Lost Girls is a graphic novel written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Melinda Gebbie, depicting the sexually explicit adventures of three female fictional characters of the late 19th and early 20th century: Alice from Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, Dorothy Gale from L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and Wendy Darling from J. M. Barrie's Peter and Wendy.

The erotic adventures are set against the backdrop of unsettling cultural and historic events of the period, such as the debut of Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring and the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria.

Moore is one of the most critically acclaimed writers in the field of comic books, and the release of this work received widespread coverage in the industry media.

Despite the price of US$75, the book's first two print runs of 10,000 each sold out at the distributor level on the day of their release, with the US sales at the end of 2007 reaching 35,000 copies.

[3][4] However, after an appeal was made to the agency by the publisher,[3][5] the Senior Program Advisor of the Prohibited Importations Unit of CBSA approved entry of the book stating in a letter, "these depictions are integral to the development of an intricate, imaginative and artfully rendered storyline", and, "the portrayal of sex is necessary to a wider artistic and literary purpose".

"[9] In the UK, graphic artists and publishers feared that the book could be illegal to possess under the Coroners and Justice Act, which criminalises any sexual image depicting a "child", defined as anyone appearing under the age of 18.

On 23 June 2006, officials for Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH)—which was given the copyright to Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie in 1929—asserted that Moore would need their permission to publish the book in the UK and Europe.

Moore indicated that he would not be seeking their licence, claiming that he had not expected his work to be "banned" and that the hospital only holds the rights to performances of the original play, not to the individual characters.

This format initially derived from its original serialised publication in Stephen R. Bissette's anthology Taboo, but it also reflects Carroll's multi-layered usage of mathematical allusions and links as there are 8 squares in the length of a chess board (a prominent feature of Through the Looking-Glass, and the key to becoming a queen in both game and book) as well as his poem The Hunting of the Snark being An Agony in Eight Fits.

Top Shelf later planned to debut it in the United States at the 2005 San Diego Comic-Con, but due to graphic design taking longer than anticipated, it was released at the July 2006 convention instead.

"[25] Moore originally planned to write in his usual style, producing a lengthy script from which Gebbie would work, but after some initial attempts they decided "to collaborate much more closely.