LONGLISTED FOR THE HWA DEBUT CROWN AWARD Oxford, 1862. Poor, plain Mary Prickett takes up her post as governess to the daughters of the Dean of Christ Church. When Mary meets Charles Dodgson, a friend of the family, she is flattered by his attentions and becomes convinced he plans to propose marriage. But it is also clear that he is drawn to the little girls in Mary's care, and on a boating trip one sunny day Mr Dodgson tells the story of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland a curious tale about the precocious Alice Liddell As Mary waits for her life to change, she becomes increasingly suspicious of Alice's friendship with Mr Dodgson. Before long, everything Mary believes is turned topsy-turvy, and her determination to get to the truth will have lasting consequences for all involved...

In four new novellas, Christina Henry returns to the world of Alice and Red Queen, where magic runs as freely as secrets and blood. Lovely Creature In the New City lives a girl with a secret: Elizabeth can do magic. But someone knows her secret--someone who has a secret of his own. That secret is a butterfly that lives in a jar, a butterfly that was supposed to be gone forever, a butterfly that used to be called the Jabberwock... Girl in Amber Alice and Hatcher are just looking for a place to rest. Alice has been dreaming of a cottage by a lake and a field of wildflowers, but while walking blind in a snowstorm she stumbles into a house that only seems empty and abandoned... When I First Came to Town Hatcher wasn't always Hatcher. Once, he was a boy called Nicholas, and Nicholas fancied himself the best fighter in the Old City. No matter who fought him he always won. Then his boss tells him he's going to battle the fearsome Grinder, a man who never leaves his opponents alive... The Mercy Seat There is a place hidden in the mountains, where all the people hate and fear magic and Magicians. It is the Village of the Pure, and though Alice and Hatcher would do anything to avoid it, it lies directly in their path...

"Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass was originally published in 1865/1872"--T.p. verso.

"Looking-Glass House" imagines the handwritten rough-draft of Lewis Carroll's 1871 "Alice" sequel "Through the Looking-Glass" - in Carroll's own meticulous handwriting and featuring more than thirty pen-and-ink illustrations reminiscent of Carroll's amateurish drawings from the celebrated "Alice's Adventures Under Ground" manuscript.

'I cried, "Come, tell me how you live!" And thumped him on the head.' Conjuring wily walruses, dancing lobsters, a Jabberwock and a Bandersnatch, Carroll's fantastical verse gave new words to the English language.