's readers a classic of juvenile literature long cherished for its humor, whimsy, and incomparable fantasy.