Methodology

A reference site is a promise: that the quotes are real, the dates are honest, and the pictures are what they say they are. Here is exactly how this site keeps that promise.

Quotation verification

Every quotation on this site was checked word-for-word against the public-domain texts of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Project Gutenberg ebook #11) and Through the Looking-Glass (Project Gutenberg ebook #12) in September 2026. The procedure:

1. Each candidate quote was located in the Gutenberg text and compared character-by-character, including punctuation.
2. Book and chapter were recorded for every quote; speaker attribution was checked against the surrounding dialogue.
3. Common internet paraphrases were tested against the text and rejected where they failed — the most prominent case, the “very good advice” line, is flagged on the sayings page with the genuine wording quoted instead.
4. Famous lines attributed to Carroll that appear in neither book (e.g., “I’m not strange, weird, off, nor crazy…”) are listed on the sayings page as misattributions, not quoted as his.

Punctuation follows the Gutenberg presentation; early print editions vary slightly, and the site does not claim otherwise.

Dating honesty

Dates on this site follow the standard bibliography, with ambiguities stated rather than smoothed:

• Through the Looking-Glass was published in December 1871 but dated 1872 on the title page; both facts are given.
• The 1865 Wonderland first printing was withdrawn and replaced the same year; the timeline says so.
• The “golden afternoon” of 4 July 1862 is Carroll’s poetic phrase; the timeline notes that contemporary weather accounts differ.
• Where Victorian records give only month or year precision, the site does not invent day precision.

Interpretation vs. documentation

The site maintains a strict line between what is documented and what is interpreted — this is its uncertainty policy:

• Documented: the texts, the publication history, the manuscript’s existence and location, the dedication, the biographical dates.
• Interpreted: symbolic readings, biographical speculations (including the White Knight question and the Dodgson–Liddell debate), and critical judgments about adaptations.
• Interpretive passages are labeled as such, and pages on contested topics (the real Alice, symbolism) include explicit “Limitations” sections stating what is not known.

Images

All illustrations on this site were generated in-house in September 2026, in a single consistent watercolor storybook style. The rules:

• Every displayed image is labeled, in its caption or nearby text, “AI-generated dramatization art — not a historical depiction.”
• No image depicts a real person. The character Alice as drawn here is a dramatization of the fictional character, not a portrait of Alice Liddell.
• The real-Alice page is deliberately text-only: real photographs of Alice Liddell exist in archives, but this site does not reproduce them, and no generated face stands in for her.
• See the image captions for credits and context. Illustrated character art is a dramatization.

What this site does not claim

• It does not claim the fictional Alice is a portrait of Alice Liddell.
• It does not claim Carroll’s chess game in Looking-Glass is fully legal.
• It does not resolve the scholarly debates it reports.
• It does not present paraphrase as quotation, anywhere, ever.

Source notes

• Verification texts: Project Gutenberg ebooks #11 and #12, accessed September 2026.
• See the image captions for credits and context. Illustrated character art is a dramatization.

Limitations

• Verification is only as good as the reference text; the Gutenberg editions are widely accepted but not facsimiles of the 1865/1871 printings.
• This methodology describes the site’s own process; it is not a peer-reviewed scholarly apparatus.