Happy 150th Birthday Alice

“All in the golden afternoon…Thus grew the tale of Wonderland”

The 150th anniversary this year of the publication of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, which first appeared in print in 1865, is a literary occasion being celebrated around the world with special events, performances, conferences and exhibitions. Lewis Carroll, the pen name of Oxford mathematician Charles Dodgson (1832-1898), first conceived the story told in this immensely influential and much loved children’s book for his dean’s daughter, Alice Liddell. In honor of this anniversary, we would like to highlight three books from our Children’s Illustrated Literature Collection.

Adelphi holds a copy of the 1869 edition of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, published by Macmillan and Company four years after the first edition. Its original red cloth binding has images of Alice and the Cheshire Cat, and this edition includes 42 illustrations by John Tenniel (1820-1914). Tenniel was Punch magazine’s head caricaturist, and his drawings for Carroll’s text capture the essence of the tale. Among the scenes illustrated by Tenniel is the famous “Mad Tea-Party” attended by Alice, the March Hare, the Hatter and a sleeping Dormouse.
 

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll; with forty-two illustrations by John Tenniel. London : Macmillan, 1869.

Archives and Special Collections also has a 1907 edition of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland which includes an introductory verse by Austin Dobson announcing “a fresh Costumier” for the illustrations. The English fantasy artist Arthur Rackham (1867-1939) created 13 color plates and 15 line drawings for this edition. Rackham’s rendition of the tea party has a mysterious air, colored in soft hues of mauve, gray, brown and ivory. His art typifies the golden age of children’s book illustration from the late 19th to the early 20th centuries.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll; illustrated by Arthur Rackham. London:  W. Heinemann; New York: Doubleday, Page & Co., 1907.

Also in our collection is an unusual, illustrated music book, Songs from Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, published in 1921. Lucy E. Broadwood created music for voice and piano to accompany Lewis Carroll’s lyrics. Each song comes alive through whimsical sepia tone drawings and a dozen color plates by the English cartoonist and children's book illustrator Charles Folkard (1878-1963). On the book's cover, Alice is surrounded by her Wonderland friends and is depicted as a modern child of the 1920s.

Songs from Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, words by Lewis Carroll ; music by Lucy E. Broadwood ; illustrations by Charles Folkard. London : A. & C. Black, 1921.

--by Elayne Gardstein