Alice by Heart is a musical inspired by Lewis Carroll's 1865 novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Set in 1941 amid the debris after the London Blitz of World War II, the life of teen Alice Spencer is disrupted as she and her best friend Alfred are forced to take shelter in a London underground tube station. However, Alfred, suffering from Tuberculosis, is quarantined. Alice urges him to escape with her into their cherished book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and travel down the rabbit hole to Wonderland. Nurse Cross, who is in charge of keeping everyone safe, rips Alice's book as a punishment for visiting Alfred, despite his quarantine. Alice becomes very defiant and declares she knows it "by heart" and will read to him anyway.