‘– And What Alice Found There’ was written by Charles Dodgson, better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, in 1871 as a sequel to his first book, entitled Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.  Dodgson was a gifted mathematician and studied at Christ Church, Oxford, but ultimately settled for a quiet life as a country clergyman. His greatest talent was as a writer of short stories and poems and, in particular, the two ‘Alice’ books, which are essentially tales of fantasy for children.

In ‘Through The Looking Glass’, a little girl named Alice climbs through a looking glass and finds a world populated with magical and strange creatures. A theme of the book is the game of chess and Alice meets the Red Queen, who promises a throne if Alice can negotiate her way to the eighth rank of the chessboard.

The themes of ‘Through The Looking Glass’ are strategy (represented by the chess game), conflict (where Alice meets strange characters with unusual behaviour and rules) and ultimately resolution (when Alice finally loses her temper with the Red Queen and shakes her, only to wake up from a dream and find that she is shaking her cat).

So the story is a perfect metaphor for the airline industry, where nothing is quite as it seems, where we must deal constantly with strange rules and conduct, and the world is full of antagonists.  Survival in Alice’s confusing world does seem to strike a chord with the airline business.

The drawings you see on each of the web pages are extracted from Lewis Carroll’s original book, ‘Through The Looking Glass’.  They were produced by Sir John Tenniel, a leading nineteenth century illustrator.