The Looking Glass Wars and names related by Alice to the author, whom she had requested to make a book of her personal history. The theme of this book is loss of innocence. The book's prologue tells of Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson showing Alice Liddell (who claims her name to be spelled 'Alyss') the manuscript for Alice's Adventures Underground. Alyss is shocked by the book's contents and refuses to speak to Dodgson ever again. The story then begins many years earlier, on Alyss' seventh birthday in the Wonderland of Alyss' memory, which is ruled by imagination and is the source of all imagination for
Edwin Dodgson of St James Church in Jamestown, St Helena. St James is the oldest Anglican place of worship south of the equator, having been consecrated in 1772. As at Tristan, so also at St James, Dodgson encouraged choral services and worked hard in the parish. Indeed, this was the only time in his ministry when Dodgson had his own parish church. It appears that his relationship with the elderly Bishop of St Helena was difficult. Another member of the clergy on the island wrote, "I am afraid that poor Mr. Dodgson is not the comfort to the Bishop that was anticipated".