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Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There (1871) is a work of literature by Lewis Carroll. It is the follow-up to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865). The themes and settings of Through the Looking-Glass make it a kind of mirror reflection of Wonderland: the first book begins outdoors, in the warm month of May (4 May),  uses frequent changes in size as a plot device, and draws on the imagery of playing cards; the second opens indoors on a snowy, freezing night exactly six months later, sees frequent changes in time and spatial directions as a plot device, and draws on the imagery of chess. In it, there are many mirror themes, including opposites, time running backwards, and so on.

In this reflected version of her own house, she finds a book with looking-glass poetry, "Jabberwocky", whose reversed printing she can read only by holding it up to the mirror. She also observes that the chess pieces have come to life, though they remain small enough for her to pick up.

Upon leaving the house, she enters a sunny spring garden where the flowers have the power of human speech; they perceive Alice as being a "flower that can move about." Elsewhere in the garden, Alice meets the Red Queen (now human-sized), who impresses Alice with her ability to run at amazing speeds—a reference to the chess rule that queens are able to move up to seven spaces at once, and in any direction, making them the most "agile" of the pieces. 

The Red Queen reveals to Alice that the entire countryside is laid out in squares like a gigantic chessboard, and offers to make Alice a queen if she can move all the way to the eighth rank/row in a chess match. Alice is placed in the second rank as one of the White Queen's pawns, and begins her journey across the chessboard by boarding a train that literally jumps over the third row and directly into the fourth rank, acting on the rule that pawns can advance two spaces on their first move.