Through The Looking Glass(Illustrated) E-Book

Lewis Carroll

• Herausgeber: Swish
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

• Illustrated Edition: Includes 20 captivating illustrations bringing key scenes from the story to life.
• Summary: A concise overview of the plot for easy reference.
• Character List: Detailed descriptions of all major characters.
• Author Biography: Learn more about the life and legacy of Lewis Carroll.

Step through the looking-glass with Alice into a fantastical world where nothing is as it seems! In Through the Looking-Glass, Lewis Carroll invites readers on a whimsical journey that mirrors a chess game, full of peculiar characters, mind-bending wordplay, and surreal landscapes. Follow Alice as she meets the likes of the eccentric Red Queen, the comical Tweedledee and Tweedledum, and the enigmatic Humpty Dumpty. Along the way, she encounters talking flowers, bizarre creatures, and puzzles that challenge logic and imagination alike.
This illustrated edition brings the magic of Carroll’s masterpiece to life with 20 stunning artworks that capture the wonder, humor, and absurdity of the story. Whether you’re revisiting this classic or experiencing it for the first time, Through the Looking-Glass promises an enchanting escape into a world where dreams and reality blur in delightful ways.
Complete with a summary, character list, and biography of the brilliant author behind this timeless tale, this edition is a must-have for any reader who cherishes literary adventure.
 

Leseprobe

THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS

BY

LEWIS CARROLL

ABOUT CARROLL

Lewis Carroll, born Charles Lutwidge Dodgson on January 27, 1832, in Daresbury, England, was a multifaceted individual known for his contributions to literature, mathematics, and logic. Best remembered for his beloved children's classics Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking-Glass (1871), Carroll created fantastical worlds filled with whimsical characters and logic-defying events. His storytelling style, often marked by wordplay, mathematical puzzles, and philosophical musings, continues to captivate readers across generations.

Carroll's academic background was equally impressive. A lecturer in mathematics at Christ Church, Oxford, he excelled in the field of geometry, algebra, and logic, publishing works under his real name. Despite being shy and introverted, Carroll developed a strong bond with children, finding creative inspiration in their innocence and curiosity. His relationship with Alice Liddell, the daughter of the dean of Christ Church, famously inspired Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

Known for his playful and imaginative mind, Carroll was also an early pioneer of photography, particularly interested in portraiture. He captured both landscapes and intimate portraits of friends and notable figures of his time, showcasing another facet of his artistic vision. Throughout his life, Carroll maintained a delicate balance between his strict academic career and his fantastical literary endeavors.

Though his works primarily entertained young audiences, their depth has been recognized by scholars for their exploration of logic, identity, and the absurdity of the human experience. Carroll passed away on January 14, 1898, leaving behind a legacy as one of the most innovative writers of his era, whose creativity continues to influence literature, art, and popular culture.

SUMMARY

Through the Looking-Glass, the enchanting sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, takes readers on another imaginative journey with young Alice. This time, Alice steps through a mysterious mirror into a topsy-turvy world where everything is reversed and follows the rules of a living chess game. As she navigates this peculiar landscape, Alice encounters a host of curious and memorable characters, including the argumentative Red Queen, the poetic White Knight, and the comical Tweedledee and Tweedledum.

Carroll's vivid imagination breathes life into this fantastical world where logic twists and turns in delightfully absurd ways. The narrative is filled with clever wordplay, riddles, and nonsensical poetry like "Jabberwocky," making it a rich blend of wit and whimsy. At its heart, the story reflects themes of personal growth, time, and the fluidity of identity, as Alice journeys toward becoming a queen herself.

Through the Looking-Glass remains a timeless tale that captures the beauty of imagination and the joy of exploring the impossible. With its dreamlike atmosphere and playful characters, the book invites readers to embrace curiosity and wonder at every turn.

CHARACTERS LIST

Alice:The curious and adventurous young girl who travels through the looking-glass into a magical world. She navigates the strange, chess-like landscape, meeting peculiar characters as she strives to become a queen.

The Red Queen:A strict, no-nonsense ruler who speaks in commands and serves as Alice’s guide through the chessboard world. She represents an authoritarian figure, always urging Alice to move quickly.

The White Queen:A kind but absent-minded ruler who often speaks backward and lives in a disordered state. She’s the opposite of the Red Queen and embodies more eccentric qualities.

Tweedledee and Tweedledum:Two comical, identical brothers who engage in nonsensical debates and eventually quarrel, though neither is truly harmed. Their playful rhyme and banter add a lighthearted tone.

Humpty Dumpty:A pompous, egg-shaped character who takes pride in his knowledge of words and their meanings. He enjoys explaining language in his own, often humorous, way.

The White Knight:A chivalrous but clumsy figure who helps Alice on her journey. He is known for his inventive ideas, although many of them are impractical.

The Red King:A passive character who sleeps through much of the story. His dream is said to be the world Alice finds herself in, leading to philosophical questions about reality.

The White King:A slightly confused ruler who is the counterpart to the Red King. He provides moments of humor with his bewildered manner and lack of understanding of his surroundings.

The Lion and the Unicorn:These two characters represent rivals constantly battling for the crown. Their fight is part of a recurring contest, adding to the absurdity of the looking-glass world.

The Sheep:A grumpy shopkeeper who alternates between being a sheep and a woman. Her shop is filled with bizarre objects, and her unpredictable behavior baffles Alice.

The Jabberwock:A fearsome creature from the poem "Jabberwocky," which Alice reads in the looking-glass world. Though not directly encountered, it plays a central role in the poem’s adventure and adds a touch of menace to the story.

Each of these characters embodies the dreamlike, whimsical nature of the looking-glass world, contributing to the story’s charm, wordplay, and underlying exploration of logic and nonsense.

Contents

Chapter 1. Looking-Glass House

Chapter 2. The Garden Of Live Flowers

Chapter 3. Looking-Glass Insects

Chapter 4. Tweedledum And Tweedledee

Chapter 5. Wool And Water

Chapter 6. Humpty Dumpty

Chapter 7. The Lion And The Unicorn

Chapter 8. 'It's My Own Invention'

Chapter 9. Queen Alice

Chapter 10. Shaking

Chapter 11. Waking

Chapter 12. Which Dreamed It?

FRONTISPIECE

Chapter 1. Looking-Glass House

One thing was certain, that the WHITE kitten had had nothing to do with it:—it was the black kitten's fault entirely. For the white kitten had been having its face washed by the old cat for the last quarter of an hour (and bearing it pretty well, considering); so you see that it COULDN'T have had any hand in the mischief.

The way Dinah washed her children's faces was this: first she held the poor thing down by its ear with one paw, and then with the other paw she rubbed its face all over, the wrong way, beginning at the nose: and just now, as I said, she was hard at work on the white kitten, which was lying quite still and trying to purr—no doubt feeling that it was all meant for its good.

But the black kitten had been finished with earlier in the afternoon, and so, while Alice was sitting curled up in a corner of the great arm-chair, half talking to herself and half asleep, the kitten had been having a grand game of romps with the ball of worsted Alice had been trying to wind up, and had been rolling it up and down till it had all come undone again; and there it was, spread over the hearth-rug, all knots and tangles, with the kitten running after its own tail in the middle.

'Oh, you wicked little thing!' cried Alice, catching up the kitten, and giving it a little kiss to make it understand that it was in disgrace. 'Really, Dinah ought to have taught you better manners! You OUGHT, Dinah, you know you ought!' she added, looking reproachfully at the old cat, and speaking in as cross a voice as she could manage—and then she scrambled back into the arm-chair, taking the kitten and the worsted with her, and began winding up the ball again. But she didn't get on very fast, as she was talking all the time, sometimes to the kitten, and sometimes to herself. Kitty sat very demurely on her knee, pretending to watch the progress of the winding, and now and then putting out one paw and gently touching the ball, as if it would be glad to help, if it might.

'Do you know what to-morrow is, Kitty?' Alice began. 'You'd have guessed if you'd been up in the window with me—only Dinah was making you tidy, so you couldn't. I was watching the boys getting in sticks for the bonfire—and it wants plenty of sticks, Kitty! Only it got so cold, and it snowed so, they had to leave off. Never mind, Kitty, we'll go and see the bonfire to-morrow.' Here Alice wound two or three turns of the worsted round the kitten's neck, just to see how it would look: this led to a scramble, in which the ball rolled down upon the floor, and yards and yards of it got unwound again.

'Do you know, I was so angry, Kitty,' Alice went on as soon as they were comfortably settled again, 'when I saw all the mischief you had been doing, I was very nearly opening the window, and putting you out into the snow! And you'd have deserved it, you little mischievous darling! What have you got to say for yourself? Now don't interrupt me!' she went on, holding up one finger. 'I'm going to tell you all your faults. Number one: you squeaked twice while Dinah was washing your face this morning. Now you can't deny it, Kitty: I heard you! What's that you say?' (pretending that the kitten was speaking.) 'Her paw went into your eye? Well, that's YOUR fault, for keeping your eyes open—if you'd shut them tight up, it wouldn't have happened. Now don't make any more excuses, but listen! Number two: you pulled Snowdrop away by the tail just as I had put down the saucer of milk before her! What, you were thirsty, were you? How do you know she wasn't thirsty too? Now for number three: you unwound every bit of the worsted while I wasn't looking!

'That's three faults, Kitty, and you've not been punished for any of them yet. You know I'm saving up all your punishments for Wednesday week—Suppose they had saved up all MY punishments!' she went on, talking more to herself than the kitten. 'What WOULD they do at the end of a year? I should be sent to prison, I suppose, when the day came. Or—let me see—suppose each punishment was to be going without a dinner: then, when the miserable day came, I should have to go without fifty dinners at once! Well, I shouldn't mind THAT much! I'd far rather go without them than eat them!

'Do you hear the snow against the window-panes, Kitty? How nice and soft it sounds! Just as if some one was kissing the window all over outside. I wonder if the snow LOVES the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says, "Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again." And when they wake up in the summer, Kitty, they dress themselves all in green, and dance about—whenever the wind blows—oh, that's very pretty!' cried Alice, dropping the ball of worsted to clap her hands. 'And I do so WISH it was true! I'm sure the woods look sleepy in the autumn, when the leaves are getting brown.

'Kitty, can you play chess? Now, don't smile, my dear, I'm asking it seriously. Because, when we were playing just now, you watched just as if you understood it: and when I said "Check!" you purred! Well, it WAS a nice check, Kitty, and really I might have won, if it hadn't been for that nasty Knight, that came wiggling down among my pieces. Kitty, dear, let's pretend—' And here I wish I could tell you half the things Alice used to say, beginning with her favourite phrase 'Let's pretend.' She had had quite a long argument with her sister only the day before—all because Alice had begun with 'Let's pretend we're kings and queens;' and her sister, who liked being very exact, had argued that they couldn't, because there were only two of them, and Alice had been reduced at last to say, 'Well, YOU can be one of them then, and I'LL be all the rest.' And once she had really frightened her old nurse by shouting suddenly in her ear, 'Nurse! Do let's pretend that I'm a hungry hyaena, and you're a bone.'

But this is taking us away from Alice's speech to the kitten. 'Let's pretend that you're the Red Queen, Kitty! Do you know, I think if you sat up and folded your arms, you'd look exactly like her. Now do try, there's a dear!' And Alice got the Red Queen off the table, and set it up before the kitten as a model for it to imitate: however, the thing didn't succeed, principally, Alice said, because the kitten wouldn't fold its arms properly. So, to punish it, she held it up to the Looking-glass, that it might see how sulky it was—'and if you're not good directly,' she added, 'I'll put you through into Looking-glass House. How would you like THAT?'

'Now, if you'll only attend, Kitty, and not talk so much, I'll tell you all my ideas about Looking-glass House. First, there's the room you can see through the glass—that's just the same as our drawing room, only the things go the other way. I can see all of it when I get upon a chair—all but the bit behind the fireplace. Oh! I do so wish I could see THAT bit! I want so much to know whether they've a fire in the winter: you never CAN tell, you know, unless our fire smokes, and then smoke comes up in that room too—but that may be only pretence, just to make it look as if they had a fire. Well then, the books are something like our books, only the words go the wrong way; I know that, because I've held up one of our books to the glass, and then they hold up one in the other room.

'How would you like to live in Looking-glass House, Kitty? I wonder if they'd give you milk in there? Perhaps Looking-glass milk isn't good to drink—But oh, Kitty! now we come to the passage. You can just see a little PEEP of the passage in Looking-glass House, if you leave the door of our drawing-room wide open: and it's very like our passage as far as you can see, only you know it may be quite different on beyond. Oh, Kitty! how nice it would be if we could only get through into Looking-glass House! I'm sure it's got, oh! such beautiful things in it! Let's pretend there's a way of getting through into it, somehow, Kitty. Let's pretend the glass has got all soft like gauze, so that we can get through. Why, it's turning into a sort of mist now, I declare! It'll be easy enough to get through—' She was up on the chimney-piece while she said this, though she hardly knew how she had got there. And certainly the glass WAS beginning to melt away, just like a bright silvery mist.

In another moment Alice was through the glass, and had jumped lightly down into the Looking-glass room. The very first thing she did was to look whether there was a fire in the fireplace, and she was quite pleased to find that there was a real one, blazing away as brightly as the one she had left behind. 'So I shall be as warm here as I was in the old room,' thought Alice: 'warmer, in fact, because there'll be no one here to scold me away from the fire. Oh, what fun it'll be, when they see me through the glass in here, and can't get at me!'

Then she began looking about, and noticed that what could be seen from the old room was quite common and uninteresting, but that all the rest was as different as possible. For instance, the pictures on the wall next the fire seemed to be all alive, and the very clock on the chimney-piece (you know you can only see the back of it in the Looking-glass) had got the face of a little old man, and grinned at her.

'They don't keep this room so tidy as the other,' Alice thought to herself, as she noticed several of the chessmen down in the hearth among the cinders: but in another moment, with a little 'Oh!' of surprise, she was down on her hands and knees watching them. The chessmen were walking about, two and two!

'Here are the Red King and the Red Queen,' Alice said (in a whisper, for fear of frightening them), 'and there are the White King and the White Queen sitting on the edge of the shovel—and here are two castles walking arm in arm—I don't think they can hear me,' she went on, as she put her head closer down, 'and I'm nearly sure they can't see me. I feel somehow as if I were invisible—'

Here something began squeaking on the table behind Alice, and made her turn her head just in time to see one of the White Pawns roll over and begin kicking: she watched it with great curiosity to see what would happen next.