1915 Scarce Altemus Edition - Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass
Author: Lewis Carroll (John Tenniel, illustrator).
Title: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There.
Language: Text in English.
Publisher: Philadelphia, Henry Altemus Company, no date [circa 1915].
Size: 8" x 6".
Pages: 339 pages.
Binding: Near fine and very scarce original publisher’s pictorial full cloth binding, with gilt lettering and decoration to the front board and spine, and a large mounted color illustration to the front cover. Only very minor signs of wear, principally at the extremities, as shown. A particularly fresh and attractive example of this uncommon binding variant. Protected in a removable mylar cover.
Content: Near fine content (bright, tight and clean, with only very light age toning, as shown). Attractive illustrated endpapers printed in pale green.
Illustrations: Complete with 8 beautiful full-page color illustrations, including the color frontispiece, together with all the original black-and-white illustrations by John Tenniel throughout.
The book: A particularly attractive and very scarce binding variant of this early Henry Altemus combined edition of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. The pale green cloth is richly decorated in gilt and features a mounted color scene of Alice before the King and Queen of Hearts, while the spine carries additional gilt lettering and an elaborate pictorial design. The volume brings both of Carroll’s Alice masterpieces together in one substantial edition, enhanced by seven full-page color plates and Tenniel’s celebrated original illustrations. Rarely encountered in such fresh condition and especially desirable in this striking publisher’s binding.
The author: Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832–1898), better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English writer, mathematician, photographer and logician. His two Alice books, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, are among the most enduring works of Victorian literature. Their extraordinary combination of fantasy, wordplay, satire and logic has fascinated generations of both children and adults and inspired countless adaptations and illustrated editions.
The illustrator: Sir John Tenniel (1820–1914) was a celebrated English illustrator and political cartoonist, best remembered for creating the original illustrations for Lewis Carroll’s Alice books. His White Rabbit, Mad Hatter, Cheshire Cat, Queen of Hearts and other inhabitants of Wonderland became inseparable from Carroll’s characters and established a visual vocabulary that has influenced nearly every subsequent interpretation of Alice.