Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland [and] Through The Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There.

CARROLL, Lewis [Alice Hargreaves].

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland [and] Through The Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There.

The Limited Editions Club Edition of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through The Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There; Both Signed by "The Original Alice" Alice Hargreaves

New York: The Limited Editions Club, 1932-1935.

$7,800.00

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Item Number: 152054

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The Limited Editions Club signed limited edition of Lewis Carroll’s beloved children’s classic. Octavo, two volumes, bound in full leather with gilt titles and elaborate tooling to the spine in six compartments within raised gilt bands, gilt ruling and detailing to the front and rear panels, all edges gilt, frontispiece and title page vignette, with illustrations by John Tenniel. One of 1,500 numbered copies, both volumes are number 958. Boldly signed by “The Original Alice” Alice Hargreaves on the front free endpaper in volume one and on the colophon page to the rear of volume two. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is additionally signed by typographer and binder Frederic Warde on the colophon page to the rear. Both volumes are in near fine condition with light rubbing and restoration to the spine cap of volume two. Accompanied by the prospectus for both volumes laid in, along with newspaper clippings that include Alice Hargreaves’ death notice. Ownership plate of the original subscriber to the front pastedown. Housed in the original cloth slipcases which are in near fine condition. A stunning set.

Alice's Adventures were "born on a golden afternoon" in July 1862, when the Rev. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (better known as Lewis Carroll) took the three small daughters of Dean Liddell of Christ Church on a boating trip up the Isis. Carroll delighted the three children by relating Alice's adventures, and eventually promised his favorite among the three, Alice Liddell, to write the story down for her. Through the Looking-Glass can be seen as a mirror image of the Alice's Adventures. For example, the latter begins outdoors in the warmth of May 4 and uses the imagery of playing cards, while the former begins indoors on a snowy, cold November 4 and uses the imagery of chess. "The two Alice books completed the reinstatement of the imagination, so long disapproved of by the opponents of fairy stories, to its proper place. ‘Alice 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’" (Carpenter & Prichard, 102).