Books Alice in Wonderland Eight Overlooked Characters from Lewis Carroll’s Alice Books Everyone loves the White Rabbit and the Cheshire Cat, but what about these weird and wonderful creations? By Kelly Robinson | Published on June 8, 2026 Illustration by John Tenniel Comment 0 Share New Share Illustration by John Tenniel There are few works of fantastic fiction as perennially adored and obsessed over as Lewis Carroll’s Alice Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and its sequel Through the Looking Glass (1871). While every Alice fan has their own darlings, the same character names always seem to be repeated. Fan art, spoofs, and merchandise are frequently focused on the Mad Hatter, the Cheshire Cat, The Queen of Hearts, and their ilk. As someone who has read the books almost annually since childhood, I’m frustrated that so many brilliant characters are ignored. It’s wonderful that readers are still excited about a literary property from over 150 years ago, but the hyper-focus on a select few of Carroll’s creations gives short shrift to the rest of them. Both Wonderland and the world beyond the looking-glass are full of fascinating denizens, many of whom never seem to get their due. Some of them are rarely portrayed in film versions, and they’re certainly not emblazoned on tee shirts and coffee mugs. Here are just a few of Carroll’s magnificent creations that could do with more attention and recognition… Bill the Lizard Illustration from “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” by John Tenniel (1865) While the Alice books are loaded with wit, it’s primarily found in the form of word play. Puns, riddles, invented language, and parodies of well-known Victorian poems are Wonderland’s love language. That’s why the Bill the Lizard sequence is such a standout. When an oversized Alice kicks the White Rabbit’s reptilian gardener up the chimney, it’s not only an uncommon act of violence on her part, but a hilarious bit of physical comedy. The casualness of the onlookers’ “There goes Bill” is at odds with the fact that the poor creature is being propelled into the sky. John Tenniel’s illustration provides a visual punchline. Carroll somewhat crudely drew his own version of Bill’s ousting in his early handwritten manuscript Alice’s Adventures Under Ground, and his lizard is also quite funny, with an expression of dopey despair. Bill turns up later in the book as part of the jury, once again a victim when Alice snatches away his squeaky pencil, leaving him to awkwardly attempt writing on the slate with his finger. The lizard is briefly seen in the 1915 silent film, as well as the animated Disney film (though Alice sneezes him out of the house instead of kicking him, in that version). In the 1972 film he’s given a great comedy line with “What’s me tail doing in me hand?” Top prize for best Bill the Lizard has to go to stuntman Ernie F. Orsatti, whose claim to fame as the guy who falls through the skylight in The Poseidon Adventure no doubt prepared him for sailing through the air, as witnessed by Scott Baio in a guinea pig costume in the 1985 CBS version. (Note: If this character can be in so many films, where’s my Bill the Lizard merch?) The Leg of Mutton Illustration from “Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There” by John Tenniel (1871) Near the end of Through the Looking Glass, Alice becomes a queen and attends a banquet in her honor. Here she is presented with a leg of mutton which the Red Queen courteously introduces (“Alice—Mutton; Mutton—Alice.”). Even for a passage written by Lewis Carroll, it seems surprising when the leg of mutton gets up and makes a little bow. We’re used to talking animals in this world, but talking objects? Humpty Dumpty morphed from an egg, and Wonderland’s royal court is based on playing cards, but they’re all still more person than thing. Humpty Dumpty isn’t an actual edible egg. The cards are no longer literally cards. The mutton, however, is mutton. The Leg of Mutton is in fine company with other anthropomorphic food in children’s lit, such as the title characters of both The Gingerbread Man (who tries to avoid being eaten) and The Magic Pudding (whose greatest pleasure is offering up slices of himself). Tenniel’s illustration is again right on the nose, from the meat’s smug expression to the jaunty paper frill on the bone-end of the joint. The Leg of Mutton gains a perfect partner when the Pudding turns out to also be alive, exclaiming “What impertinence!” when Alice cuts a slice. In a perfect world, the Leg of Mutton (and the Pudding) would be featured in every film version, but they’re rare enough that seeing them in the 1933 production elicited a squeal of glee when I first saw it. (It’s well worth looking up, and the resemblance to Tenniel’s drawing is spectacular.) The Wasp in a Wig During my first (pre-internet) years of college, I spent hours at the university library, poring over books I was thrilled to be able to access. One of the first things I looked up was The Wasp in a Wig: A “Suppressed” Episode of Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There to finally read a sequence that I’d heard about but never seen. The Wasp is an overlooked character for a good reason: Lewis Carroll cut the creature out of his final manuscript. Scholars had long known about the excised segment from a letter Sir John Tenniel wrote to Carroll saying that he wasn’t thrilled about illustrating the wasp: “If you want to shorten the book, I can’t help thinking – with all submission – that there is your opportunity.” A wasp in a wig, he believed, was “altogether beyond the appliances of art.” Carroll capitulated. The cut content was long lost until the galley proofs turned up at a Sotheby’s auction in 1974, and though some question its provenance, the majority of scholars have accepted it. The “Wasp in a Wig” would have followed the White Knight sequence, and has Alice performing what Martin Gardner calls “a final deed of charity that would justify her approaching coronation.” The Wasp is an elderly character who exclaims “Worrity, worrity!” and complains about the cold. A highlight is Alice reading to him from a wasp newspaper (“Latest News. The Exploring Party have made another tour in the Pantry, and have found five new lumps of white sugar …”). The sequence is plenty of fun, and it’s a pity now that it’s been found that it isn’t included in more projects. Ian Richardson plays the Wasp in 1998’s Alice Through the Looking Glass, and even wearing a yellow fright wig, his performance seems within “the appliances of art.” The Ape Illustration from “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” by John Tenniel (1865) As a child, I spent a lot of time reading Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, but I spent almost as much time staring at the pictures. A pair of John Tenniel’s original illustrations gripped me more than any of the others—the depictions of the creatures gathered for the caucus race after the flood in the “Pool of Tears” chapter. The group is primarily made up of birds and small woodland animals, plus a couple of crabs. There’s the Dodo, the Mouse, a duck, an eaglet, an owl… and an ape. Wait, what? It’s such an incongruous creature to find in this bunch, and it’s all the more strange because it’s never mentioned in the book. It’s tempting to speculate that Tenniel created this ape from his own imagination, the same way he created the look of the Jabberwock or the Mad Hatter (his hat and price tag are not in the text, and in fact, he is not described at all). However, if you look at Lewis Carroll’s own illustrations from his original publication of Alice’s Adventures Under Ground, the group also includes an ape. The question that remains is: why? Some writers have suggested that its inclusion may have something to do with the popular discussion of Darwinism during the Victorian era, but if Carroll wanted to make a commentary on something, he was far more likely to include it in the text. Others suggest that the ape is Pat, who appears at the White Rabbit’s house. My own theory is that perhaps he included it for Alice Liddell, who liked primates, and often fed nuts and biscuits to the monkey at the Oxford Botanic Garden. We may not know much about the ape, but that’s what makes it so compelling. It’s there. The Gnat Illustration from “Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There” by Peter Newell (1902) While I was a Theatre student in 1989, a director asked me to replace some actors in his stage production of Alice in Wonderland. The show moved to a big venue, extending the run, but not all of the original cast could commit to the new dates. Thus, I was pulled in to play multiple roles and found myself wearing a number of hats (and masks and headdresses) as the Cheshire Cat, the Caterpillar, the Gryphon, the Walrus, and—most excitingly, to me—the Gnat. The director had a deep understanding of the source material and its Victorian sensibilities (Tim Dial went on to become a professor, Shakespearean costumer, and a millinery expert). He envisioned the Gnat as a sort of decrepit music hall comedian, and the text supports this. The Gnat is pathospersonified (insectified?), a blend of humor and sadness, full of weak jokes that never really land. (It’s no wonder that after telling one joke, he tells Alice “I wish you had made it.”) Tenniel neglected to illustrate the Gnat, which makes it easy for some to ignore it in favor of the bizarre insects he introduces. That may be why some film versions leave him out entirely. George Gobel, in the 1985 TV miniseries, looks less like a gnat than Sasquatch meeting the larval form of Mothra, but Steve Coogan fares better in the 1998 British film adaptation, sporting a handlebar mustache so long and thin that its upturned ends look like antennae. His intentionally-underplayed Gnat conveys the resignation of despair. The Sheep Illustration from “Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There” by John Tenniel (1871) For a creature that has its own chapter in Through the Looking-Glass, the Sheep doesn’t get near enough love. It may be that the main character of “Wool and Water” isn’t exciting enough for some people, being an older, bespectacled female that knits—someone that, if human, would be socially invisible. And yet, “Wool and Water” is perhaps the most explicitly dreamlike of all the chapters. For starters, the Sheep appears after the White Queen abruptly begins baa-ing and bleating and abruptly transforms into the ovine knitter, and the scene is inexplicably transported to the inside of a shop where items on the shelf keep moving out of reach. The knitting itself is increasingly wild, with the Sheep sometimes using fourteen pairs of needles at once (“She gets more and more like a porcupine every minute!” remarks Alice). Suddenly the needles become oars, and the pair are in a boat gliding down the river. Once they’re back to the shop, Alice purchases an egg that becomes Humpty Dumpty. It’s one dizzying ride of a dream. The Sheep’s shop itself was inspired by a real (and still existing) shop in Oxford where Alice Liddell used to buy barley sugar candy. It’s fun to consider the idea of a shop in this world. Its presence suggests a town where these creatures carry out everyday activities. Tenniel’s illustration shows delightful detail, with a window and shelves packed with shovels, a bellows, jars of sweets, hula hoops, dolls, and the soon-to-be-Dumptified eggs. The Fawn Illustration from “Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There” by John Tenniel (1871) After leaving the Gnat, Alice meets a fawn in the wood where things have no names. What’s extraordinary about this fawn is how much it seems to be a real fawn rather than some kind of Wonderland or Looking-Glass fawn. It’s not wearing clothes or carrying a pocket watch. It’s not doing human things like riding on a train, and unlike the snap-dragon-fly, its head isn’t on fire. It seems to be a fawn in the same way that Pluto is a dog in a Disney cartoon world that also includes Goofy. And what a beautiful fawn! In Tenniel’s illustration, it’s all spindly legs, dappled fur, and wide eyes. In Peter Newell’s 1901 illustrations, the Fawn is just as splendid, perhaps more so, a little fuzzier and rounded, a little softer, with shining eyes. Alice connects with the fawn, and they proceed together through the wood with her arm around its neck. The Fawn is able to speak, but there’s a sense that its ability to converse with her is the result of its forgetting who it is. Once they are out of the wood, the Fawn is instantly startled (“Dear me! You’re a human child!”) and it runs away “at full speed.” The sequence explores a philosophical idea: who are you if you don’t know who you are? There’s something else here, too. It’s a beautiful moment that’s lost in the blink of an eye, the same as when Alice picks the scented rushes that melt away. The Fawn, like the rushes, represents the fleeting nature of beauty. The Fawn makes a rare appearance in the 1985 film. It’s accompanied by a treacle-y song, but the moment between an actual little girl and an actual fawn offers a nice reprieve from the otherwise-manic energy of the rest of the film. The Oysters Illustration from “Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There” by John Tenniel (1897) There’s something gleefully absurd about anthropomorphic oysters. To begin with, they barely seem like an animal. There are other small creatures in Carroll’s works: the baby crab at the Wonderland caucus race, for example, and the caterpillar (which may seem large if you’ve forgotten how small Alice is at that point, but states his height as three inches tall). The oysters are not only the smallest creatures in the books, but they also don’t have a brain, or limbs, or eyes. They’re squishy rocks with a nervous system. Yet even Alice recognizes that they’re the most important players in “The Walrus and the Carpenter.” They’re also the only characters to die in the text (the Queen’s various orders about beheadings and the probable fate of the bread-and-butterfly are things that either will happen or have already happened, and may not happen at all). It’s easy as a reader to feel the same sympathy as Alice over their being eaten, especially looking at Tenniel’s illustrations, which give them tiny legs and little shoes. Carroll himself felt enough sympathy for them after seeing an 1886 stage play that he penned a new ending for the sequence, having three oyster ghosts come back to exact revenge. (My kingdom for a ghost oyster tee shirt.) In the 1933 film, though the rest is live-action, “The Walrus and the Carpenter” poem is an animated segment presented by Tweedledum and Tweedledee on a little television. An oyster mom and oyster babies are sleeping under the covers on an “oyster bed.” Walt Disney borrowed the idea for the 1951 animated film, but made each little shell its own cradle, with the top shell a baby bonnet. In the 1985 miniseries, the oysters are bizarrely played by adults, their long legs sticking out of the oyster shells. It’s certainly memorable. How is it that the oysters don’t have a bigger legacy? Among the reasons Lewis Carroll’s books have endured so long is the strength of the characters, and not just the biggest or most obvious ones. Wonderland and the Looking-Glass world teem with incredible creatures in every wood, river, and tree. They’re hiding in plain sight in the details of the text as well as the illustrations. Take a closer look, and see what you can find—do you have a favorite character or scene? Let us know in the comments…[end-mark] The post Eight Overlooked Characters from Lewis Carroll’s Alice Books appeared first on Reactor.