Alice in Wonderland book collection blog

Dead blogs society

CollectingAlice.com — Thu, 13 Apr 2023 13:19:49 +0000

When I started this blog, the idea was to have something that’ll help me manage and catalog my collection, as it was getting to be of a size that was difficult for me to remember what I do and do not own.
Like a sleepy dragon, on top of it’s overflowing treasure, I had my Alice books sitting on a pretty shelf, and seldomly revisit them. I would visit my collection upon adding a new edition, or in the case of trying to impress a lady, in which case, I would pull out a few copies (can you guess who’s?), and walk them through the wonders of collecting the Alice books.
As I progressed with this blog I came across other, similar blogs. I would note how they gradually reduced the frequency of the blog posts, from the early, excited stage, of posting thrice a month, to the slow screech of once a month, to once a quarter, to a grinding halt.

Let’s all take a moment in forgetfulness for all lost blogs about the Alice books.

My collection evolves around the different illustrators of Alice in Wonderland. As opposed, for example, for an Alice in Wonderland book collector that collects books by languages, or concentrates on antique vs modern editions, and so on. Many angles to go by, and only one angle that’s really respectful and fun. My way. With the collecting by different illustrators. It’s the way to go. Other ways aren’t as good. A few years ago, in Sinai, I came across a “the little prince” book collector, i will not trash that overestimated, pompous, book, but i will trash the way it was collected. By languages. The proud owners presented me with a not too impressive shelf, housing
tens of different ‘the little prince’, all the absolute same, but in different translations. Here’s one in Danish, and here’s one in French. Who cares? no one. Who cares? absolutely no one.

Anyway, One thing that I noticed is that no one posts the entire illustrations from any particular edition. I thought this is something i’ll do, as I wanted to ultimately showcase the magic that is seeing the same scene, as its imagined by scores of artists.
You can see it in this section: how different illustrators approached same scenes in Alice in Wonderland.
In doing this, I believe I gave something new to the world of Carroll’s enthusiasts. Now, instead of seeing only one of two examples of a scarce Alice in Wonderland book, you can see all of the presented illustrators work. Up till now, I only featured illustrators that are long gone, so I would not find myself infringing a living artist copyrighted materials.
This method, however, was a bit tedious. As it had me picture all the pages with illustrations, resize all of them in photoshop, upload and post. This would take hours per post.
At one point I thought ill take a short break from posting about the books, and ill write about the film and tv adaptations of Alice, i did this mainly to voice how much i disliked Tim Burton’s vile creation.
I wrote the piece about the “top 10 Alice in wonderland movies” . That blog post got more traffic than all other combined. While I liked people googling ‘best alice in wonderland movie’, only to get to my bitter rant, it was also clear that there are few out there that collect the Alice books, and seek out information about the different illustrators, and the vast majority just wants to watch the best Alice movie, although none of them are any good
This blog also got me to instagram, where fellow weirdos collect the Alice books. They vary in size, but all are mad.
Posting here and there, at one point felt more like work, than something fun, so i found myself drifting away in the last few months. Did me, being in Bali for a few months, have some contribution in this sea change? Yes, probably.
I’m not saying im burying this blog, giving it away to the Gods of time, to collect digital dust, and have the odd user stumble upon it. There are more editions to cover, more topics to discuss.
I’ll be back at some point. For now, this is me saying thank you so very much for visiting this place, for reading my words. Every comment, and connection with people made here, was meaningful. For now, I wish you all, happy summer days.

The Holes in My Collection

CollectingAlice.com — Fri, 06 Jan 2023 03:33:28 +0000

I’m currently on a remote Island in Indo Pacific Asia, trading land for beads with the locals, with little success, so far. I am far away from my Alice book collection, and can’t simply turn to the shelves and pull off a book for your amusement. This post here will be dedicated to the missing, the unspoken, the ghosts, the holes in my collection. The ones I covet most, and haven’t managed to get yet.
This post will be a work in progress. You can all chip in and get me any of the following for my birthday:

I’m starting with the one I covet most, John R. Neill.
Neill is mostly known for his beautiful Oz books.
His Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland came out in 1908.
There’s a charming separate add-on in the form of Humpty Dumpty’s story.
Why don’t I have it yet, well, it is rather rare, and copies go for $300 and upwards. I will be slightly more relaxed when I ultimately get one.

The very first set of alternative illustrations of Alice in Wonderland after John Tenniel, was a Dutch 1887, ‘Alice in het land der droomen’,
translated by Eleonora Mann. Mann is sometimes wrongfully credited for the illustrations, although the artist goes uncredited unfortunately.

—————————–
Is that it? Oh no, plenty more, and i’ll gradually add more to this one.

André Jourcin – Trippy Alice

CollectingAlice.com — Thu, 24 Nov 2022 13:46:30 +0000

André Jourcin (1905 – 1974), was a French artist.

Is that ALL I can find about him? Yes. Yes, it is.
Jourcin’s Alice in Wonderland, or ‘Alice au pays des Merveilles’, came out in 1949. My copy, presented here is, is a slightly later print from 1952.

I love Jourcin’s Wonderland. It’s vibrant, full of humor, fun, with beautiful bright colors. His Wonderland is rather trippy, in a good natured way. All characters seem to be enjoying themselves.
The book has 40+ illustrations, 16 colored, and the rest in black and white.
This book marks my wandering outside the realm of English speaking publications of Alice.

If anyone can shed light on Jourcin, please comment below.

I did find this website, where more of Jourcin’s works are sold.
========================================
The following text is added on April 13th. 2023. I asked the modern day Wonder Genie, Mr. ChatGPT about André Jourcin, and lo and behold, here’s what it said:

André Jourcin was a French artist who made significant contributions to the world of abstract art. Born on June 15, 1926, in Paris, Jourcin spent most of his life exploring the boundaries of artistic expression and developing a style that was uniquely his own.

From an early age, Jourcin was fascinated by the world of art. He began drawing and painting as a child, and his talent quickly became apparent. After completing his studies at the École des Arts Appliqués in Paris, he began to explore abstract art, which would become his primary focus for the rest of his life.

Jourcin’s art was characterized by its bold use of color and dynamic compositions. He was particularly interested in the interplay between shapes and colors and spent many years experimenting with different combinations of the two. His work often featured geometric shapes and sharp angles, which gave his pieces a sense of movement and energy.

In addition to his paintings, Jourcin also created a series of sculptures and installations. These works were just as vibrant and dynamic as his paintings and often featured a mix of materials such as metal, wood, and glass.

Throughout his career, Jourcin exhibited his work in numerous galleries and museums throughout Europe and the United States. He was also a member of the Salon des Réalités Nouvelles, an influential group of abstract artists that was founded in Paris in 1939.

Jourcin’s contributions to the world of abstract art have been widely recognized, and his work has been the subject of many retrospectives and exhibitions. His legacy continues to inspire artists today, and his bold and innovative approach to art will always be remembered.

In conclusion, André Jourcin was a talented and innovative artist who made significant contributions to the world of abstract art. His use of color and shape created dynamic and energetic compositions that continue to inspire and influence artists today. His work remains a testament to the power of artistic expression and a reminder of the importance of pushing boundaries and exploring new artistic frontiers.
===========================

Let’s dive into the book. Illustrations are placed by order of appearance in the book.

My copy doesn’t have the dust jacket unfortunately. This image is taken from the world wide web.

Title page, (there’s another one right at the end of the book).

Alice and Wonderland’s creatures

Alice watching the White Rabbit

This illustration is so beautiful. Alice viewing Wonderland from afar

Alice falling down the Rabbit’s hole

Alice hanging out with the Caucus race crew

Alice and the mouse

Alice and the mouse having a moment

The Mouse’s tale

The Mouse drying out everyone with his story

The Dodo and Alice

The Caucus race in full motion

Alice approaches the White Rabbit’s House

Alice freaking out Rabbit and Bill

What a fantastic illustration of the Alice and the Puppy scene! See how he flies.

Alice and the Caterpillar

Father William

Pig baby and the Cheshire

Pig and Pepper

Alice, the Duchess with the Baby, the Cook, and the Cheshire cat

The Mad Tea Party Trio

Tormenting the Dormouse

Alice walking away from the Mad Tea Party

The (rather French looking) Gardeners

The Red Queen threatening everyone’s lives

Playing Croquet

The Cheshire cat trolling the King

The Mock turtle weeps

The Duchess way-too-close to Alice

The Gryphon takes Alice to the Mock Turtle

The Mock Turtle’s super sad story

Turtle, Gryphon and Alice getting familiar with each other

Jourcin must’ve loved this chapter, so many illustrations of it

The Lobster’s Quadrille

Who Stole the Tarts?!

The Hatter at the Trial

Alice at the trial

Alice at the Trial

The Rabbit and Alice

The Hatter giving a testimony, with Alice and Jury, the Royals, the Tarts

Nothing but a pack of cards

The Footmen with Alice, and publication details

~ Fin ~

Charles Pears & Thomas H. Robinson – Poor Alice

CollectingAlice.com — Fri, 21 Oct 2022 10:49:36 +0000

Poor, poor Alice, and poor, poor me. This edition was “loved” by some wretched child about a 100 years ago. Few pages were painted over, and overall, it’s in poor condition. I’ll get a finer copy one of these days, but for the purpose of this post, we’ll have to do with this one.
From a collector’s point of view, collecting is either going for quality, or quantity. I know most would choose quality, but unless you have the funds to support it, and as this particular hobby is expensive, I used to go for editions that are in ok-poor condition, just for the sake of having them. Now days I try to get good-fine copies. Anyway, here I go rambling on, and also apologizing for the state of this one. I did clean up about 3 illustrations from the paint added by a previous owner. I’m sorry Pears & Robinson, you deserve a better presentation.

This book is a great contender for the weirdest Alice in Wonderland cover award. Is that Alice on the cover? no. Is it the White Rabbit? no, no. It’s a woman with a tennis racket, holding a couple of balls, about to serve one. Why? oh God knows. I imagine a bored publisher, sitting behind a large desk, when an under paid employee comes over, and says, Sir, what should we put on the cover of the ‘Alice in Wonderland’ book? without bothering to look up, the publisher grunts , ‘just use that board with the Tennis lady, it’ll do’. The rest is history.
Does anyone have an idea? Am I missing out on any tennis match in the book? Isn’t it strange?*

*I’m writing this after digging a bit into an Alice-Tennis connection. Well, as it happens there is one. How mad is that? As a hatter!
After watching a tennis tournament, Charles L. Dodgson, aka Lewis Carroll, published a piece in 1883, suggesting rules for tennis tournament. Here’s a great blog post about it.

Charles Pears created all the colored illustrations, while Thomas Heath Robinson, created the black and white ones. Why this match of illustrators? were they aware of it? I haven’t a clue. Again, a publication with two different Alice’s. I am aware of other Alice editions with their works placed together. As usual, some chaos exists in the stories behind the publications.

Charles Pears (1873-1958) was a British artist, mostly recognized for his marine-related works of art. Read more about him here.
Thomas Heath Robinson (1869–1954), came from a family of artists, and illustrated many books and magazines. Read about him here.

Let’s dive into the book. Images are placed in order of appearance in the book.

Contender for the weirdest ‘Alice in Wonderland’ book cover award

Charles Pears made all the colored illustrations – This one of Alice about to wake up.

Alice and the Caterpillar, title page with publishers details – London & Glasgow, Collins’ Clear-Type Press

All the Black and white illustrations are by T. H. Robinson. This is Alice and her sister

Alice going after the White Rabbit

Alice falling down the rabbit’s hole

Drink me

The mouse’s tale

Alice and the Rabbit

Alice swimming with the mouse

Alice handing candy to the animals

Alice by the White Rabbit’s door

White Rabbit and Bill

Alice and the Puppy

Alice and the Caterpillar

You are Old Father William – 1

You are Old Father William – 2

Alice and the Pigeon

Alice and the Footman

Pig and pepper

Alice and the pig baby

A Mad Tea Party – Charles Pears

A Mad Tea Party – TH Robinson

The Mad Hatter

Alice on the Croquet ground with the Queen and King

The gardeners painting the roses

The Knave of Hearts

Alice and the flamingo

The Queen and entourage

Alice and the Duchess

Alice and the Gryphon

The Mock Turtle’s story

The trial

The Knave stole the tarts

The Mad Hatter in the trial

~ the End ~

Gordon Robinson – Vibrant Alice

CollectingAlice.com — Mon, 03 Oct 2022 12:30:14 +0000

I love Gordon Robinson’s illustrations of Alice in wonderland. This post is dedicated to the Linenette booklet, published circa 1930’s by Sam’l Gabriel sons and co. Lewis Carroll isnt even credited in this one, which is outrageous. The text is like Alice after biting one end of the mushroom, which means its shrunk to an inch sized, two and a half worth of pages, which is also outrageous. Let’s all take a moment to be totally enraged by all this, and then proceed to the illustrations.
While G. Robinson isn’t properly credited, his signature can be found here and there throughout the book, and mainly on the cover, in a beautiful art nouveau style. Check it out:

Alas, I’m not finding anything about Gordon Robinson. This is not his main Alice in Wonderland edition though. There one’s from 1916ish. I thought I had one of his earlier Alice’s, but for the time being, we’ll settle of this little beauty.
Half of the illustrations are beautifully illustrated and colored, in a joyful, vibrant way, and than the other, are done with 2 colors, and are somewhat poor looking.

I’ll place the booklet’s illustration in order of appearance, since it’s a 8 page thing, you’d expect to have some sensible order, but no! For some reason it’s a bit messed up, you’ll see. Let’s dive into the book:

Booklet cover with Alice and the Duchess. Do you see G. Robinson’s signature there?

Alice chasing the White Rabbit. Some illustrations are full of color, and others, like this one, are in black and orange. Saving on ink much?

Alice and the Caterpillar. So what, if this chapter is way down the line, let’s all just have fun and place it on the 2nd page.

Alice and the mouse, swimming in the pool of tears

Alice and the Cheshire cat

Pig and pepper. Alice, the Duchess and baby, cook, and cat.

A Mad tea party

Alice and the pig baby

The Who-Stole-The-tarts trail

Alice and the angry Queen of Hearts. Yes, this should be placed a couple of pages back, but hey, even Lewis Carroll isn’t credited on this one, so, let’s not be too strict here.

~ the end ~

Midjourney Wonderland – AI Alice, part 1

CollectingAlice.com — Wed, 07 Sep 2022 15:35:50 +0000

I’ll dedicate this post to the exploding trend of AI-based visual engines, namely, Midjourney, and offer my first, early, humble takes on taking Alice through this AI looking glass.
What’s Midjourney? What are AI-based visual engines? Well, If you’ve been tripping balls off mushrooms in the last few months, or meditating on a rock in Dharamsala, and have just logged on, and got to this post, and it’s all very new, read on, the rest can skip ahead. Google’s Dall-e and Midjourney, as well as others, are text-to-images wonder engines. You type a textual description, and get an output in a visual. You whisper a few words to a machine, and it paints you a pretty picture. It’s like something from the Wizard of Oz, only with a real Wizard behind the curtain.

Midjourney is free and easy to use. You get 25 images for free, and than you have to pay. I ran a few experiments on the free model, and will soon try out the premium one. Below are a few of my recent experiments.

I set out to play with Alice in Wonderland related prompts. Asking the AI God to illustrate Alice in Wonderland scenes.
Naturally, it all depends on my textual input, the description I lay down, the style I ask for, the design I set in words, all that, within the engines abilities, and restrictions.
The fantastic Midjourney engine works so it gives out 4 versions of an image, you can then multiply a specific variation, or upscale one to a better rendering and resolution.
This mind boggling technology is still in development, and with every frequent, periodical release, the end result looks better and better. Dear me, here I go rambling on. Let’s just dive into the few samples that I played around with. This is part one, as I’ll revisit it at a later time. These are just my early experiments.

First were these attempts of Alice sitting with her sister, her sister reads a book, and Alice is bored.

Alice and her sister reading a book, by the river, by Rackham. The 3rd and 4th variations are brilliant. The 4th can pass as a Rackham, can’t it?

2nd attempt at same description of ‘Alice and her sister reading a book, by the river’, this time by Michelangelo. Well, while all variations are great, none looks like his work, right?

Same description, with Caravaggio this time. While it doesn’t resonate Wonderland related, it does have artistic merits. I do like them all.

I had quite a few attempts of asking midjourney for the image of Alice running after the White rabbit. It didn’t start off very well:

In the following attempt MJ mashed Alice and the Rabbit into one creature

This one started looking more like a girl running after a rabbit, especially the bottom two. So I created multiplies of those.

Both of the upper two came out pretty good. In each I found variations I liked and proceeded to upscale.

I love this one particularly. One element in MJ is how dream-like the images are. This is a great example of it. Elusive, brilliant Wonderland.

Take a breath here.

Now we continue. Down the Rabbit’s hole, through the well. This was a difficult one. Haven’t really managed to pull it off.

The description was this – Alice falling down the well, around are cupboards and book-shelves, maps and pictures, jar labeled “ORANGE MARMALADE”. It was just not something the engine could translate to a visual properly.

This was a slightly better attempt. Still not there.

This was the best one I achieved. Instead of ‘Alice falling…”
I tried ‘Alice hung in mid-air’.

Next were a few experiments with the scene of Alice going to the Hall of Doors, with the White Rabbit, seen in the distance.

I did like the 3rd one there. I upscaled it. take a look:

I went ahead and tried a few more takes on this scene.

I finally reached a few visuals I liked from this scene, and upscaled a couple:

Beautiful, isnt it?

Next I tried out Alice after drinking the ‘Drink Me’ Bottle, when she shrinks. It did not come out too well –

While it’s hardly recognizable as the scene, can you guess what artistic style I went for here? Salvador Dali. Nice, ha?

Next I tried Alice and the Dodo. Here’s where things got a bit off the rails

Yeah. No need to say anything.

The next was this one, also Alice and the Dodo

Yes. What can I say? Let’s never discuss this again.

This gets weirder though. Brace yourselves. Here’s the mouse, telling his long story, with the birds around:

Is this not what Carroll had in mind? You see how midjourney mashed up the mouse and the birds into one creature.

Oh, you thought that asking Midjourney to illustrate a talking Caterpillar smoking a hookah, would be a ride in the park? Here’s what I got:

Finally, I just asked for a Mad Tea Party. This is what I got:

This was part one. I’ll create more of those in the near future and share. Any comments and questions, please leave below.

Maria L. Kirk – Lively Alice

CollectingAlice.com — Tue, 23 Aug 2022 08:40:38 +0000

One of my All-time Favorite illustrators of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and Through the Looking Glass, is Maria Louise Kirk, or M. L. Kirk (1860-1938). There’s a bit about her here.
I bought M. L. Kirk’s Looking Glass edition a few years ago, and was always eager to complete the set with the earlier Wonderland edition,. Recently I managed to buy one. Both aren’t in great condition, some of the color in the covers is faded, as you’ll see. Still, even as they stand, they are of my most important items in my Alice book collection.
Why do I like them so? Aside Kirk being of the earliest Alice illustrators, and probably the first American to illustrate Alice in Wonderland, her illustrations are fantastic in every way. Vibrant, full of life, every scene seems to jump out of the picture, and her Alice seems to me as a happy, strong, confident girl, walking around in a child-like Wonderland.
Kirk’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was published in 1904, followed by Through the Looking Glass out in 1905.
Maria Kirk, born in Pennsylvania, studied art at the School of Design for Women, proceeded to study in Penn. Academy of the fine Arts, and in the Art Institute of Chicago. She illustrated over 50 books. She’s mostly famous for her Alice editions, and a fantastic Pinocchio edition. On a side note, a few years ago, I was a bit frustrated by the considerable costs of collecting Alice in Wonderland books, especially the early, and rare ones, that can go for quite a bit. For a little bit, I toyed with the idea of crossing over to a different book, something not that many people are collecting, and that book was Pinocchio, by Carlo Collodi. I love Pinocchio, and there are amazing antique Pinocchio’s out there. Unlike the seemingly bottomless ocean, that is collecting Alice, Pinocchio has a finite number of editions, certainly the antique ones. So, I started off with Maria Kirk’s Pinocchio. Got an ok copy of her 1st edition on eBay, just to meditate on the concept of collecting it, while reading the book itself. I guess that was the turning point back to Alice, for me. The original text is naturally in Italian, which I do not speak, I can only assume a lot is lost in any translation. While the book itself is fantastic, I didn’t find myself connecting to it as much as Carroll’s text does, and the stories of Dodgson and the Liddell’s, and Tenniel, and the rest of them. But here I go rambling on, when all I wanted was to say that I also had Kirk’s Pinocchio, and that it’s a wonderful book too.
Let’s dive into the books. I post here illustrations of both Alice’s,without Tenniel’s accompanied ones. Illustrations are placed by the same order they appear in the books.

Maria Louise Kirk, Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Front hardcover, First edition 1904.

Alice’s
Adven-
tures
in
Wonder-
land
Hardcover spine

Alice and the pig baby (illustration positioned before title page)*.
*On a side note – What’s up with placing an illustration that goes somewhere deep in the book, on the first page. It would make sense to place something from the beginning of the book, just like Gwynedd Hudson does, with Alice and Dinah, but why take an illustration of a scene from the middle of the book, and place it at the beginning?

This is a sample of the nicely printed quote, on the protective sheet over the illustrations.

Title page , printed in New York, by Frederick A. Stokes company publishers.

Alice falling down the rabbit’s hole.

Alice crying, and the Rabbit drops his fan and gloves

Alice in the Caucus race. I love Kirk’s depiction of this scene, where everyone is seemingly laughing and having fun with it.

Alice and the Caterpillar

Alice, the Duchess, the Cook, and the Cheshire cat

Alice and the Cheshire cat

A Mad tea party

Alice and the Gardeners, painting the roses

Alice and the Red Queen, with her entourage

Alice playing croquet, with a Flamingo and an Hedgehog

Alice, the Gryphon, and the Mock Turtle. This illustration is the last in Kirk’s Wonderland.

Through the Looking Glass. Hard cover. 1905

Spine of Hard cover.

Queen Alice

Title page with publisher’s details.

Alice goes through the Looking Glass, and runs down the stairs to the Garden

Alice and the Red Queen by the talking flowers

The Red Queen rushing Alice, as the White Queen’s pawn.
The Queen propped her up against a tree, and said kindly, “You may rest a little now.”

Alice dancing with Tweedledee and Tweedledum

The Tweedle twins performance

Alice and the Sheep store lady. Beautiful illustration of a nightmarish scene, when anything Alice reaches for, disappears to a different shelf.

Humpty Dumpty and Alice

Alice with the Lion and the Unicorn, and the King. Slicing the cake.

Alice helping the White Knight

Chaos at the dinner table, before waking up. Which Dreamed it?

The End

Hugh Gee – Collage Alice

CollectingAlice.com — Tue, 02 Aug 2022 10:56:35 +0000

Some Wonderlands are more inviting than others. One Wonderland I would not want to step into is Hugh Gee’s Wonderland. With its cross medium techniques, mixing real life photography, with scaled cut outs, puppets, it looks to me a bit odd.
As it happens, on many of these posts, I can’t find anything about the artist, Hugh Gee. On a side note, feel free to skip the following rant – thanks for nothing, Internet. You overrated beast. Where’s the plethora of knowledge you were supposed to carry?
I do have an un-based guess, that the Uncle Gee, described as teaching children to make puppets from odd materials, mentioned in this article about a UK children show from the 1960’s, ‘Afternoon Club’, is our Hugh Gee. Its just a guess though.

This book was first published by Max Parrish & Co. LTD, London in 1948. My copy is a 3rd edition from 1951. It does include Tenniel’s illustrations, but I’ll focus on Gee’s ones.

Let’s dive into the book

Hard cover. Alice and the Rabbit

Inside hard cover. I usually don’t like to include Tenniel’s illustrations, in posts dedicated to other artists, but this particular one is rather charming, and makes an interesting scene in a collage, that I wonder if Hugh Gee made himself.

Title Page

Publisher and printer’s details

White Rabbit going into the hole

Alice and the Rabbit, that drops his gloves and fan.
Why is she sitting all frozen, under the staircase.

Alice and the Dodo, with the Caucus race crew around.

Alice’s huge hand, outside the Rabbit’s house, freaking the poor guy out.

Alice and the Puppy

Alice and the Caterpillar. Wait, whats up with this Alice, is she hand painted over a cutout of a photo?

The Footmen

Pig and Pepper. Alice, the Duchess, the baby, the cook, and the Cheshire cat.

Alice and Cheshire Cat

A Mad Tea Party

The Queen with her entourage, Alice, and the Gardners

Alice playing Croquet

Alice, the Mock turtle, and the Gryphon

The Lobster Quadrille

The Trial

– The End –

A. E. Jackson & C. A. Federer – Illustrator’s Duet

CollectingAlice.com — Sun, 03 Jul 2022 15:27:52 +0000

Two illustrators for one ‘Alice in Wonderland’? Why, yes! ‘Alice in Wonderland’ appears to have any possible anomaly that comes to mind, it can easily accommodate 2 illustrators in the same book. Having Tenniel’s illustrations along with another illustrator is a common practice, but this edition is unique in the sense that is has two other great illustrators, A. E. Jackson, that made the colored illustrations, and C. A. Federer, that created the black and white ones. I imagine this was the publisher’s decision, rather than an artistic venture of two talents deciding to co-publish together.
While each certainly deserves their own dedicated post, I’ll have this one for the both of them, and add unique ones once I purchase any of their earlier editions, namely Jackson’s one (YH – as I’m not sure Federer has another publication of Alice).

Alfred Edward F. Jackson (1873-1952), studied at the Camden school of Art. His Alice in Wonderland came out circa 1919, it has 16 or so colored illustrations. Some of them appear in the book this post is dedicated to.

Unfortunately, I cannot find anything about C. A. Federer. I’ll deepen my research at a later time, and as usual, invite anyone that knows anything about this illustrator, to contact me, or comment at the bottom of this post.

Let’s dive into the book. All the colored illustration are by A. E. Jackson. All the black and white ones are by C. A. Federer. Illustrations are placed by order of appearance in the book.

Hard cover with Alice and the Mad Tea Party trio

Inside cover with the Croquet ground characters around

Alice and the flamingo across the title page

Alice and the Footman (this one appear at the beginning of the book)

Title page. Lewis Carroll and A. E. Jackson are credited. What about pool ol’ C. A. Federer though? Publisher’s details – Garden City publishing Co., INC. Garden city, New York.

Chapter 1, Down the Rabbit-Hole

Content page, framed nicely with the Hatter and March hare holding the book

Some chapters have this cute crest-like illustration. Is that Bill the lizard there?

The white rabbit

Orange Marmalade

The pool of tears

Another crest-like illustration – this time with a mouse

Alice and mouse swimming in the pool of tears

Alice and the White rabbit in the hall of doors

Alice and the mouse, giving a sudden leap

Duck

Dodo and other caucus race characters

Caucus race

Alice patting a small, choking bird. (YH – I have to say that I didn’t remember that part). This is when Alice hands over comfits (19th century dried fruit sugared delight), and birds almost die from them I love how Alice causes distress almost wherever she goes, in a charming way. Another thing I love, is how sometimes illustrators go for a scene no one else illustrates, like in this case.

Dodo and some dressed up chicken I don’t recall from the original story.

Bill the Lizard, getting kicked out

White rabbit collapsing on one of his cucumber frames. Wherever Alice goes, chaos and distress ensues

Bill the Lizard, getting treated by concerned citizens of Wonderland

The Caterpillar

Alice freaking out an innocent pigeon

Alice and the Caterpillar

Father William balancing a snake on his nose!

The Footmen

The Cheshire cat

The Duchess

Tea Party Trio

Alice, Hatter, March Hare and the Dormouse

Alice, The Mad Hatter, the March Hare and the Dormouse

Hatter

The Queen playing Croquet. Check out a couple of illustrations below oto see the exect same one without the background

The Gardners

The Queen and the Flamingo

The Mock Turtle and the Gryphon

The Gryphon sleeps

The Mock Turtle

The Lobster Quadrille

Fish

Knave of Hearts appearing before the court

Who stole the tarts

Alice disrupting the trial

Court member

Alice facing the Queen at trial

The jury

Card Soldier

~ The End

Charles E. Graham & Co.- An ode to an uncredited artist III

CollectingAlice.com — Sat, 18 Jun 2022 10:46:35 +0000

This post is dedicated a ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass’ edition, published by Graham E. Charles & Co., New York, publishing house.

It’s a beautiful book, with a few wonderful colored illustrations, that due to their Victorian era style, I would guesstimate, date circa 1890’s. Sadly these charming illustrations, made by a very talented artist, are not credited. Aside the 5 colored illustrations, Tenniel’s illustrations are featured throughout the book. It’s printed on rather low-quality paper. My particular copy is in ok to good condition, with the paste-down colored illustration on the cover, missing the corner.

On a side note – To any of my readers, I love it when anyone gives me any feedback. It makes me happy to see other collectors, and Carroll’s enthusiasts commenting on my posts. So, please say hi, at the bottom of any post.

If anyone knows anything about this uncredited artist, please comment / write me about it. I have googled other of Graham’s publications, and there are plenty out there. I haven’t been able to find anything about that publisher, nor artists from the era, that this book was published in (im guessing it’s the turn of the 20th century).

Let’s dive into the book. I’ll place just the colored illustrations, as there’s already a post dedicated to Sir John Tenniel.

I love this cover! With Alice sleeping, dreaming of Wonderland, the White Rabbit, Card soldiers, King, and Mad Hatter, all around her.

Title page

The introduction no one wanted, or asked for.

Alice and the Caterpillar

Poor Bill the Lizard, recovering, after getting kicked out of the chimney. Note Alice, in the back, fleeing the scene.

Alice and the White Knight

Alice and the Chess people

The End

Political Parodies of Alice

CollectingAlice.com — Wed, 08 Jun 2022 16:16:56 +0000

My ‘Alice in Wonderland’ book collection, mainly consists of different editions of Carroll’s books. Another part of my collection, that I love dearly, is the parodies of Alice in Wonderland.
As with Alice in Wonderland films, the parodies started off early. The earliest were published at the turn of the 20th century. Since then, there are news Alice parodies published every few years or so. I’ll go over the few I have in my personal collection. This post will be dedicated solely to the political parodies, and I’ll dedicate another post for other types of Alice parodies. If you own, know of other political Alice parodies, please mention them in the comments section below. To review more works based on Alice in Wonderland, head to page. Let’s go over them:

The Westminster Alice – “Saki” H. H. Munro, illustrated by F. Carruthers Gould, 1902. (My copy is a later 1927 printed edition)
The Westminster Alice criticizes the Boer war, by using the Alice storyline and Tenniel’s illustrations. Every illustration in this book carries a formal apology to Tenniel, and everyone concerned.

Clara in Blunderland – Caroline Lewis (pseudonym of Edward Harold Begbie, J. Stafford Ransome, and Michael Henry Temple), illustrated by S. R. (J. Stafford Ransome), 1902.
This book also criticizes the Boer War, with the British PM, Balfour, as Alice. A year later, the same team, published a sequel ‘Lost in Blunderland’.
*On a side note, isn’t it amazing that in 1902, two separate Alice parodies came out, criticizing the same subject?!

Malice in Kulturland – Horace Wyatt
Illustrated by W. Tell. 1914
‘Malice in Kulturland’, WW1 anti-German pro-British parody, that utilizes Lewis Carroll books, and Tenniel’s illustrations.
The whole thing, text and illustrations are online here.

Frankie in Wonderland – “A Tory”, 1934
An anti- Franklin D. Roosevelt, anti-new deal, uncredited, republican party propaganda piece, with a short storyline very loosely based on Alice, with a printed apology to Lewis Carroll.

Adolf in Blunderland – James Dyrenforth & Max Kester
Illustrated by Norman Mansbridge. 1939
An Anti-Hitler & Nazi Germany political parody from the beginning of WW2. With illustrations and storyline that follows Carroll’s story in general.

Ada Bowley – Nursery Alice

CollectingAlice.com — Sat, 14 May 2022 11:14:44 +0000

Ada Leonora Bowley (1867 – 1954), Alice in Wonderland, no date on book, presumed 1930’s. Ada Bowley, was known mostly for her work (postcards & book illustrations) for the Raphael Tuck publishing house. Ada and her sister Sophia May Bowley, studied art at the Blackheath School of Art, and they lived and worked together, throughout their lifetime.
Ada made the wonderful (uncredited) illustrations for the Alice in wonderland ‘Come to life’ Panorama, in the 1920’s published by Tuck, (YH – I might have that one, I’ll take a good look in my Alice in Wonderland book collection later, and see what Bowley-Tuck Alice’s I’m able to find).

Her Alice and her Wonderland universe, is very much a nursery stage one. Alice, and anyone around her, seem to be around the age of 5.
This edition has only 4 illustrations by Ada Bowley, all are colored, with John Tenniel’s black and white illustrations added to the mix.
This method, of placing a few new illustrations, along with Tenniel’s illustration is rather common. Naturally, I’ll present only Bowley’s illustrations in this post.

Let’s dive into the book – it’ll be a short ride.

Dust jacket with Alice chasing the White Rabbit. This same image appears 3 times. Here, on the cover and in the book.

Hard cover with Alice chasing the Rabbit

Alice with Flamingo, the Queen of Hearts, the Executioner, the King,
the Cheshire cat, and an hedgehog running away.
This illustration appears as a front piece, across the title page.
Bowley’s Wonderland looks like a sweet and safe one. The Queen doesn’t seem to be too insane, and the executioner here is a child.

Title page, published by David McKay company, Philadelphia.

Yes, this is the third time im placing this very same illustration. What can I do? it does appear 3 times! So, here it is again, Alice chasing the White Rabbit to Wonderland.

Alice approaching the Mad Tea Party. The Hatter is a lovable, innocent child, not your mentally deranged, seemingly alcoholic, Hatter, as depicted by other illustrators of Alice, for example, this Hatter by Harry Rountree.

Alice with the Gryphon and the weeping Mock Turtle.

G. W. Backhouse – Comic strip Alice

CollectingAlice.com — Thu, 21 Apr 2022 09:11:58 +0000

Geoffrey William Backhouse (1903-1978), was born in Wales, and studied in Heatherleys school of fine art, and worked for Modern art studios. He was known for illustrating ‘Strongheart, the Magnificent’, an adventure comic strip, telling the story of a brave German Shepherd. His ‘Alice in Wonderland’ edition was published in the early 1950’s, presumed 1951, but I can’t seem to find the actual 1st edition printing year. My G. W. Backhouse ‘Alice in Wonderland’ edition is a 7th impression, from 1958.
Backhouse’s style is reminiscent of a comic strip style. The book has an enormous amount of illustrations, and pretty much every page includes an illustration. Alice would’ve been pleased. Most of the illustrations are black and white, and there are 4 colored ones.
I know that on a number of Alice book editions posts here, I said this edition is profusely illustrated, and its very true in this case too. G. W. Backhouse gave us 80+ illustrations of Alice in Wonderland.
Let’s dive into the book.

Dust jacket with Alice and the Royals, on the way to the Croquet game

Front hard cover

Alice watching the White rabbit, across the title page. The next image is depicting the very same scene, only slightly different. How amazing is that?!

A Colored illustration of the scene where Alice notices the White Rabbit, as he’s pulling out a pocket watch from his waist coat. Compare this one with the previous black and white illustration, which is the same one, only from a slightly different view.

Title page. Alice in Wonderland, G.W. Backhouse, Published by Collins, London and Glasgow.

Chapters page, with the gardners and soldiers

Colored illustrations list, with key Wonderland characters around

All in a Golden Afternoon, poem, with Dodgson, at the top, by the three Liddell sisters, and Wonderland characters around

Poem continues

The White Rabbit

Alice falling down the Rabbits hole

Alice and Koalas

Alice and the Rabbit

Drink me

Alice shrinking

Alice swimming in her pool of tears

Alice growing

Alice after the White Rabbit

How Doth the Little Crocodile

Alice and mouse, swimming in her pool of tears

Alice and mouse

Alice and animals

A caucus race

Mouse’s tale

Alice, the Dodo, and the rest of the caucus race animals

Alice and Dodo

Alice insults the mouse

Alice makes everyone uncomfortable with her ‘Dinah’ remarks

Alice left all alone

Alice and Rabbit

Alice at the White Rabbit’s house

White Rabbit going up the stairs

Alice terrorizing the neighborhood

Bill the lizard, getting kicked out of the chimney

Alice eating cakes

Alice and the puppy

Alice and the Caterpillar

Father William standing on his head

Father William balancing a snake on his nose

Alice and Caterpillar

Alice shrinking after eating from one side of the mushroom

Alice being a serpent to the pigeon

Alice watching the Duchess house

The Footmen

Alice and the Footman

Duchess holding the baby, with the cook and the cat

Pig and pepper lunacy

Alice and the pig baby

Pig baby running away

Colored illustration of the cook tossing pans at the duchess, that’s holding the crying baby, with a very concerned Alice, and a totally carefree Cheshire cat

Alice and the Cheshire Cat

The March Hare’s House

A Mad Tea Party

Alice interrupting the tea party, with the March Hare, Dormouse, and Mad Hatter

Some Tea Party Madness

The Hatter tormenting the Dormouse

Hatter and Dormouse

Three sisters down a treacle well

Again, the Dormouse gets bullied

Painting the Roses

The Gardners and Alice

Colored illustration of Alice crashing the Tea Party

Soldiers marching

The Queen having words with Alice

The White Rabbit chatting with Alice

Alice and the Flamingo

Cheshire cat conversing with the King and Alice

Off with his head!

Executioner and Gardner

The Mock Turtle’s story

The Duchess, uncomfortably close to Alice

Queen orders the Duchess

The Gryphon takes Alice to the Turtle

Turtle tells his story, sobbing

“Reeling and writhing, of course”

The Lobster Quadrille

Fish and snail

The dance

Alice tells her story

Owl and Panther, sharing a pie

Alice and Gryphon running

Who Stole the Tarts

The jury

The Trial

Hatter giving a testimony

Alice making an appearance at the trial

White Rabbit and the Royals

Knave of Hearts and the Royals

Knave of Hearts and the Queen

Bill the Lizard

Nothing, but a pack of cards

Alice wakes up

The End

Top 10 Alice in Wonderland Movies – Ranked Bad to Worst

CollectingAlice.com — Thu, 17 Mar 2022 12:56:15 +0000

Since the invention of film, there were adaptations of ‘Alice in Wonderland’, from 1903, and every few consecutive years since. There are over 50 film and TV Alice-related productions. This might be an unpopular opinion, and it’s subjective as can be, but none of them are good. They range from almost watchable, to the absolutely shameful (I’m looking at you, Tim Burton). From the bizarre, to the exhausting. It seems like no one ever managed to translate the wonder in the Alice books to film. Needless to say, I haven’t watched ALL possible movies and TV productions of Alice in Wonderland, and again, I’ll stress out that this is only my personal view. Here we go, from the least terrible, the almost watchable, to the abomination:

#1
One of the better versions of Alice in wonderland on film, is the very first one made, in Britain, in 1903, by Cecil Hepworth and Percy Stow, starring May Clark as Alice.
I like how the different scenes are made out to be as close as possible to John Tenniel’s Alice.
It’s sole copy is in the British Film Institute. There’s a restored copy, available on youtube. While it’s a silent film, and only about 10 minutes long, it’s still far better, and more respectful to Carroll’s creation than Tim Burton’s Alice.

#2
One can argue that for most people, Disney created the defining look of Alice in Wonderland. The young Walt Disney, while working for the Laugh-O-Gram studio, created Alice’s Wonderland, which is loosely based on the Alice character.
He did plan to make Alice in Wonderland as the first Disney film, but that was discarded in favor of Snow White and the seven dwarfs. The plans for the making of this film changed rapidly, with one interesting stage where Aldous Huxley, was commissioned to rewrite the story. I would love to read Huxley’s version, but seemingly it has been lost in a fire. Ultimately the film came out in 1951 and received mediocre to negative reviews.

From the New York Times review:
…”Mr. Disney has plunged into those works (i.e. Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass), which have rapturously charmed the imaginations of generations of kids, has snatched favorite characters from them, whipped them up as colorful cartoons, thrown them together willy-nilly with small regard for sequence of episodes, expanded and worked up new business, scattered a batch of songs throughout and brought it all forth in Technicolor as a whopping-big Disney cartoon.”

I agree with this review. While Disney mixes up Wonderland with Looking Glass, that can be forgiven, taking into account that the earliest theater productions of Alice in Wonderland, did the same thing, with Carroll agreeing to it.
The film did make some characters iconic, Alice, the Cheshire cat, Tweedledee and Tweedledum, and the Caterpillar. Yes, its boring, and doesn’t manage to bring the magic of the book to life, but it does have charm, and is impactful in the defining imagery of Wonderland, and in any case much better than Burton’s Alice. F^%$ you Burton!

#3
Talk about unwatchable Alice in Wonderland films…I give you, Jan Svankmajer’s, Alice (1988), originally titled in Czech, Něco z Alenky.
It’s a cross between The Shinning and Chucky, minus the enjoyable parts, delivered in stop-motion avant-garde we’re-not-here-to-have-fun way. If you consider it solely for its artistic value, it’s very interesting (is it though?).
Svankmajer’s Alice, wasn’t his first attempt at killing Wonderland-related fun, he successfully did so with an earlier work, titled “Jabberwocky“, (apart from the name, I’m yet to find any connection to Carroll’s Jabberwock).
At least its not an 85 minute long torture, as Alice is, ‘Jabberwocky’ is only a couple of minutes long, mainly of bizarre dolls prancing around (that’s Svankmajer’s work in a nutshell).
Do you know the type of people that say, oh you’re going to Rome/Paris/London? you must visit blah blah. Because they’ve been there, forever ago, for 3 days, and randomly had a pizza somewhere, and now it’s marked as a divine-must-go landmark. Well, the same goes with my experience with this horror flick. Over a decade ago, an acquaintance of mine heard of my Alice in Wonderland book collection, and she was like, “have you watched Jan Svankmajer’s Alice? Oh, it’s a must!”. It’s not. What do I hold in its favor? The fact that it has absolute artistic integrity. Unwatchable and exhausting as it is, it’s still far better than Burton’s Alice.

#4
The most watchable ‘Alice in Wonderland’ adaptation, in my opinion, is channel 4’s 1998, “Through the Looking glass”, starring Kate Beckinsale as Alice. I’m not positioning it at #1 since they haven’t made ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and jumped right ahead to the sequel. which is an interesting choice. As this one makes a real effort at sticking to the text and is rather entertaining, it deserves to be high up. Since most Alice in Wonderland adaptations were a the mishmash of both books, I think it’s alright to allow this confusion to exist in this post.
Watch this clip of Desmond Barrit, as Humpty Dumpty, giving an Academy Award winning reading of “The Jabberwocky“. The entire movie is available right here

#5
Coming up at number 5, is the 1933 film production, starring Charlotte Henry as Alice, with Gary Cooper as the White Knight, and the unrecognizable Cary Grant, as the Mock turtle.

The Internet Archive has a pretty good copy, available to watch online, or download, check it out here.
I admit that part of what I like about this production, has to do with the few ‘Alice in Wonderland’ book editions, that followed its release, with images from the film. I’ll write about those at a later post.

This adaptation, mashes up the stories of ‘Wonderland’ and ‘Looking Glass’, as many other do. The movie begins with a bored Alice with her nanny, although she looks like she’s in her early 20s. She’s crossing over to Wonderland, through a looking glass. Visually, the design of the characters and the scenes, resemble Tenniel’s illustrations, which add a lot to its charm. Some of the special effects in this movie, work surprisingly well, the talking clock, the tiny chess figures. Other, like Alice changing sizes, or the theatrical costumes, don’t work too well, at least from a 2022 perspective, and yet, they are all better than Tim Burton’s soulless CGI tricks.

#6
The 1931 ‘Alice in Wonderland’, directed by Bud Pollard, starring Ruth Gilbert as Alice, did not receive much commercial or critical success, but has an historical importance as the first Alice talkie (moving images with synchronized sound).
Watching it today is a challenging task, although it does have some charm in how bad it is. Ruth Gilbert looks rather modern, like a cheerful, lost millennial. Most of the movie is her walking around the cheap, theatrical production. You can watch the entire film here.

#10
Wait, what happened to 7-9?! Well, this post was ultimately a vehicle for me, to voice out how much I dislike Tim Burton’s adaptation of ‘Alice in Wonderland’. So I’m skipping ahead right to it, and maybe ill go back and add a couple of additional, blearily watchable Alice’s. Why do I hate this particular adaptation this much? it’s mainly due to having a great deal of expectations from Burton. His earlier work suggested he was the perfect director for it.
What’s wrong with his Alice? let’s get started. First of all the story, it’s not Carroll’s Alice, rather it’s a sad mishmash of Wonderland’s characters superficially presented in a weak storyline, poorly constructed, without depth, which ultimately makes for a boring movie.

It’s not even Wonderland, he called it ‘Underland’ (what the hell is Underland, Burton?).
The actors, under Burton’s direction, give a flat, caricature-like performance. Mia Wasikowska plays Alice, with zero charisma. Johnny Depp gives an over the top mad hatter, that fails to generate sympathy. Helena Bonham Carter is the always screaming Red Queen. All blended in a cgi-infused charmless Wonderland.

Burton’s adaptation doesn’t harness anything that makes the Alice books wonderful, to the point of literary abuse, while not managing to produce a decent substitute, even as a non-Alice related entertainment piece of work.
Could have this monstrosity be foreseen? Yes, Burton made his unnecessary version of ‘Planet of the apes’, he ruined ‘Dumbo’ for everyone. I don’t think anyone likes his ‘Charlie and the chocolate factory’.

The film did very well at the box office, making over $1 billion. To conclude this on a positive note, I will add, that Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, as bad as it is, is somehow better than the sequel, released a couple of years after this one, which finally closed the bin on this Burton-disney shitstorm. Burton, you should give us our money back, spend your remaining days in a remote monastery, repent, live on stale water and grains, and meditate on what you’ve done!

Walter Hawes – Subtle Alice

CollectingAlice.com — Sun, 13 Mar 2022 10:09:44 +0000

Walter Hawes, of which I cannot find anything online, had his edition of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, published at 1908, making him one of the earliest Alice illustrators. I find his style of illustrations subtle, with a touch of whimsy. While Hawes’s method of illustrations resonates Tenniel’s, his has a lighter feel to them.
I’m no expert, so this is my personal take of these. I’d love to know anything about Walter Hawes, if anyone knows anything, please leave a comment below.
I do have the 1908, 1st edition, but the cover is quite worn out as you can see. Since it’s a rather rare book, and one that I don’t come across often, I bought it despite its condition. I know usually people want to go by quality rather than quantity, but let me make the case for the latter. While I wouldn’t buy a book in poor condition, I would go for one that’s in ok/good condition. If I would only spend my money on good+ condition books, my collection would shrink down to a third of its size. Another argument, is that these books, like the one here, are over 100 years old, and have been read over and over again. It’s difficult to find these old, rare books in any condition, there’s always the option of buying a better copy, and selling the other one. Well, enough about that, Let’s dive into the Walter Hawes Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

Front hard cover, with a gilded, faded, image of Alice and the White Rabbit.

The trial, this illustration is positioned by the title page

Title page, published by The Walter Scott publishing co., ltd

All in a golden afternoon poem, with a lovely illustration of Dodgson and the Liddell sisters, surrounded by Wonderland characters

Alice watching the White rabbit go by

Alice falling down the rabbits hole

Entering Wonderland

Drink me

Alice crying

How doth the little crocodile

Alice using the rabbit’s fan to change size

Alice and the animals swimming in her pool of tears

The caucus race

Old Magpie

The White rabbit falling into a cucumber frame

Alice filling out the White Rabbit’s house

Alice fleeing the White rabbit’s house, after causing much distress to everyone

Alice and the Caterpillar

Father William

Alice and the pigeon

Alice and the footman

Alice, Duchess, baby, cook, and the Cheshire cat

Alice and the pig baby

The house of the March Hare

A Mad Tea Party

March Hare and Dormouse

The Hatter tormenting the poor Dormouse

Three sisters down the treacle well

Alice going through the door in the tree

The Queen with the frightened gardners

Alice hiding the gardners in a flower pot

The White Rabbit walking by Alice. This is the gilded image that’s on the hard cover

The King offers the Cheshire cat to kiss his hand

the Queen, Alice and the Duchess

The Gryphon takes Alice to the Mock Turtle

The Lobster Quadrille

The Whiting

Gryphon, Alice and the Mock Turtle

Turtle reciting his poem

The March Hare and Dormouse, at the Trial

The Hatter gives his testimony

The cook’s evidence

Chaos at the trial

Alice wakes up from her dream

Lewis Carroll – The Greatest Gift Ever Given

CollectingAlice.com — Mon, 07 Mar 2022 09:48:41 +0000

Throughout time, what’s the world’s greatest gift ever given? Is it the Taj Mahal? perhaps the Statute of Liberty? maybe some Fabergé egg presented to a countess? or a gigantic diamond to a Queen? No! None of those hold a candle to the greatest gift ever given, C. L. Dogson’s handwritten, hand illustrated, manuscript of ‘Alice’s adventures underground’.
That personal gift evolved within a few years to become ‘Alice’s adventures in Wonderland’. If not for a few twists and turns, this creation could have remained personal, and obscure. It was given solely to Alice, and was never intended to be one of the most important literary creations.
There’s a 10 year old that deserves a lot of credit in the making of this masterpiece, that’s Alice Liddell of course. Her part was crucial not only as the main muse, but also, if it weren’t for her constant nagging, he (Carroll / Dodgson) would have never have written it down. She was the one asking him to write it down. She could’ve easily forgotten all about that golden afternoon (on July 4th 1862), when Dodgson invented her story, verbally, right then and there. She could have let it go. But no, she repeatedly asked him to write it down for her. How amazing is that? if it weren’t for that kid, we would have never have Alice in Wonderland.
What did that do to her? what was it like growing up in the shadow of this alter ego super star? Why was Dodgson spending considerable time and energy on little girls? oh god, lets leave that for some uncomfortable post at a later time, and just rejoice at that golden afternoon, at those brilliant minds, of the clever imaginative mathematician, and his child muse, and the world’s greatest gift ever given, Alice in Wonderland, in her initial, pre-published form. for Christmas, on Nov 26th 1864, presented as “A Christmas Gift to a Dear Child in Memory of a Summer’s Day”.
The original manuscript was in Alice Liddell’s hands till 1928, when it was sold in auction for 15,000 GBP (about 1,000,000 GBP today). It traded hands a few times till it landed at the British Museum.
In my opinion, as an original work of art, it’s priceless, and should be valued as Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, only it’s way better, and far more impactful than that dreary old painting.
As the story goes, loosely placed here, the original manuscript was noticed by Alice Liddell’s parents friends (God bless those guys), and they turned to Dodgson, and said, hey, dude, you gotta do something with this thing. He asked for it back, re-wrote it, added a few chapters, and made it into Alice in Wonderland. The rest is history.
This post is about that manuscript. Dodgson was brilliant in many ways, and even as an amateur illustrator, he did a pretty good job, and definitely gave his heart, and tried his best. All of the following illustrations were drawn by him, and some are rather elaborate.
Many of those became a later inspiration for the professional illustrators to follow, from Tenniel, onward.
Let’s dive into the book

Front cover

Title page

Front cover of the hand-painted cover of Alice’s adventures under ground

Hand drawn inscription – “A Christmas gift to a dear child, in memory of a summer day”

Alice and her sister

Alice holding a key. This particular illustration is very well made imo.

Alice and the mouse

Curiouser and curiouser

Alice and the White Rabbit

Alice swimming in the pool of tears

Alice and the mouse in her pool of tears

Alice and the animals swimming

Alice and a bird. Is that supposed to be a dodo?

The mouse’s tale

Alice frightening the animals

White rabbit and Alice

Alice drinking

Alice growing

Alice in the white rabbit’s house

Alice’s giant hand outside the white rabbits house

Bill the lizard, getting kicked out of the chimney

Bill getting treated

Alice and the puppy

Alice and the Caterpillar

Father William standing on his hand

Father William doing a back somersault

Father William devouring a chicken, bones, beak and all

Father William balancing a snake on his nose

Alice shrinking

Alice’s neck stretching

Alice and the Pigeon

Alice

Painting the roses

The Knave carrying the crown

Alice and the Flamingo

The Gryphon

The Mock turtle

The Lobster Quadrille

Alice, the Gryphon, and the Mock turtle

The Trial

Alice and the Queen of Hearts

Drawing of Alice Liddell

Alice Liddell photo

John Tenniel – The Godfather

CollectingAlice.com — Sun, 27 Feb 2022 11:44:34 +0000

It’s high time I write about THE most important illustrator of Alice in Wonderland, Sir John Tenniel. The first illustrator of Alice (although one could argue that Dodgson is the first one), the one chosen by Carroll himself to bring his creation to life. In many ways, Tenniel, made the template for the hundreds of illustrators of Alice that came to follow, and were inspired by his design.

Why haven’t I written about him yet, and why do so now? First of all, I don’t have an early edition of Alice in Wonderland. Famously, the extremely coveted and super rare 1865 true first edition, out in 2,000 copies, was withdrawn by Carroll, to Tenniel’s request, as he wasn’t pleased with the quality of the print. At his own expense, Dodgson aka Carroll, had them reprinted, and of this particular edition, only a handful remain (22 copies known to exist).
When I go through antique book shops, I always look for a forgotten copy, a lost treasure, maybe an inscribed one, somehow lingering in the back of a dusty shelf, in fine condition, sold for $3. I keep on dreaming. As it goes with Alice in Wonderland book collecting, there isn’t a straight clear line with the history of its printed editions, and there any many twists and turns along the way. Thus, the next first edition appears on 1866. Those can be found, even online, but the rates are around $13,000, and I guess, all the rest of my 300+ Alice editions aren’t worth as much as that. Would I trade all my Alice books, to a 1866 one? Probably not, would I do it for an 1865 one? yes! That’s the Holy Grail of collecting the Alice books.

The edition I’ll post about here, is a 1984 facsimile edition of Alice in Wonderland, published by Macmillan ,which is the closest thing I’ll have for a while.
Back to the book, and to Sir John Tenniel (1820-1914), English illustrator, known for his work for Punch magazine, and mostly famous for his ‘Alice’s adventures in Wonderland’, and ‘Through the Looking-glass’ illustrations.

He worked closely with Dodgson, and the two had a written correspondence. Part of why I haven’t gotten to writing about Tenniel yet, is that I wanted to read Morton Cohen’s ‘Lewis Carroll & His Illustrators: Collaborations and Correspondence, 1865-1898’. I can tell you that in the past year, I have traveled to 3 countries, with this book in my suitcase, meaning to read it, and haven’t done so yet. Shame on me. It’s on my to-do, and once I get to it, I’ll come back and edit this post.
Tenniel’s illustrations were engraved onto wood, and those wooden blocks were the masters for the electrotype copies that were used for the actual printing. I have very little idea what the last sentence says, but it seemed like important information. Read more about Tenniel here.
The Godfather of Alice. He deserves a deeper understanding of his work, part of why I tread lightly around this edition. In time, I’ll go back and edit it.
For now, let’s dive into the book

Front cover,with a gilded image of Alice carrying the pig baby

The trial, placed before the title page

Title page, published in London, by Macmillan & co. 1866 (I wish – reminder, this is the 1984 facsimile edition)

The White rabbit

Alice in the hall of doors

Alice looking at the White rabbit going into Wonderland

Alice swimming in her pool of tears

Alice and the dodo

Alice in the White Rabbit’s house

Alice’s giant hand, and the white rabbit

Alice and the puppy

Alice and the Caterpillar

Father William standing on his head

Father William’s back-somersault

Father William dissolving the Goose, beak, bones and all

Father William balancing a snake on his nose

The Footmen

Alice, the Duchess, the baby, the cook, and the Cheshire cat.
It is thought that Tenniel was heavily influenced by the painting named ‘The Ugly Duchess‘ also known as ‘A Grotesque Old Woman’ by Flemish artist Quentin Matsys, dating to 1513. More information about this painting here.

Alice and the pig baby

Alice and the Cheshire cat

The Cheshire cat disappearing

A Mad Tea Party

The Hatter

The Hatter, the Dormouse, and the March hare

Painting the Roses

The Croquet ground

Alice and the Flamingo

The Cheshire cat, trolling the Queen and King

The Gryphon sleeping

Alice, the Gryphon, and the Mock turtle

The Lobster Quadrille

Lobster

The White rabbit at the trial

The Hatter giving a testimony at the trial

The Hatter

Alice at the trial

Who stole the Tarts?

Nothing but a pack of cards

Back cover with the Cheshire cat printed in gild

J. R. Sinclair – Edwardian Alice

CollectingAlice.com — Sun, 20 Feb 2022 13:28:43 +0000

J. R. Sinclair’s Alice in Wonderland (Circa 1900’s), is one of the earliest illustrated publications of the book. Unfortunately, I can’t find anything about this illustrator. The style is early 1900’s, I know very little about illustration methods, I think some of the illustrations in this book were originally made as etchings.
I have the first edition of this rare book, in an ok condition, the pages are rather yellowed. I find the illustrations themselves rather charming. Let’s dive into the book, I’ll place the illustrations in order of appearence.

Front cover with 3 scenes from the book, Alice and the gardners, Alice listening to the mouse’s tale, and Alice going after the White rabbit. How wonderful is this cover?

Title page – Published by The National Sunday School Union, London, The Red Nursery Series.

Alice following the White Rabbit. Part of this illustration appears in color on the cover.

Alice falling down the rabbit’s hole

Alice listening to the mouses’s tale, with the caucus race animals around. Part of this illustration appears in color on the cover.

The Caucus race

The mouse’s tale

The startled White rabbit

Bill the lizard getting kicked out of the chimney

Alice and the puppy

Alice and the Caterpillar

Father William standing on his head

Father William demonstrating a back-somersault in at the door

Alice and the Pigeon

Alice and the Footman

Alice, the Duchess, the baby, the cook, and the Cheshire cat.

The pig baby

The Cheshire cat

A Mad Tea Party

The Dormouse

Alice and the Gardners, painting the roses

The Knave of Hearts, carrying the King’s crown on a crimson velvet cushion. Part of what I love about collecting the Alice in Wonderland books by illustrators, is finding illustrations like this one, which isn’t very common. Most illustrators of Alice, go for the same scenes (caterpillar, mad tea party, Cheshire cat, etc). I find illustrations like this one, that one illustrator picks out, and many others don’t, quite charming

Alice and the Flamingo, playing croquet

The Hedgehogs fighting

Alice, the Gryphon, and the Mock turtle sobbing

Alice enjoying the Gryphon and the Mock turtle’s dance

The Trial

The Mad Hatter, and the March Hare at the trial. The same illustration appears, in color at the back cover.

Back cover, with a colored illustration of the mad Hatter, with the March Hare.

George Soper – Spirited Alice

CollectingAlice.com — Thu, 17 Feb 2022 09:33:00 +0000

George Soper (1870-1942) was an English artist, with no formal academic background in art, but with great talent. His work was mainly focused on depicting rural life in England. Of his famous works, in his Alice in Wonderland, the Water babies, and Arabian nights, as well as other works. You can read more about himand his work, over here.
Soper’s Alice’s adventures in Wonderland was first published in 1911, his illustrations of Alice and Wonderland have a dynamic sense to them, and a lot of movement. I only have the later edition, out circa 1930’s. Let’s go over the illustrations in the book.

Front hard cover, with Alice and the caterpillar

Backside of the hardcover on both ends of the book, is this illustration of Alice and all the Wonderland creatures

Before the title page we have the illustration of Alice and the caucus race crew, listening to the mouses’s tale

Title page – Published by George Allen & Unwin ltd.

All in the Golden afternoon poem, illustrated with Dodgeson and the three sisters in the boat

The White rabbit appears. Like in this one, there movement and a feeling of capturing a living moment in many of Soper’s Alice illustrations

Alice running after the White Rabbit

White rabbit disappears in his hole

Curiouser and curiouser

Alice crying

“The rabbit started violently”

Alice and the mouse swimming in her pool of tears

The Caucus race

A mouses tale

Alice going into the White Rabbit’s house

Alice leaning against a buttercup

Alice freaking out the white rabbit

Advice from a caterpillar

Alice and the Caterpillar. The same illustration appears on the front cover

Father William 1/2

Father William 2/2

Alice and the Cheshire cat

Pig and Pepper – Alice, the Duchess, the baby, the cook, and the Cheshire cat

Alice under the mushroom

Alice and the pig baby

Alice and the Pigeon

A Mad Tea Party

Painting the roses

Alice and the flamingo

card soldier and hedge-hog

Cheshire cat at the croquet ground, trolling the Queen

Alice, Duchess, and Flamingo

Alice and Gryphon

The lobster quadrille

Gryphon, Alice, and Mock turtle

Fish and snail

Lobster

Owl and panther

The Mock turtle sobbing

White Rabbit at the trial

The trial

You’re nothing but a pack of cards

John Morton Sale – Elegant Alice

CollectingAlice.com — Tue, 15 Feb 2022 13:21:42 +0000

John Morton-Sale (1901-1990), was a British artist, I cannot find a lot about him online, the most detailed account of his and his wife’s biography, can be read here.
His Alice’s adventures in Wonderland, and Through the looking Glass, was published at 1933. I have the first edition, Not in a perfect condition, and it only has 9 illustrations altogether. Still it has a lot of charm. Although the time period of this book publication date, places it in the art-deco era, Morton-Sale’s style in this book appears to me as a loose art-nouveau style, with long flowing lines.
Let’s dive into the book. Illustrations, and pages are placed by order of appearance in the book

Front cover, with Alice leaning against a buttercup

Alice, after shedding her pool of tears, startling the White Rabbit, that’s dropping his fan and gloves

Title page

Alice and the mouse, swimming in her pool of tears

Alice leans against a buttercup (between the puppy and the caterpillar scenes).

Alice, Hatter, March hare, and Dormouse

Alice and the flamingo at the Croquet ground, along with the Cheshire cat, and the King and Queen

Alice, the Mock turtle, and the Gryphon

Through the Looking Glass, Alice’s giant hand, with the King and Queen

Alice and the depressed White Queen

Alice and the White Knight

Bessie Pease Gutmann – Toddler Alice

CollectingAlice.com — Sun, 13 Feb 2022 13:12:43 +0000

Bessie Pease Gutmann (1876-1960), an American illustrator, famous for her illustrations of toddlers. Her Alice in Wonderland was first published in 1907 (followed by her ‘Through the Looking glass’ out in 1909).
Read more about her here

sadly, I don’t have her ‘Looking Glass’ edition. I do have the ‘Wonderland’ 1907, one. However, a wretched child, “painted” in many of the black and white illustration, with absolutely no talent at all. I do have one big clue to who that child was, as there’s a gift inscription to Lois, from her aunt and uncle. However, when Michael Corleone, asks Hyman Roth, who gave the order to kill Frank Pentangeli, Hyman Roth gets angry, and says, that when he heard about Moe Greene’s fate, he didn’t ask who gave the order. So, i’m not asking who colored those pages. This is the life that we’ve chosen. some of these Alice editions have been loved and adored by children, that should be 100+ years old. Although as a Lewis Carroll book collector, I’d much rather have my books be in pristine condition, this reflects directly on the price, and I do recognize that there is some charm in seeing that a book has been read and loved.

Pease’s Alice is a toddler, and a toddlers world. The characters are mostly sweet and friendly. Her Gryphon looks like a harmless Gecko.
Some of the characters are illustrated with a realistic take (mock turtle looks like a turtle, the caterpillar is a caterpillar).
The way she’s chosen to portray the Wonderland staff, and soldiers as headless cards, is a bit freaky in a way though.
A note about the way the colored images are viewed here, they come out looking pointalized, due to how they were printed. It’s sub optimal, but then, the colored-in b&w ones, make them look great in comparison.
Let’s dive into the book’s illustrations.

Title page. Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll, Bessie Pease Gutmann. Published by Dodge Publishing Company.

The White Rabbit off to Wonderland. See how some child colored his coat in red? That’s their best work in this book. You’ll see…

The Causcus race animals

Alice speaks to the Dodo, with the rest of the Caucus race crew around

Alice in the White Rabbit’s house, growing rapidly. Note that font under the colored images, somewhat medieval, isn’t it?

Alice’s giant hand, startling the Rabbit.

The Puppy

Alice and the Caterpillar, that look like your average caterpillar

The Footmen

Pig and pepper, dishes. Why illustrate the fun-most scene with the Duchess, the Cheshire cat, the cook, and Alice, if you can just do the dishes?

The Pig baby

The Cheshire cat

The March Hare house

A Mad tea party with the Hatter and the March hare (hey where’s the dormouse, Gutmann?)

Some headless cards for you

Alice and the gardners

Alice with the Gryphon and the Mock turtle

Alice and the Gryphon

Must be the executioner, with a couple of the Queen’s thugs

The White rabbit at the trial

The trial, with the White rabbit, the Queen and King

Rene Cloke – Playful Alice

CollectingAlice.com — Wed, 02 Feb 2022 15:26:48 +0000

Rene Cloke (1904-1995), was a gifted British illustrator, with a rich body of work, mostly as an illustrator of books and postcards.
Her Alice in Wonderland was first published in 1944.
I know I sometimes say on Alice editions that they are ‘profusely illustrated’, but if there’s an Alice edition that really is profusely illustrated, it’s Cloke’s Alice. It has 80+ illustrations. Some in color, most are in 3 colors.
Cloke’s Alice in Wonderland, is playful and sweet. Her Wonderland isn’t dark or threatening, but rather fun and child-friendly.
Let’s dive into my copy, 1st edition, 1944ish, with the dust jacket.
One note about this book, and this particular post. I’ll place it’s illustrations by order of appearance in the book. As you’ll see some of the illustrations are not synched with the text / chapter the scenes appear on.

Dust jacket of front cover

Dust jacket back cover

Front cover (dust jacket removed)

Alice falling down the rabbit’s hole

Title page – Published by P. R. Gawthorn LTD.

Alice watching the White Rabbit’s house

The Tea Party Trio – Hatter, March hare & Dormouse

Bill the Lizard kicked out of the chimney, on the printer’s details page

Alice and the animals in the caucus race

Alice and the White Rabbit (p.s. this looks like it’s part of the trial scene)

Alice and sister – Chapter 1

White rabbit looking at his pocket watch

Alice watching the White Rabbit go down the rabbit’s hole

Alice peeping through the tiny door into Wonderland

Alice picking up the ‘Drink Me’ bottle

Alice shrinking after drinking the ‘Drink Me’ bottle

Chapter 2 – Pool of tears

Alice crying

The White Rabbit dropping his fan and gloves

Alice and the animals contemplating how to get dry, after swimming in the pool of tears. Note that the colored illustrations aren’t in-line with the text, and the monochromatic illustrations.

Alice putting on one of the White Rabbit’s gloves

Alice swimming alongside the mouse, in her pool of tears

Chapter 3 – A Caucus-race and a long tale

The mouse’s tale

Alice and the Dodo

The mouse weeping

Alice makes the animals uncomfortable with her remarks on Dinah, her cat

Chapter 4 – The Rabbit sends a Little Bill

Alice outside the White Rabbit’s house

Giant Alice inside the White Rabbit’s house, kicking poor Bill through the chimney

Alice’s giant hand, shocking the poor White Rabbit

Alice and the Caterpillar

Poor Bill the lizard, getting carried out for further care

Alice and the Puppy

Chapter 5 – Advice from a Caterpillar

Alice by the mushroom

Father William balancing a snake on his nose

Alice taking some shrooms

Alice and the pigeon

Chapter 6 – Pig and Pepper

Alice and the Footman

Alice, the duchess, the baby, and the cook

The cook tossing dishes at the duchess and the baby, with Alice

The cook

Alice and the pig baby

Alice and the Cheshire cat

Chapter 7 – A Mad Tea Party

The Mad Hatter

Alice and the Tea Party Trio

Hatter pouring tea over the poor dormouse

The Dormouse

The Hatter and The March hare tormenting the poor Dormouse

Chapter 8 – The Queen’s Croquet Ground

Painting the Roses

A Mad Tea Party

Alice, the Royals, and their squires

Alice and the White Rabbit

Alice, holding the Flamingo, speaking to the Cheshire cat

Soldier

Chapter 9 – The Mock Turtle’s Story

The Duchess, way too close to Alice

Alice, the Duchess, and the Gryphon

The Mock turtle, crying

Alice, the Gryphon, and the Mock Turtle

Chapter 10 – The Lobster Quadrille

Alice and the Queen on the Croquet ground

The Lobster Quadrille

Fish and snail

Alice

Owl and Panther. I had to go back to the text to see where on earth there are a panther and an owl. Well, here they are (at the end of chapter 10):
“…“Go on with the next verse,” the Gryphon repeated impatiently: “it begins ‘I passed by his garden.’”

Alice did not dare to disobey, though she felt sure it would all come wrong, and she went on in a trembling voice:—

“I passed by his garden, and marked, with one eye,
How the Owl and the Panther were sharing a pie—” “

Alice and the Gryphon, running

Chapter 11 – Who stole the tarts?

Alice and the Jury

Hatter giving a testimony in front of the King and Queen, with the march hare and the dormouse

The Queen

The hatter pleading

The cook at the court

Chapter 12 – Alice’s Evidence. Alice with the flying cards

Alice, the Gryphon, and the mock turtle

Alice breaking down the court

White rabbit, King, and soldiers at the trial

The White Rabbit in the trial

Poor Bill the lizard

White Rabbit, Queen and King

Alice awakens

Alice tearing down the court

Birn Brothers LTD – An ode to an uncredited artist II

CollectingAlice.com — Fri, 17 Dec 2021 09:03:08 +0000

Alice in Wonderland, published by Birn Brothers LTD, circa 1950’s. Here’s another ode to an uncredited artist (go here to read the previous post dedicated to another uncredited Alice illustrator) . This edition has around 50 illustrations of Alice in Wonderland, and not one has the illustrators name on them.
Can’t find much about this publication house as well. I anyone knows anything about this artist, please let me know.
Let’s go over the book. Antique / vintage Alice in Wonderland edition. Sizable, with a few colored illustrations, and many black and white ones. Some wretched child, that’s now in their 80’s, has colored in some of the B&W illustrations, without much talent. Thankfully, only 2 or 3 of those are colored in.
Here are all the illustrations of this edition by order of appearance.

The cover with the slightly overjoyed Alice, the Mad Hatter, the Red King, the White Rabbit, and the mouse.

Back cover with the Duchess and the baby, the mock turtle and the gryphon, and the white rabbit in the back.

Alice looking at the white rabbit pulling out his pocket watch, while her sister is reading a book. Placed before the title page.
The illustrator made 2 point of views to this same scene, as you’ll see further down.

Title page, with an illustration of Alice growing or shrinking?
Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
Brin Brothers, LTD. London
Could be the perfect place to credit the artist, but I guess the Birn Bros couldn’t be bothered with it.

Over the title page we have a beautiful illustration of the Cheshire cat.

Chapter 1 – Down the Rabbit Hole. With the white rabbit.
Some child colored the letters, respectively, in pink and green. Was it a smart life choice. God no. But I do have empathy, and a certain positive approach to Alice editions that have clearly been well read and liked.

This actually the 2nd illustration of Alice seeing the White rabbit for the first time, as he’s pulling out a pocket clock from his waist coat.

Alice holding on to the table’s leg, as she’s shrinking away

White Rabbit with gloves and fan – Chapter 2

Alice crying, creating the pool of tears

Alice and the mouse, swimming in the pool of tears

Alice and the White Rabbit. Chapter 3

Alice with the birds

The mouse drying everyone with his tale

Alice by the White Rabbit’s house. Chapter 4

Giant Alice with hand out of the White Rabbits house window

Alice’s gigantic hand and the White rabbit

Alice and the puppy

Alice outside the White rabbit’s house, with poor Bill, and others

Advice from a Caterpillar – chapter 5

Father William, standing on his head

Alice and the pigeon

The Footman – chapter 6. Again with some child painting in the colors. They must be in their 70s now, God Bless’em.

The cook tossing pans and pots at the duchess and the baby

The duchess and the baby

Alice carrying the baby, now turned into a pig

Alice and the Cheshire cat

A Mad Tea Party – Chapter 7

The Hatter and Dormouse

The mad Hatter, and the March Hare, tormenting the Dormouse

Alice with the March Hare and the Dormouse

Alice and March Hare

The Queen’s Croquet Ground – chapter 8

Alice, and Queen and the King

The soldier in the croquet game

Alice, the Mock Turtle and the Gryphon

The Gryphon

Alice and the Gryphon

The Mock turtle

The Lobster Quadrille – chapter 10

Alice

The Mock turtle, telling his sad story

Who stole the tarts -chapter 11

The White rabbit at the trial

The Hatter at the trial

Hatter giving his testimony

The cook at the trial

Alice’s evidence – chapter 12

The End

Harry Rountree – The second Alice

CollectingAlice.com — Mon, 22 Nov 2021 18:28:32 +0000

Once upon a time, there was a very talented illustrator, born in New Zealand, that moved at the tender age of 23 to London, where his talent could be recognized. He created not one but two complete and different sets of Alice in Wonderland illustrations. The first was published in 1908. The one I’ll write this post about, was published around 1928. His name was Harry Rountree (1878-1950)
Was there ever an illustrator to create two different sets of illustrations of the same book? and why? I’m guessing he preceded Taylor Swift, and due to copyright and royalties, Rountree found himself in a position where he wanted to create another, different, set of Alice illustrations.

Harry Rountree’s two Alices – The one from the first edition (1908) is on the right side.
The one from the later edition (1928) is on the left side. While the first edition Alice seems to be more Art Nouveau is style, the later one seems to be more modern in a way, and stylized to the late 1920’s

Let’s dive into the book. While I do believe I have the 1928 edition here somewhere, and I’ll add it to this post, or a new one later on, I’ll dedicate this post to the following edition that doesn’t have its year of publication printed anywhere. It’s just that I recently got it, and it’s far prettier than any other Rountree Alice edition that I own.

The cover with Alice and the Duchess, with the Baby on her lap, from The ‘Pig and Pepper’ chapter. It’s a pretty big book, with thick pages, and an abundance of black and white illustrations with 5 colored plates.

A side view of this book

Pre-title page with the angry pigeon

Over the next page, Alice by the screaming Queen

The first colored plate appears right at the beginning, beside the title page. It’s of Alice and the White Rabbit, when he’s confusing her as his Mary Ann.

Title page. Published by ‘The Children’s Press’, London and Glasgow

The startled White rabbit, after seeing Alice.
Appears on the first page of chapter 1, Down the Rabbit’s hole

Alice, down the Rabbit’s hole, thinking she’s now somewhere in New Zealand or Australia with Kiwi’s around her (here’s where it appears in the book). An illustration of a scene that I can’t recall seeing elsewhere, and is part of what I love about collecting the Alice in Wonderland books by the odd illustrators, they sometimes pick out scenes no one else is portraying. Rountree, in this edition, goes far and beyond many others with picking out these scenes, seldomly illustrated. The next illustration is also one of those rarely illustrated scenes.

“Do cats eat bats? Do cats eat bats?” and sometimes, “Do bats eat cats?” (go here for this line in the book)

Children that get eaten up by wild beasts and other Victorian era life lessons. (go to ‘Wild beasts’ line in the book)

‘Eat me’ scene, Alice opening out like a telescope.

The Rabbit started violently

The mouse leaping out of the water

““I beg your pardon!” said the Mouse, frowning, but very politely: “Did you speak?””

A long tail

The Canary, hurrying away her children after Alice’s insensitive Dinah’s stories

“Why, Mary Ann, what are you doing out here? Run home this moment, and fetch me a pair of gloves and a fan! Quick, now!”

Alice in the White Rabbit’s house

“There goes Bill!”

“An enormous puppy was looking down at her with large round eyes”

Alice and the puppy

One last puppy

Advice from a Caterpillar

Father William, standing on his head

Bill the Lizard, recovering from Alice’s kick. While this scene precedes the Caterpillar scene, it’s placed in the book after the first ‘Father William’ illustration.

Father William balancing a snake on his head

Alice and the Caterpillar discussing proper heights

Alice and the Pigeon

The Pigeon perceiving Alice as a Snake out to get her eggs

Alice peeping from the bushes

The Footmen

One of the Footmen

Pig and Pepper – The Duchess, the cook, and the baby

The cook, tossing things

The Duchess throwing the baby up in the air

A Mad Tea Party, one of my personal favorite tea party scene illustrations. It enfolds the way I imagine it, the Hatter as a red nosed, cheerful person, pouring tea from quite a distance, the March hare dressed up and talkative, and the Dormouse, sleeping. Alice trying to make some sense from all of it. The Mad Tea Party Trio seem to be drunk, and completely out of their minds, but not in a threatening way.

The Cheshire cat

The Cheshire cat smiling

The March Hare dipping a pocket clock in his tea

The Dormouse repeating the Hatter’s ‘Twinkle, Twinkle’ poem

Dormouse telling the story of the three sisters that lived down in a well

Three sisters down in a treacle well. Rountree made them out to be mermaid-like.

Hatter and March-hare tormenting the poor Dormouse

I admit that im not entirely sure who this guy is

As a dear reader named Arnold pointed out, this one is by Charles Pears! Is it my mistake or a publication mystery? Stay tuned.
“Off with her head!” screamed the Queen. Alice looks a bit different then in other illustrations, doesn’t she?

The Gardners, painting the roses

Oh dear, the gardners heads are off in a basket

Alice and the flamingo in the Croquet ground

The king and the Cheshire cat, having a moment

Alice and the Duchess, that is way-too-close to her

When pigs fly

The Lobster Quadrille. Alice, the Gryphon, and the Mock Turtle

The Gryphon

The Mock turtle

Unsure who this guy is

A fish and a snail

Panther

Hello fly

The White Rabbit at the Trial

Who stole the Tarts – the guinea-pigs putting the poor dormouse in a bag

Is that the dormouse giving a testimony?

The dormouse, oh what a poor guy, getting kicked out

Bill the Lizard as a juror

The End – The White Rabbit

Milo Winter – Graceful Alice

CollectingAlice.com — Fri, 29 Oct 2021 11:45:42 +0000

Milo Winter (1888-1956), Was an American book illustrator. His Alice in Wonderland was first published in 1916, this review presents the 1936 later edition. I promise that once I’ll get my hands on the 1st edition, I’ll add it to this blog. Unfortunately some of the illustrations in the earlier publication, are missing from this one. I’ll add any missing Milo Winter Alice illustrations soon.

As my non-existent readers know, I like to place a picture / self portrait of the illustrator, whenever I can find one. I can’t seem to find a picture / image of Milo Winter himself. If you’re of the Winter family, know what he looked like, and can describe him to a forensic sketch artist, please make yourself known.

Milo Winter’s Alice, is very Art Nouveau, wouldn’t you agree?

Milo illustrates Alice as somewhat older than a 7 year old. She seems reflective, with soft features, elongated, with a stylish ribbon in her hair.

Milo Winter, Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass

Dust jacket showing Alice seeing the White rabbit.

The same illustration on Alice seeing the White rabbit, is on the book’s hardcover

This image appear on the inside of the front and back hardcover
I have an unbased suspicion this was not made by Winter, as its not really in his style of work.

Across the title page we have an illustration of the Mad Tea Party

Title page, Published by Rand McNally & Company

Publication details, sadly, this not not a 1st edition

Here’s Alice going after the white rabbit

A few black and white illustration are spread throughout the book. I’ll feature all of them. This one is of Alice getting small, but forgetting that key on the table. What will she do?

Alice in the White Rabbit’s house, kicking poor old Bill the lizard, out of the chimney.

The Footmen

The Duchess with the baby, and cook spraying pepper

Alice with the Cheshire cat

The Mock turtle and the Gryphon, solemnly dancing around Alice

The Hatter at trial

Through the Looking Glass. On the right Alice holding the King in her hand

Alice passing through the looking glass

“Imperial fiddlestick!” said the King, rubbing his nose

Milo Winter’s Tweedledee and Tweedeldum

The Walrus and the Carpenter, and the poor little Oysters

Alice with the Lion and the Unicorn and the King, cutting the cake

The End

Peter Newell – Through the Looking Glass

CollectingAlice.com — Tue, 12 Oct 2021 08:54:47 +0000

This is the first post wholly dedicated to ‘Through the Looking Glass’, the sequel to ‘Alice in Wonderland’, so I’ll say a few words about that masterpiece. It’s my personal favorite of the two, if Wonderland is rather cheerful and light, The Looking Glass takes a bit of a turn to a darker side. Alice in Wonderland was the world’s best gift anyone ever gave anyone, but I’ll elaborate on that in a later post, when I get to ‘Alice’s Adventures Underground’, the handwritten, illustrated notebook given by Dodgson to Alice Liddell in 1862. Till the publication of Looking Through the Glass in 1872, things have drastically changed between Dodgson and the Liddell’s, and I believe its evident in Through the Looking Glass I’ll get to that one of these days, but for now, I’ll leave it be.

Moving on to Peter Newell’s Through the looking glass. It was published in 1902, one year after his Alice in Wonderland publication. It’s just as lovely, and full of whimsy. Let’s go over the illustrations:

The front cover, with the beautiful gilded embossment of Alice, holding a cake with a knife in it. Reference to the Lion and the Unicorn scene, where, with the Looking Glass land logic, first you hand out the cake, then with the empty plate, you proceed to cutting it. My copy of this book is good at best, the front, as you can see, has seen better days, parts of the gild have worn off, and it looks like it has some stains. I wish I could off the head of whoever did this, but a couple of things about this – top grade condition of the 1st edition Newell books can be pricey, but there’s also something to be said about a book that clearly has been read, and loved.

Title page. Published by Harper & Brothers.

Published in October 1902, 120 years ago, 1st edition

Through the Looking Glass is written as a chess game you can play

Alice passing through the looking glass

The Chessmen walking about

Alice holding the King up in the air

The poor king

The Jubjub bird, and the Bandersnatch!

The Jabberwock

Alice and the Tiger-lily

Alice and the Red Queen

Alice and the Queen looking at the checkered landscape

“Faster! Faster!”

Alice and the Elephant Bee

Alice on the train

Alice and the Gnat

Alice and the Fawn

Tweedle Dee and Tweedeldum

The Walrus and the Carpenter

“The eldest oyster winked”

“I deeply sympathize”, said the Walrus

“it’s only the Red King snoring”

Tweedledee and Tweedeldum dance

Alice in the Old Sheep’s store. I think this is my favorite chapter,
its very surreal.

Alice and the Sheep, in the boat

Alice and Humpty Dumpty

Peter Newell’s angry Humpy Dumpty

Soldiers, so uncertain on their feet

Alice and the faint king

Looking Glass Mad Tea Party Trio cameo

Newell’s Alice with the Lion and the Unicorn

The Knights fighting

Alice helping out the ever falling White Knight, the character attributed to Dodgson.

Alice helping the W. Knight again

Alice and the White Knight telling his dramatic story

The White Knight’s story continues. Peter Newell gives the Alice and the White Knight scene many illustrations, doesn’t he?

Queen Alice. Alice finding a crown on her head

Queen Alice with the White and Red Queens

Alice and the Queens falling asleep

The polite leg of mutton, introducing itself to Alice

Newell’s Looking Glass final scene, it all comes crashing down

Alice and the Kitty, final illustration of Peter Newell of Alice Through the Looking Glass

Peter Newell – Whimsical Alice

CollectingAlice.com — Tue, 28 Sep 2021 18:40:22 +0000

Peter Newell is one of my all time favorite illustrators. One of the few that I liked so much, I looked for other books he published. Im sure he was a funny man, with a big heart. There’s humor and kindness pouring out of every illustration he made.
I’m toying with the idea, that in a parallel universe, Newell’s Alice, might have been Carroll’s first choice. If Tenniel’s Alice seems a bit stiff at times, Newell’s Alice flows, and remains very fresh, 120 years after its publication. Doesn’t he look like a great guy?

Peter Newell (1862-1925)

Ah, the golden age of books. Every page of this publication weights a ton. The pages are thick, and with the gilding on the cover, the whole thing looks and feels luxurious

The first page – a photo of Lewis Carroll. If im not mistaken, this should be the first time Carroll’s image was present in an Alice book, something that in later publications became popular.

Title page – Published by:
Harper & Brothers

My avid readers will notice that sometimes I write about the image at the top, and sometimes at the bottom. If you’re looking for some Alice book collection blog that’s super organized, well, I’ll make a list soon. For now, look at the illustrations around the text. Art Nouveau meets Art Deco. At least its how it comes across to me. The bursting nature is very Nouveau, while the mirroring, and centering of the objects, are Deco.

Every page has a framed illustrations around the text. There are 4 types that appear in repeat. Above is an image made of samples of them. All are naturalistic, and depict animals. I haven’t seen a real connection between those and Wonderland, but they are fantastic on their own right.

And so it begins. The book has dozens of illustrations. Here’s Alice chasing the white rabbit.

Alice shedding her tears

Alice, in her telescope moment

The W. Rabbit getting startled

Alice swimming by the mouse

Alice and the Dodo

A Mouse’s Tale

Alice making all the animals from the caucus race uncomfortable

“Why, Mary Ann, what are you doing here?”

Alice in the White rabbit’s house

Bill the lizard

Bill getting treated by the concerned folk

Alice and the puppy

Peter Newell’s Caterpillar is softer, and a child-like version of it, in my opinion, vs the stuffed up old one, Tenniel made him to be, and more in-line with Carroll’s text

Father William 1

Father William 2

Father William 3

” ‘Serpent!’ screamed the Pigeon”

The Doorman

Pig and Pepper – the Duchess and the cook. Newell made this scene a lot less disturbing than it really is

Alice and pig baby

The Cheshire cat, Newell seems to have embraced Tenniel’s one, hasn’t he?

A Mad Tea Party

The three sisters living at the bottom of the treacle well

Painting the roses

” ‘Off with her head!’ “

Playing croquet

Playing Croquet 2

Newell gave the croquet scene 4 full illustrations, here are the hedge-hogs up close

Croquet playground 4th illustration, ‘tut tut child’!

Alice, the Mock Turtle, and the Gryphon

” ‘ Will you walk a little faster,’ said a Whiting to a Snail! “

Alice conversing with the turtle and gryphon

” ‘Come on!” cried the Gryphon”

The Trial – What marvelous depiction of the card royalty

The poor hatter, at the trial

Guinea pig inserted in a sack!

The jury getting upset

“At this the whole pack rose up into the air”

Thomas Maybank – Victorian Alice

CollectingAlice.com — Sun, 29 Aug 2021 15:29:51 +0000

Thomas Maybank was an English illustrator (1869-1929), in my rather lazy googling just now, I haven’t found much about him, but there is this comics wiki one dedicated to him.
One tiny piece of insignificant trivia that I can share with you, is that Maybank used to do art for Punch magazine, just like the father of all Alice in Wonderland illustrators, the dreaded John Tenniel.
Maybank’s Alice in Wonderland came out in 1910, making it one of the earliest ones published after the first Alice’s.
What signifies Maybank’s Alice in Wonderland illustrations, for me, is their dynamic nature. There’s movement in them, like a capture of a living moment, rather then a frozen one. Like this image of the cook:

Alice herself is illustrated in a Victorian era dress, puffy, ribbons, the works. I found that personally, she seems slightly different as the book progresses, from a sort of heaviness to lightness, like her journey in Wonderland makes this sort of transition within her.

Let’s go over the 28 Thomas Maybank’s Alice in Wonderland illustrations as they appear in the book:

Front piece, we get the only colored illustration in the book, of the trial.

Publisher’s details page. London, George Routledge & Sons. Limited.
New York, E. P. Dutton `& Co. Publication year 1910.

Alice chasing the White Rabbit, about to jump down the rabbits hole.

Drink me

Alice shedding the soon-to-be pool of tears

The Caucus race crew led by the mouse

Alice in the White Rabbits house

Alice in the White Rabbit’s house, with concerned Wonderland citizens around

You atre old Father William 1/2

You are old Father William 2/2

Alice terrorizing the bird

Alice and the Footman

Pig and Pepper

Alice and the pig baby

A Mad tea party

The Mad Hatter’s recollection of the tragic concert given to the Queen of Hearts

A Mad Tea Party 2

The Queens Croquet Ground

The Queens Croquet Ground continued

The Cheshire cat

Off with her Head!

Alice and the Gryphon

The Mock Turtle’s Story

The Lobsters Quadrille

Who stole the tarts – The Mad Hatter

Who stole the tarts trial

Who stole the tarts – The Cook

Alice’s evidence

Willy Pogany – Flapper Alice

CollectingAlice.com — Mon, 23 Aug 2021 07:56:17 +0000

Ah, the roaring twenties!

Willy Pogany, or Vilmos András Pogány, was an Hungarian illustrator, known for his art nouveau style of children’s and fables illustrations. He moved from Hungary, to France, and then England, and finally to the USA.

Willy Pogany – Self portrait

Pogany’s Alice (1929) is adorably nicknamed, the “Flapper Alice”. While you can certainly find traces of naturalistic art nouveau style, that defined most of his earlier work, his Alice, is very much in-line with the Zeitgeist of 1920’s. Modern thought, and women liberation, represented by the heroine – Alice. Read about Flappers, an icon of the 1920’s.

Pogany’s Alice in Wonderland was published on 1929, by E. P. Dutton & Co, in the USA. I managed to get my 1st edition copy on ebay a while ago.

The book is rich and generious with illustrations. There are about 60+ illustrations of Alice scenes. I pictured the vast majority of those, let’s delve into the book.
The only colored illustration is in the inside cover (front and back), showcasing a collage of wonderland and its characters:

The book opens with pretty illustrations of Alice, and the Mad Tea Party. Note her short haircut, and dreamy big eyes:

Quite a few introductory pages, easing us into the first chapter. Here we go down the rabbit’s hole.

Chapter 2: The Pool of Tears

I love this illustration of Alice swimming by the mouse, in her pool of tears. The illusion of ripples is created using so few thin lines. A confident hand of a true master.

Chapter 3 – The Caucus race

Pogany’s Alice is packed with small illustrations throughout the book. Here we have the Lory from the caucus race, followed by the duck and the Eaglet.

The above characters represent Alice Liddell’s sisters, Lorena (The Lory), and Edith (the Eaglet), and also Mr. Duckworth (the Duck). All present on that Golden afternoon on July 4th, 1862, when Charles Dodgson told the initial story of Alice in Wonderland.

A mouse’s tale

Chapter 4 – The Rabbit sends in little Bill

Alice in the White Rabbits house

Bill the Lizard, shot out of the chimney

Alice and the puppy

Chapter 5 – The Caterpillar

Pogany’s Caterpillar up close

You are old father William – note how Pogany duplicated the same character illustration to portray the ‘youth’.

Alice scaring the bird, that sees her as a snake!

Pig and pepper

Pig and pepper main scene (next couple of photos), with the duchess and the cook, the baby and the Cheshire cat. Pogany’s masterful hand, gives us two point of views, of the same scene setting.

One element I love in Pogany’s Alice are the fonts. They are used to differentiate between songs, and titles. I can’t speak to the nuances, and their graphical meaning, but I can say they spark joy, and are supporting the sense of fun and freedom, that’s Wonderland.

The Cheshire cat

The Cheshire cat up close. The Cheshire cat must be quite the challenge for any illustrator. How do you portray translucency. I think Pogany’s technic here, is fantastic, as well as the cat’s anatomy. He is very much a cat, but with an attitude.

Chapter 7 – A Mad Tea Party

The Mad Hatter

Mad Tea Party Madness continued

Chapter 8 – The Queen’s Croquet Ground

Alice and the Croquet scenes. How generous Pogany is with the amount of illustrations spread throughout the book. Count how many images are dedicated to this chapter only:

Chapter 9 – The Mock Turtle’s story

The Turtle and the Gryphon and Alice

Chapter 10 – The Lobster Quadrille

“Come on!” cried the Gryphon

Chapter 11 – Who Stole the Tarts

Alice sitting at the trial

The Mad hatter

Chapter 12 – Alice’s Evidence

The White Rabbit, with the King and Queen of Hearts

Alice vs the Army of cards

Alice leaving Wonderland

The End

Juvenile Productions LTD – An ode to an uncredited illustrator

CollectingAlice.com — Wed, 18 Aug 2021 12:37:54 +0000

One of my absolute favorite Alice illustrators. Who is she? he? God only knows. This book was published by Juvenile Productions LTD. If I were lead vocals in a kickass prog rock band, that’d be our name. Fans would call us JPL for short. Anyway, JPL published this one without crediting the truly fantastic artist. Take a look, we see the publishers name, we get a clue to where the illustrator came from, but that is it. No illustrator name presented, not a publication year. Its a mystery.
Please please, contact me, if you know anything about the artist, or that publishing house.

Aside the beautiful illustrations, generously spread throughout the book, a large part of its charm comes from the graphic design, and the general framing of each page.
Presumed 1940’s . Magazine-like print. Beautiful, and inexpensive! I see them go for $10-$30 on ebay. If you fancy an vintage-almost-antique version of Alice, that’s a good one to go for.

This fantastic website, attributes the art to A. A. Nash. However, I myself, need to understand why. See, the same publisher, published another Alice in Wonderland, around that time, but it’s a different set of Alice illustrations altogether. So, I’d need to see more evidence before I’d feel confident in this attribution. The case is still open as far a I’m concerned.

Let’s delve into the illustrations:

Alice falling down the rabbits hole

Drink me scene. How the comics-like design make it come alive

Eat me

The pool of tears

The Caucus race

In the White Rabbit’s House

The Caterpillar

Pig and Pepper

A Mad Tea party

Painting the roses

The Cheshire cat

A game of Croquet

The Mock Turtle’s story

The Trial of the Nave of Hearts

Alice’s Evidence

Mabel Lucie Attwell – Sugary Alice

CollectingAlice.com — Thu, 05 Aug 2021 12:18:51 +0000

Mabel Lucie Attwell made Alice go on a toddler’s fun day on the field, where nothing goes wrong, and everyone is sweet and kind. Almost in 180 degrees to Rackham’s Alice. If in Rackham’s Wonderland I’d feel more comfortable carrying a piece, in Attwell’s Wonderland I’d feel like I’m in a children’s playground.

Mabel Lucie Attwell

Attwell’s Alice in Wonderland was first published by Raphael Tuck & Sons, LTD, in 1911. 110 years ago. Her beautiful, profusely illustrated, Alice edition, is one of the widely known and loved Alice’s, reprinted a few times, the latest one was in 2017.
The book has 12 colored illustrations and lots of black and white ones.

List of color plates

“Oh Dear! Oh Dear! I shall be too late!”

Alice down the rabbits hole, scaring the little guy.

Alice and the caucus race crew swimming in her pool of tears

The mouse’s tale

The White rabbit’s house

Advice from a Caterpillar

In the Duchess’s kitchen. This must be the nicest portrayal of the slightly disturbing scene, with the clinically insane duchess, and her psychotic cook.

The pig baby

The Mad Hatter’s tea party

The Cheshire cat, by the soldiers painting the roses red

The Mock Turtle’s story

The trial of the Knave of Hearts

Blanche McManus – Red, Green, Black & White

CollectingAlice.com — Sun, 25 Jul 2021 15:35:40 +0000

I love Blanche McManus’s Alice. I think her illustrations are very special. Sadly, I can’t find a photo of her anywhere. I guess back in the late 19th century, selfies weren’t as popular.
Published on 1899 by A. Wessels company. The Blanche McManus edition, is one of the very few illustrators, illustrating Alice, in Dodgeson’s lifetime.

How beautiful is this book? I mean, just look at this cover:

We see Alice, looking at Wonderland, that’s seemingly an old European fairytale view of a place.
We also see the Cheshire cat at the top, with the white rabbit and pig, beside her.
Below is the first page. On the left, Alice falling through the rabbit’s hole to Wonderland. McManus pays attention to all the things Carroll listed in his description of Alice falling down the well.

From Alice in Wonderland, chapter 1, Down the Rabbit-Hole:
…”…she looked at the sides of the well, and noticed that they were filled with cupboards and book-shelves; here and there she saw maps and pictures hung upon pegs. She took down a jar from one of the shelves as she passed; it was labeled “ORANGE MARMALADE”.”
Only now I am noticing that the pictures on the well’s wall, are of the Mad Tea Party trio (hatter, dormouse, and march-hare), who’s on the other framed pictures there?

Pool of tears chapter, ‘Drink me’ illustration.
McManus’s Alice is a sign of her time. Late 19th Cen. attire, all puffed up, ribbons, puffy sleeves.

Advice from a Caterpillar. I love that McManus made the caterpillar the most caterpillarish possible.

The Cheshire cat. I like McManus’s technic here, in her effort to show the cat’s disappearing powers.

A Mad tea party
Part of what I love about the McManus editions, is the printing colors. Black, green and red. That’s it. I guess its the best they could do back then, not that there aren’t richly colored books, but perhaps they were printed differently (paste down illustrations?).
Relying just on these 3 colors creates a wonderful antique vibe to the book.

The Lobster Quadrille

Through the Looking Glass

Looking glass house

Wool and Water

Humpty Dumpty

The Lion and the Unicorn

Queen Alice

Arthur Rackham – Dark Alice

CollectingAlice.com — Sun, 11 Jul 2021 11:06:45 +0000

1907 marks an important year in Wonderland’s publications timeline. The copyright of Alice’s adventures in wonderland, published in 1865, expired on 1907, and some of the most beautiful editions came out, crowned by one of the worlds all-time celebrated illustrators – Arthur Rackham.

My review of Rackham’s Alice, as any other review here, is not the aftermath of an educated study. Please take all with a grain of salt, and I encourage my nonexistent readers to doubt anything written here.
Rackham’s depiction of Alice and Wonderland were different from the tone and sentiment of others, he was the first to identify Alice’s journey, as one of a lost girl, in a world that is almost unfriendly, rather dark, with a sense of horror and despair.
Look at this image of Alice, standing by the White rabbit.
Look at their physical forms. She’s crouched and twisted, while he is not your Disney-funny-bunny, but rather, a real rabbit, with scary red eyes, and human-sized. The atmosphere is somewhat dreary. Look at that barren tree, at the dry stream. Is this Wonderland? Would you feel safe wandering about in this place? Would you to take tea with this guy?

Lets start at the beginning though.
I have a couple of Rackham’s in my Alice in wonderland book collection, this one is the slightly fancier one. 1st edition, 1907, purchased on ebay, for around $120, if I recall correctly.

The front cover, with Alice, and the Gryphon, listening to the sad story of the Mock Turtle

Inside cover, I recognize Bill the lizard, the White Rabbit, and the mad tea party trio (im guessing here).
Rackham’s Alice seems to be older than Tenniel’s Alice, older than Carroll’s initial drafts. She’s somewhere between childhood and adolescence. Perhaps Rackham recognized Alice’s journey through Wonderland, as journey of a girl entering the world of adults.
If my memory serves me right, Alice never meets other children. The one freaky time she’s close to it, is in Pig and Pepper chapter, with the baby turning into the pig. All else are presented as adults, with issues, and jobs, and fears, and serious tones, and dire threats.
Perhaps making her older, corresponds with how Rackham perceived Wonderland. As a place that’s really not for kids.

Rackham’s Alice, in a colored illustration that’s positioned before the title page.

Title page, with the White rabbit, and a few gardners / card soldiers. First edition, 1907, publishers details: New York ‘Doubleday’ Doran & Co. London, ‘William’ Heinenmann, Ltd.

Alice sees the White Rabbit going to his hole, to Wonderland

Curiouser and curiouser

Alice and the animals swimming in her pool of tears

The caucus race crowd. Note how the Dodo is made to have human hands. I have to get back to the script, to see if anything in the text suggests the human features, but if Ill have to toss a wild guess, then its due to the Dodo’s symbolic representation. As Charles L. Dodgeson, on that golden afternoon in July 1862, made up on the spot, the story of Alice in Wonderland, he incorporated in that story parts for all listeners, as well as himself. He was the dodo.
As the story goes, Dogeson used to have a stutter, and when presenting himself, he would say – Do..Do…Dogeson, hence Dodo.

Alice and the mouse

The well dressed White Rabbit, mistaking Alice for his Mary-Ann, and sends her to fetch his fan and gloves

Alice receiving advice from a caterpillar

Alice shrinking after nibbling a bit of mushroom

Alice freaking out the Pigeon, perceiving her as a serpent, out to get her eggs

Alice and the frog-footman

Alice, the Duchess, the baby, the insane cook, and the Cheshire cat

Alice and the Pig-baby

The Cheshire cat grinning

Alice and the Cheshire cat, that’s gradually dissolving

A mad tea party, Alice with the hatter, the march hare and the dormouse

The gardners paining the roses, getting scolded by the Queen

Alice playing Wonderland-style Croquet

The Cheshire cat trolling the Queen

The Queen’s executioner

The Queen’s Croquet Ground

The Gryphon

Alice, the Gryphon, and the Mock turtle

The Mock turtle

Who stole the tarts?

The cook

Alice awakens

Gwynedd M. Hudson – Boots the Chemist

CollectingAlice.com — Sun, 20 Jun 2021 16:16:04 +0000

Gwynedd May Hudson, (1881-1935), is one of my all time favorite illustrators of Alice in Wonderland. Frustratingly, I can’t find much about her biography, (I’m pretty sure that most info found about her online is wildly inaccurate – for example, the vast majority of web resources state she was born in 1909, hence published Alice at the tender age of 13, which doesn’t make any sense).
She was a British painter and illustrator, mainly known for her illustrations of Alice in Wonderland, and Peter Pan. Her ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’, was first published in 1922. I have the fantastic blue Boots edition.

What do I like about this book? Many times this is the 1st book I pull out, when I show my collection. Its the perfect antique Alice in Wonderland.
While I don’t have a copy with the pretty dust jacket, the magic begins with the beautiful gilded illustration of a pixie like Wonderland. We see Alice, the White rabbit, a snail on am mushroom, and the tarts thief.
The pages of this edition are thick and heavy.
All the illustrations have a protective thin paper, with a charming print over it, and are pasted down.
see the print in the back of the protective sheet?

Let’s go over all the illustrations:
The Mad Hatter on the back of the front hardcover

Book title written top to bottom.

The first colored illustration, by the title page, is of Alice and Dinah

Title page

Published by Hodder and Stoughton limited, for Boots Pure Drug Co., Ltd., Nottingham, Engraved and Printed by Henry Stone & Sons, Limited, Banbury and London.

The White Rabbit, below the table of contents

I believe this is none other than Bill the lizard, in his role as a juror. Below the list of book plates.

Every chapter has a unique dedicated illustration and graphical styling of its own. Here’s chapter one, Down the Rabbits hole.
Note the playful A that’s connected in a continued line, making out the ground Alice is running on to the rabbits hole. On this page we also have Alice falling down the hole, and what she sees on the way down.

Eat me

Chapter 2 – The pool of tears

The White Rabbit rushing, with a fan and gloves, in his hand.
This is my personal favorite depiction of the White Rabbit. He is dressed up like a 17th Century royalty from the French court. All puffed up and very stylish.

The animals swimming in Alice’s pool of tears

Chapter 3 – The Caucus race and long tale.
Beautiful page design and illustrations. Note how the animals at the top of the page, are looking down, connecting eyes, with Alice and the rest of the animals at the bottom of the page
Also note the fantastic initial, aka initium, where we have the mouse with his dangling tail, in the letter T.

Caucus race crew

Bill the lizard, after getting kicked through the chimney. Poor guy.

Alice playing with the puppy

Chapter 5 – Advice from a Caterpillar. Alice taking a bit of shroom.

Alice and the Caterpillar, taking some advice, while he is smoking his hookah.

Father William, balancing a snake of his nose.

Chapter 6 – Pig and Pepper. The Footmen.

Alice, the Duchess, the pig-baby, the cook, and the cat.
Note how Hudson makes the baby somewhat pig-ish, with what look like hoofs for hands, pointed pig ears, and an overall piggy face. I love this scene, and I love what Hudson is doing with it. At the center, Alice and the Duchess seem composed, while chaos is spread around them.

The Cheshire cat

Chapter 7 – A Mad Tea Party. The Mad Hatter

Gwynedd Hudson’s Mad Tea Party Trio, the Hatter, the March Hare and the Dormouse.

The Hatter and March hare, tormenting the poor Dormouse

Chapter 8- The Queen’s Croquet Ground

The Gardners painting the roses

The Queen, the King, the Executioner, and the Cheshire cat

The Hedgehogs

Chapter 9 – The Mock Turtle’s Story.
Initial of the Gryphon behind the Y.

‘Alice did not much like the Duchess so close to her’

The Classical Oyster

Chapter 10 – The Lobster Quadrille

Alice, the Mock Turtle, and the Gryphon

Beautiful soup

Chapter 11 – Who stole the tarts?

The trial

I believe this must be the suspected tarts thief

Chapter 12 – Alice’s evidence. The White rabbits and the jurors

Alice attacked by the whole pack of cards

The End – Alice waking up

Let it begin

CollectingAlice.com — Sun, 20 Jun 2021 11:40:55 +0000

Feast thy eyes on the 300+ editions of my Alice in Wonderland book collection. It all began in a Golden afternoon, about 25 years ago, (only a few years after the first Alice came out. im kidding, but God, the years go by fast). As new Alice’s pop out every year, this is a collection for the ages.
I received my first Alice in Wonderland at the tender age of 24, fell in love with it, and bought another one, and then another. Collecting Alice was and still is a reason to pry in 2nd hand bookstores, and look for Alice’s missing from my collection. Online shopping, mainly on eBay is where I get most of them. I have hundreds, and still, I’m yet to get my hands on key editions.

I find myself mostly interested in the odd illustrators of Alice. So many different illustrations for the same text, its just amazing.
Im guesstimating that if you put together all possible publications of the Grimm brothers, Pinocchio, Snow White, Cinderella, Wizard of Oz, Gulliver’s travels, altogether, multiply all by 10, you’d still not get to nearly as many publications of Alice in Wonderland, and Through the Looking Glass, in its over 150 years of existence.

What makes Alice in Wonderland this unique? Why, it seems, that for illustrators, its something of a jazz standard. If you have hundreds of jazz musicians making their own take on ‘summertime’ , then why not have illustrators publish their own ‘Alice’. But, why Alice is so captivating to so many. I believe its in its everlasting humor and freshness, that keeps this masterpiece relevant to this day. It’s rich with imagination, yet remains flexible and open, in a way that allows anyone to play with it, find meaning, and aspiration.

I will post about the illustrators of Alice in almost random order. I’ll start with the early ones, all from my private Alice in Wonderland book collection, (and other Lewis Carroll publications, to a smaller extent).

I’m dedicating a post per illustrator of Alice, I aim to place ALL illustrations in the book. It’s a tedious work, but I do enjoy it.
I’m also making an area to illustrations by scene, where some of the magic of this collection comes to light. There you can see how the different artists drew same scenes differently.

The White Rabbit, Illustrated by Gwynedd M. Hudson 1922