The book's title characters are a female mouse named Hunca Munca and a male mouse named Tom Thumb. They enter a doll's house while its two occupants, dolls named Lucinda and Jane, are out. When the two mice find that all the food in the doll's house is artificial and inedible, they become angry and try to cause as much damage to the doll's house as they can. The Tale of Two Bad Mice has been adapted for film and television. The doll characters Lucinda and Jane are also briefly referred to in Beatrix Potter's 1909 book The Tale of Ginger and Pickles.