Alice in Wonderland Trivia
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109 free Alice in Wonderland trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
54 free Alice in Wonderland trivia questions with answers. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland began as a story told in a rowing boat on the Thames in 1862 and has since been translated into 174 languages, animated by Disney and turned into a billion-dollar Tim Burton film. This quiz covers all of it: the Oxford mathematician behind the pen name, the real Alice Liddell, the tea party and the croquet game, the chess-board logic of Through the Looking-Glass and the nonsense words of 'Jabberwocky', plus the voice cast of the 1951 cartoon and the Oscars won by the 2010 movie. It suits a book club, a classroom, a themed party or anyone who has ever wondered why a raven is like a writing desk. Difficulty ranges from questions any reader can get to genuinely hard ones about the manuscript, the withdrawn first edition and Carroll's private jokes. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the novels, the films, the characters and the people involved. If we could not cite it, it is not here.
30 of 109 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In what year was Alice's Adventures in Wonderland first published?
1865
Macmillan published Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in 1865; the first print run of 2,000 was withdrawn in July and a reprinted edition reached shops in November.
Q 02What was Lewis Carroll's real name?
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson made 'Lewis Carroll' by Latinising his first two names to Carolus Ludovicus, anglicising them and swapping the order.
Q 03On what date did the famous 'golden afternoon' boat trip take place, when the story was first told?
4 July 1862
On 4 July 1862 Carroll rowed the three Liddell sisters from Folly Bridge up the Thames to Godstow for a picnic, improvising the tale on the way.
Q 04How old was Alice Liddell on the boat trip where she first heard the story?
10
Alice Liddell, born 4 May 1852, was 10; her sisters Lorina and Edith were 13 and 8, and Alice asked Carroll to write the story down.
Q 05What was the title of the handwritten manuscript Carroll gave the Liddell girl in 1864?
Alice's Adventures Under Ground
Alice's Adventures Under Ground, which Carroll illustrated himself, was given to Alice on 26 November 1864, dedicated 'A Christmas Gift to a Dear Child in Memory of a Summer's Day'.
Q 06Who drew the 42 illustrations in the original edition?
John Tenniel
John Tenniel, chief cartoonist for Punch, drew the 42 illustrations, engraved on wood by the Dalziel brothers; he went on to illustrate the sequel, Through the Looking-Glass, as well.
Q 07What is the White Rabbit carrying when Alice first spots him?
A pocket watch
The White Rabbit pulls a pocket watch from his waistcoat and mutters that he is late; in the Disney film he gets the song 'I'm Late' about it.
Q 08What is written on the bottle Alice finds after falling down the rabbit hole?
Drink me
The 'Drink me' bottle shrinks Alice to ten inches high, while a cake labelled 'Eat me' does the opposite, growing her to a tremendous size.
Q 09What is the Caterpillar doing when Alice meets him?
Smoking a hookah on a mushroom
Alice finds the Caterpillar sitting on a mushroom smoking a long hookah; he tells her one side of the mushroom will make her grow and the other shrink.
Q 10Whose baby turns into a piglet in Alice's arms?
The Duchess's
The Duchess tosses her baby to Alice; it turns into a pig, and Alice lets it trot off, reasoning it would have made a dreadfully ugly child but a rather handsome pig.
Q 11What does the Cheshire Cat leave behind when it disappears?
Its grin
The phrase 'grinning like a Cheshire cat' predates the book, and one theory ties it to Cheshire cheese moulded in the shape of a smiling cat.
Q 12Which three characters are at the tea party when Alice arrives?
The Hatter, the March Hare and the Dormouse
The Hatter, the March Hare and the Dormouse are stuck at a perpetual six o'clock tea, so they keep shifting round the table as the dishes get used up.
Q 13What is the Hatter's unanswerable riddle?
Why is a raven like a writing desk?
Q 21Which character in the Caucus-Race is a caricature of Carroll himself?
The Dodo
The Dodo is Carroll himself: he had a stammer and reputedly introduced himself as 'Do-do-Dodgson'; the Lory and the Eaglet stand for Lorina and Edith Liddell.
Q 22What are the names of the three sisters in the Dormouse's story?
Elsie, Lacie and Tillie
They are the three Liddell girls in disguise: Elsie for L.C. (Lorina Charlotte), Lacie is an anagram of Alice, and Tillie was Edith's family nickname.
Q 23Alice's recitation 'How doth the little crocodile' parodies which poem?
Against Idleness and Mischief
'Why is a raven like a writing desk?' was meant to have no answer, though Carroll's 1896 preface offered one: it can produce a few notes, though they are very flat.
Q 14What price tag does the Hatter wear in his hat in the Tenniel illustrations?
10/6
That is ten shillings and sixpence. Carroll never actually calls him the 'Mad' Hatter in the text.
Q 15What is the likely origin of the phrase 'mad as a hatter'?
Mercury poisoning among hat makers
Mercury was used to make felt hats, and hat making was the main trade in Stockport near where Carroll grew up.
Q 16What are the 'balls' in the Queen's croquet game?
Hedgehogs
Live hedgehogs are the balls, flamingos serve as mallets and the card soldiers bend over to make the hoops, so the hedgehogs keep crawling away.
Q 17What crime is the Knave of Hearts accused of at the trial?
Stealing the Queen's tarts
The Knave is tried for stealing the Queen's tarts, following the old nursery rhyme; Alice's outburst that they are 'nothing but a pack of cards' ends the dream.
Q 18Why are the gardeners painting the roses red?
They planted a white rose tree by mistake
The Queen of Hearts hates white roses, so the cards are frantically fixing their error before she arrives.
Q 19What do the Gryphon and Mock Turtle dance for Alice?
The Lobster Quadrille
The Lobster Quadrille is a seaside dance with lobsters as partners; the Gryphon and Mock Turtle solemnly dance it round Alice while singing 'Will you walk a little faster'.
Q 20What is the Mock Turtle's 'Turtle Soup' a parody of?
A tune the Liddell sisters sang for Carroll
The original was 'Star of the Evening, Beautiful Star'; Carroll built the book from private jokes for the family.
'How doth the little crocodile' parodies Isaac Watts's moralising 'Against Idleness and Mischief' (1715), which begins 'How doth the little busy bee improve each shining hour'.
Q 24Which British Prime Minister may be the inspiration for Bill the Lizard's name?
Benjamin Disraeli
Tenniel drew several Looking-Glass characters to resemble Disraeli too, including the 'Man in White Paper' on the train.
Q 25How much did Carroll's own copy of the 1865 first edition sell for at auction in 1998?
$1.54 million
Carroll's own copy of the withdrawn 1865 printing sold at Christie's New York for $1.54 million in December 1998, a record then for a children's book; about 22 copies of that printing survive.
Q 26In what year was the sequel, Through the Looking-Glass, published?
1871
Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There was published by Macmillan in December 1871, though its title page is dated 1872.
Q 27What game provides the structure of Through the Looking-Glass?
Chess
The book is structured as a chess game: Alice starts as a white pawn, and the Red Queen tells her she can become a queen by reaching the eighth square.
Q 28How can Alice read the poem 'Jabberwocky' when she first finds it?
By holding it up to a mirror
Everything on the other side of the glass is reversed, including the printing in the books.
Q 29Which character explains the nonsense words of 'Jabberwocky' to Alice?
Humpty Dumpty
Humpty Dumpty glosses the first verse for Alice, calling words like 'slithy' portmanteaus with 'two meanings packed up into one word', a term that stuck.
Q 30What kind of sword slays the Jabberwock in the poem?
Vorpal
'And through and through the vorpal blade went snicker-snack!' The Bandersnatch is the frumious one.