Product Description

With an Introduction and Notes by Michael Irwin, Professor of English Literature, University of Kent at Canterbury This selection of Carroll's works includes Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel, Through the Looking-Glass, both containing the famous illustrations by Sir John Tenniel. No greater books for children have ever been written. The simple language, dreamlike atmosphere, and fantastical characters are as appealing to young readers today as ever they were. Meanwhile, however, these apparently simple stories have become recognised as adult masterpieces, and extraordinary experiments, years ahead of their time, in Modernism and Surrealism. Through wordplay, parody and logical and philosophical puzzles, Carroll engenders a variety of sub-texts, teasing, ominous or melancholy. For all the surface playfulness there is meaning everywhere. The author reveals himself in glimpses.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1320336 in Books
• Published on: 1998-04-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

Amazon.com Review

"And what is the use of a book," thought Alice, "without pictures or conversations?"

Taking to heart his charming, insatiably curious heroine's words, Lewis Carroll worked many long hours (days, months...) with illustrator Sir John Tenniel to create the most perfect pictures imaginable for what were to become instant classics: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. When thinking about Alice and her dreamy surrealistic adventures down the rabbit hole and behind the looking-glass, who can help picturing the golden-haired girl in her lilac dress and striped stockings, gazing up at the Cheshire Cat or arguing with Tweedledum and Tweedledee? Tenniel's drawings remained black and white for over 40 years until 1911, when eight prints in each book were hand colored. Now, for the first time, every remaining illustration has been colored, making these the first editions to feature all of the original art in full color. Traditionalists need not worry: colorist Diz Wallis colored proofs taken from Tenniel's carefully preserved woodblocks, remaining faithful to his original drawings. The beautiful tones of these new hardcover editions look as natural as can be; they could just as easily be from the 19th century. (Ages 9 and older) --Emilie Coulter

Review
Laszlo Matulay has based his big splashy colored pictures on the traditional Tenniel drawings, but the text adaptation holds small justification. The familiar rhythms and pattern of words which make Alice a family possession through life have gone, and what is left serves merely as transitional material connecting the favorite poems which, thank goodness, have not been tampered with. Boards. (Kirkus Reviews)

Review

"This edition offers many of the essential notes of Gardener's Annotated Alice at a much more economical price. It's rare that you find such a useful version using Tenniel's illustrations at such an available price."--Karen L. Ruch, University of Alabama

Customer Reviews

Story so deep as to yield in exegesis results beyond belief
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, better known as Lewis Carroll, was a shy, eccentric bachelor who taught mathematics at Christ Church, Oxford. He had a great fondness of playing with mathematics, logic, words, for writing nonsense, and for the company of little girls, especially a little girl called Alice Liddell (rhymes with fiddle), the daughter of Christ Church's Dean. Dodgson's passions somehow fused into two great masterpieces of English literature, the Alice Books, immortal fantasies whose fame surpassed that of all of Carroll's collegues at Oxford put together. If the Alice books had any "purpoise" other than to entertain little girls, it is to send you, the reader, to the pleasures of logic and philosophy and, as Carroll says in the introduction to Learners (1897) "to give a chance of adding a very large item to your stock of mental delights." Carroll's special genius lies in his ability to disguise charmingly the seriousness of his concerns and to make the most playful quality of his work at the same time its didactic crux. In the case of Alice, we are dealing with a very curious, complicated kind of nonsense, which explores the possibilities of the use and abuse of language and is actually based on a profound knowledge of the rules of clear thinging and logical thought. In fact, most of Carroll's apercus and all his jokes are inversions of the rules. Reason is here in service to the imagination, not vice versa. And oh my! Those interesting characters! I like to think that most of the characters that Alice meets are Oxford Dons that the real Alice knew. They sound like Dons with their fine mastery of Socratic logic, their crushing repartee, and the disconcerting and totally unself-conscious eccentricity of their conduct. The wealth of material which Carroll presents for the illumination of his subjects is almost without end. The more I read it, the more I think about it, the more I find. In fact, I have reached the conclusion that AAW is in actual fact a story so deep as to yield results in exegesis almost beyond belief. Also consider purchasing The Annotated Alice by Gardiner. It will help increase your reading pleasure.

Highly entertaining, definitly not just for children
I first read this book when I was eleven because I thought that I might be missing out on something if I didn't. I found Alice's Adventures in Wonderland kind of boring but still good. Then I read Through the Looking Glass, and I loved it! I memorized all of the poems (jabberwocky being my favorite poem in the world), read it about a million times, and recomended it to people. Between Tweedledum and Tweedledee and Humpty Dumpty and all the reat of them, I had a lot of pleasant laughs and thoughts and dreams. Unfortunately, I read that Alice is losing popularity because people aren't at the reading level to read it before they outgrow fairy tales. This is a shame. people should preserve their imaginations just to read an excellent book like this and dream about it for a while. Now I am 13, and I stll treaasure this book. The poem at the very end of the book was so sad in way. it really summed up about how I feel about the magic of childhood.

Take a walk with the dream child.
If you long to be carried away to a world of nonsense and magic, talking beasts and flowers then Alice is the best tour guide you can employ. This is a book that will find a place close to the heart of a reader of any age that has a place inside reserved for whimsy and childlike wonder. As Alice travels through Wonderland and meets many unexpected characters your imagination will soar. Run a race with a dodo bird. Have tea with the doremouse and his friends the mad hatter and the march hare. Thrill at the "Jabberwocky". Alice proves to be a very level headed young lady indeed as she encounters things that become "curiouser and curiouser!" The story meanders through forests and chessboards that are life size never ceasing to amaze the reader with charm and wit. Lewis Carroll completed a masterpiece of fantasy and social comentary in this classic tale. The book is truly a gift to any one who hopes to hold onto childhoods magic.