This beautiful chess set is based on Lewis Carroll’s two famous stories, “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” and “Through the Looking Glass.” The skilled artists of Berkeley Chess have brought Carroll’s memorable characters to life.

Lewis Carroll, the pen name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, was a lecturer in mathematics at Christ Church, Oxford, when he wrote the stories to amuse and entertain the young children of the Dean of Christ Church.  He chose as the heroine of his stories Alice Liddell, the eldest daughter of the Dean.  The children were so entranced by the stories that their mother persuaded Dodgson to have them published.

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” appeared in 1865 and “Through the Looking Glass” in 1872.  John Tenniel superbly illustrated both books, and it is on his drawings that these chess figures are based.  Indeed “Through the Looking Glass” has as part of its basic structural theme a game of chess in which Alice, as the White Queen’s pawn, advances to the eighth square where she herself becomes a Queen.