What Carroll novel features the characters Tweedledum and Tweedledee?

Through the Looking-Glass features the characters Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Lewis Carroll introduced the pair in his 1871 sequel, whose full title is Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There. Alice meets the twin brothers in the fourth chapter after following a signpost to their house in the looking-glass world.

The brothers come from a much older English nursery rhyme beginning “Tweedledum and Tweedledee / Agreed to have a battle.” Carroll has them recite and act out the rhyme: they prepare to fight over a broken rattle, but a monstrous black crow frightens them away before the battle begins. Their behavior mirrors the book’s playful treatment of logic, contradiction, and reversal.

The names themselves predate Carroll. They appeared in a satirical epigram by John Byrom around 1725, mocking the musical rivalry between George Frideric Handel and Giovanni Bononcini. The familiar nursery rhyme was printed around 1805. Carroll’s version helped turn the names into a lasting expression for two people who are nearly indistinguishable. They are often mistakenly associated primarily with Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, but they belong to the sequel.