Knave of Hearts (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

See also Knave of Hearts (1954 film).

John Tenniel's illustration of the trial of the Knave of Hearts, with the King and Queen of Hearts above.

The Knave of Hearts is a character from the book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by the mathematician Lewis Carroll. He features in Chapter 11, Who Stole the Tarts? [1]. The White Rabbit announces:

The Queen of Hearts, she made some tarts,

All on a summer day:

The Knave of Hearts, he stole those tarts,

And took them quite away!

He is put on trial for the robbery in which the King of Hearts presides as judge. Alice eventually defends him after the evidence becomes increasingly absurd, and the Queen sentences her for this, offering the approach of sentence before verdict.

The Knave is fairly indifferent throughout the trial, and besides Alice, the Mad Hatter is called to give evidence but spends his entire time being nervous by the King and Queen of Hearts, both of whom threaten his execution, and the Duchess's cook is summoned to tell the court what tarts are made of. Neither are convincing witnesses, and the Knave does not offer a very good defence, firstly by refusing to give evidence and secondly by denying that he wrote a letter that mysteriously appears in the court but suspiciously revealing his knowledge of the fact that it isn't signed. Fortunately for him, Alice diverts the attention of the court by growing, "nearly two miles high" (according to the Queen) and then later awakens from her dream before a verdict can be reached for the Knave's innocence or guilt.

[edit] Trivia

Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

• It is believed by some people that since Sir John Tenniel's original illustration of this scene shows the ace of spades instead of the knave of hearts that the ultimate nonsense is that the king and queen do not even have the correct person standing trial.
• The poem that is used as evidence against the Knave, is a parody of a famous love poem written for a woman named Alice Gray, which the Alice of the story declares is nonsensical, saying "if anyone can find any meaning in it I'll give him a sixpence!"