Alice's Journey Beyond The Moon

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Lenny's description:
This book is presented as a long lost story, recently discovered behind a shelf in Christ Church’s library. It is rumored that Lewis Carroll wrote it as a wedding gift to Alice Liddell, however, for some reason never presented it to her.

R.J. Carter (listed as the annotator and editor, but who is in fact the actual author) added annotations to the margins, trying to explain all the obscure references Carroll is supposed to have added to the story.

The illustrations are from Lucy Wright’s hand. I must say they are quite good, even though they aren’t really to my personal taste.

The book is about Alice, using her father’s telescope to watch the eclipse. Suddenly she finds herself shutting up like a telescope, and she ends up on the moon, where she meets several interesting characters, like the Man on the Moon, the Queen, and Hayah and Hattah.

The story by itself is nice, but lacks creativeness. Several characters from the previous books are recycled, and it contains only very few clever new puns in Carrollian style. Instead, often some lines from the other books are rephrased in a slightly different way. Carter does succeed in having Alice act in her familiar, unemotional but curious way.

Luckily, the annotations add a lot to the story. Just like in Martin Gardner’s ‘Annotated Alice’, they help us determine the date on which the story takes place, link the story to events in Carroll’s life, and explain the parodies on existing works. It is obvious that Carter put a lot of work into researching them. Some ‘hidden meanings’, however, are quite far-fetched, like the doublets, although I thought well of the anagrams.

It may be a good thing that ‘Carroll’ eventually decided not to give the book as a wedding gift to Alice. Although the author obviously went through a lot of trouble to recreate the layers of meaning found in ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ and ‘Through the Looking Glass’, it just cannot rival with the originals. But then, which story can?

Seller's description:
"They say that the moon is made of green cheese," said Alice, stroking the lazy cat's belly. "Do you believe that, Snowball? Father says it's nothing more than a great white stone, and I suppose I ought to believe him; but really, how can one be sure without ever having been there?" So begins a truly extraordinary tale as Alice finds herself meeting all manner of strange creatures as she sets off on new adventures. This is a completely new story by R J Carter, but has been presented as if it were a lost Lewis Carroll manuscript, complete with annotations and original illustrations. This book is guaranteed to delight both children and adults.


Product details:

Seller name: (Shipping rates and seller details)
Item number (ASIN): 1903889766
Author: R J Carter
Creator: value: Lucy Wright
Role: Illustrator
Edition: 1
ISBN: 1903889766
Languages: English x English x English
Manufacturer: Telos Publishing
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 98
Package Dimensions: 30 x 580 x 810 (hundredths-inches)
Publication Date: August 25, 2004
Publisher: Telos Publishing
Binding: Paperback

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Add your own review!

The Third "Alice" indeed
R J Carter misleadingly tells us that this is an original Carroll text, saying that the unfinished story was lost behind a bookshelf in Oxford all this time. While this may not be true, Carter certainly has discovered the Carrollian charm that the story would have contained. It's written with as much love and playfulness as the "Alice" books are, not to mention the astounding puns on par with Carroll himself! A great addition to the "Alice" collector's library.

Four and a half stars
- by Holly "hoshi" Jackso on September 29, 2009