1904 Rare Book - Alice Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll, Illustrated

A beautifully decorated 1904 American edition of Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass, featuring a striking turquoise-blue cloth binding with gilt lettering, a coloured illustration of the Walrus and his oysters, and the celebrated illustrations after Sir John Tenniel.

Author: Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson).
Title: Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There.
Publisher: Philadelphia: Henry Altemus Company, 1904 (date bibliographically attributed; undated on title page).
Edition: Early twentieth-century American illustrated edition, Boys and Girls Classics Series, original decorative cloth binding, Format 3. Later printing of the work first published in 1871.
Language: English.
Pages: 202 pages, followed by the publisher's catalogue.
Size: 6.5 x 4 inches.
Binding: Very good original turquoise-blue cloth binding, richly decorated with gilt lettering and borders on the front cover, a coloured pictorial panel depicting the Walrus and his oysters, and gilt lettering to the spine. Light rubbing at the corners and spine extremities, with minor surface marks and some scattered spotting to the rear board. The binding remains firm and particularly attractive, with bright gilt decoration. Protected in a removable mylar cover. 
Content: Very good, with light age-toning and occasional minor foxing or marks. A handwritten presentation inscription on the front free endpaper reads, "From First Meth. Sunday School. Dec. 25, 1945." The text, illustrations, decorative title page and publisher's catalogue are well preserved.
Illustrations: Illustrated throughout with approximately 50 black-and-white illustrations after Sir John Tenniel, including many of the celebrated scenes from Alice's adventures. Also featuring a separately illustrated frontispiece, an ornamental title page printed in red and green, and a coloured pictorial illustration on the front cover.

Estimate: USD $75–125.

The book:

First published in 1871, Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There is Lewis Carroll's celebrated sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Alice's extraordinary journey continues as she steps through a mirror into a fantastical world governed by the curious rules of a chess game. There she encounters some of the most memorable characters in children's literature, including the Red and White Queens, Tweedledum and Tweedledee, Humpty Dumpty, and the unforgettable Walrus and the Carpenter.

This particularly attractive American edition was published by the Henry Altemus Company of Philadelphia around 1904, as part of its popular Boys and Girls Classics Series. Its distinctive turquoise-blue cloth binding is embellished with large gilt lettering and an appealing coloured illustration of the Walrus and his oysters, framed by geometric gilt borders. The interior preserves Carroll's imaginative narrative alongside numerous illustrations after John Tenniel, a decorative two-colour title page, and an additional illustrated frontispiece. A charming example of the decorative American editions of Alice that flourished at the turn of the twentieth century, combining literary significance with the visual appeal of a beautifully designed publisher's binding.

The author:

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898), the pen name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, was an English author, mathematician, logician, photographer, and lecturer at Christ Church, Oxford. His two Alice books, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking-Glass (1871), transformed children's literature through their remarkable blend of fantasy, wordplay, logic, nonsense, and philosophical imagination. Their extraordinary popularity has endured for more than a century and a half, inspiring generations of readers, artists, and collectors.

Carroll's collaboration with Sir John Tenniel (1820–1914), the distinguished British illustrator and political cartoonist, produced some of the most iconic images in the history of illustrated literature. Tenniel's depictions of Alice and the extraordinary inhabitants of Wonderland and the Looking-Glass world became inseparable from the stories themselves. Today, early and attractively bound editions of Carroll's works remain highly appealing to collectors of children's literature, illustrated books, and the history of book design.