1914 Scarce in Dust Jacket - Alice in Wonderland & Looking-Glass, Photoplay
Alice steps from page to picture in this scarce early photoplay edition, still preserved in its wonderfully theatrical original dust jacket.
Author: Lewis Carroll.
Title: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. Complete in One Volume.
Publisher: New York, Grosset & Dunlap, undated, 1915. First photoplay edition illustrated with scenes from the film produced and copyrighted by The Nonpareil Feature Film Corporation.
Language: Text in English.
Size: 9.5" x 6.5".
Pages: 297 pages.
Binding: Very good original publisher’s tan pictorial cloth binding, lettered and illustrated in blue, black, orange, and green to the front board, with lettering to the spine. The binding is clean, bright, and attractive, with light wear and minor soiling, as shown. The scarce original pictorial dust jacket is present, showing Alice and the White Rabbit in a photographic garden scene, with matching cinematic artwork to the rear panel. The jacket is in good condition, with chips, creasing, edge wear, rubbing, and some loss to the spine ends and corners, as shown, now protected under a removable mylar cover.
Content: Very good content, bright, tight, and clean overall, with light toning and a contemporary gift inscription reading “To Dorothy from Aunt Lou, Christmas 1926,” as shown.
Illustrations: Illustrated with scenes from the photoplay produced and copyrighted by The Nonpareil Feature Film Corporation, including a color frontispiece and black-and-white photographic plates inspired by the film. Complete.
Estimate: USD $350–$550.
The book: A charming and uncommon Grosset & Dunlap photoplay edition of Lewis Carroll’s two great Alice books, bringing together Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass in one substantial volume. This edition is especially appealing for its early cinematic presentation of Wonderland, replacing or supplementing the familiar Tenniel tradition with photographic scenes from the Nonpareil Feature Film Corporation production. The result is a delightful bridge between Victorian fantasy and early twentieth-century film culture.
The survival of the original dust jacket is the great strength of this copy. Its atmospheric photographic cover, with Alice beside the White Rabbit outside his cottage, gives the book a wonderful period quality and makes it especially desirable to collectors of Alice, early film tie-ins, and illustrated children’s books.
The author: Lewis Carroll, the pen name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, remains one of the most beloved authors in English children’s literature. With Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, he created a world of dream logic, wordplay, nonsense, and surreal invention that has shaped children’s books, illustration, theatre, cinema, and popular imagination for more than a century.
The illustrations: This edition is illustrated not in the traditional engraved style, but with scenes from an early photoplay version of Alice. These plates capture the theatrical and cinematic imagination of the period, showing Wonderland as staged performance, with costumed characters, garden settings, and dramatic tableaux. The illustrated dust jacket, using the same photoplay spirit, is particularly evocative and scarce.