Alice in Wonderland Trivia
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108 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 Difficulty ranges from questions any reader can get to genuinely hard ones about the manuscript, the withdrawn first edition and Carroll's private jokes.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 108 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Why was the first edition of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland withdrawn in 1865?
Its illustrator disliked the printing
Its illustrator disliked the printing of his pictures, so the first run of 2,000 copies was withdrawn and the book reprinted; the approved edition reached shops late in 1865, dated 1866.
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 title did Carroll give the handwritten story he presented to Alice Liddell in 1864?
Alice's Adventures Under Ground
Alice's Adventures Under Ground carried 37 of Carroll's own drawings; for publication he made it about twice as long, adding episodes such as the Mad Tea-Party.
Q 06What does Alice cry out as she starts stretching 'like the largest telescope that ever was'?
Curiouser and curiouser!
'Curiouser and curiouser!' Alice is so surprised that, Carroll says, she 'quite forgot how to speak good English', and her slip became a stock phrase for things growing ever stranger.
Q 07In the book, what does the White Rabbit pull from his waistcoat when Alice first sees him?
A pocket watch
A pocket watch: Alice barely notices that the Rabbit can talk, but a rabbit with a waistcoat pocket and a watch to take out of it sends her running after him.
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
Smoking a hookah on a mushroom, the Caterpillar takes no notice of Alice at first; as he crawls away he tells her one side of the mushroom will make her taller and the other shorter.
Q 10Whose baby turns into a piglet in Alice's arms?
The Duchess's
The Duchess's baby is flung at Alice and turns into a pig; she lets it trot off into the wood, 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
Its grin, which 'remained some time after the rest of it had gone'. Carroll didn't invent the grinning cat: 'to grin like a Cheshire cat' was a saying before he was born.
Q 12Who is the third guest at the Mad Tea-Party, alongside the Hatter and the March Hare?
The Dormouse
The Dormouse sits between them fast asleep while they rest their elbows on it like a cushion, and when Alice leaves they are trying to stuff it into the teapot.
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, who called himself one; a popular but unproven story says his stammer turned his real surname into 'Do-do-'. The Lory and the Eaglet stand for Alice's sisters Lorina and Edith.
Q 22Which three sisters, one named with an anagram of 'Alice', live in a treacle well in a Mad Tea-Party story?
Elsie, Lacie and Tillie
Elsie, Lacie and Tillie are the Liddell sisters in disguise: Elsie is L.C., for Lorina Charlotte; Lacie is Alice rearranged; and Tillie is short for Matilda, Edith's family nickname.
Q 23Alice's 'How doth the little crocodile' garbles a famous moral poem about which hard-working creature?
A bee
'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 14In the original drawings, what does the '10/6' on the Hatter's hat show?
Its price
Its price, ten shillings and sixpence: Carroll later explained that the Hatter carried hats about to sell, even the one on his own head.
Q 15What is the popular explanation for the old phrase 'mad as a hatter'?
Mercury poisoning among hat makers
Mercury poisoning among hat makers is the usual story, since mercury used on felt could leave hatters trembling and confused, though the origin is unproven. The phrase was in print by 1829, decades before the book.
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
They planted a white rose tree by mistake where the Queen wanted a red one, and the three gardeners, who are playing cards, tell Alice they will lose their heads if she finds out.
Q 19What do the Gryphon and Mock Turtle dance for Alice?
The Lobster Quadrille
The Lobster Quadrille: each dancer takes a lobster as a partner, advances twice, then throws it as far out to sea as possible and swims after it.
Q 20The Mock Turtle's sobbing song swaps the 'Beautiful Star' of a popular ballad for a beautiful what?
Soup
Soup: 'Beautiful Soup, so rich and green, waiting in a hot tureen!' parodies the ballad 'Star of the Evening, Beautiful Star', a fitting hymn from a creature named after mock turtle soup.
A bee: Isaac Watts's 'How doth the little busy bee' taught children to work hard, and Carroll swapped in a crocodile that simply grins while little fishes swim into its jaws.
Q 24Who is declared the winner of the Caucus-Race that the creatures run to get dry?
Everybody
Everybody: 'Everybody has won, and all must have prizes,' so Alice hands round the sweets from her pocket and is solemnly presented with her own thimble.
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
By holding it up to a mirror: the poem is printed backwards, and Alice works out that 'it's a Looking-glass book, of course', so in a glass 'the words will all go the right way again'.
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 'Jabberwocky'?
Vorpal
Vorpal: the hero's blade goes 'snicker-snack' through the Jabberwock, and Dungeons & Dragons later borrowed the word for magic swords that lop off heads.