"THE GREATEST OF ALL ENGLISH STORIES FOR CHILDREN": ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND, FINELY BOUND

CARROLL, Lewis. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. London: Macmillan, 1869. Octavo, modern full red morocco, elaborately gilt-decorated spine, raised bands, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt; housed in a custom slipcase. $4800.

Early printing of Carroll's cherished romp through the realm of nonsense, "the greatest of all English stories for children" (Muir, 139), illustrated with 42 engravings by John Tenniel, handsomely bound by Sangorski and Sutcliffe in red morocco with gilt cover medallions (reproducing the designs from the original cloth binding) and with gilt motifs in the spine compartments.

"More than a flare of genius," Alice's Adventures in Wonderland "was the spiritual volcano of children's books" (Darton, 260). "Historians of children's literature universally agree that [its] publication… marks the liberation of children's books from the restraining hand of the moralists" (Carpenter & Prichard, 102). A mesmerizing masterpiece of comic nonsense, Alice also demonstrates Carroll's gift for recognizing "the child's inner fears, wishes, intelligence and imagination. He unleashed thousands of children's minds… and invited them to laugh" (Silvey, 124). "It is, in a word, a book of that extremely rare kind which will belong to all the generations to come until the language becomes obsolete" (Sir Walter Besant). The first authorized edition was published in 1866, preceded only by the extraordinarily rare suppressed 1865 London edition, of which only about 20 copies are known to exist, and the scarce New York edition of 1866; this copy is identified as "thirteenth thousand" on the title page. Lewis Carroll Handbook 46. Lewis Carroll at Texas 3. See PMM 354. Contemporary owner signature on title page.

Occasional mild soiling to text. A beautifully bound copy.