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After the book “Elucidating Alice. A Textual Commentary on Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” was published, it left us eagerly looking forward to its sequel. We had to wait as long as Victorian readers had to wait for the sequel to Alice’s first adventures, because “Reflecting Alice. A Textual Commentary on Through the Looking-Glass” did not appear until December 2021 – presumably not coincidentally, exactly 150 years after the original book was published.

I only happened to find out about its availability in January. Perhaps the publication was not promoted much, or the book was published later than it states on its title page. (Which, by the way, would be very much in the style of Carroll’s original, which was published in December 1871, while the title page stated 1872 – and after all, it is a book about a mirror world.)

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“Lize’s Avonturen in het Wonderland” was originally published in 1875. It is very much abridged (21 pages) and contains 7 enlarged and colored illustrations by Tenniel. It was the fifth translation of the story in the world, but the first one that contained colored illustrations.

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I have been considering writing my own version for years and I finally felt it was time to give it a try.

Sequels to the ‘Alice’ books have been published before, but I must admit that I was often a bit disappointed in them, as I always felt something was missing. Either the writing style did not feel very Carrollian, or the story contained little to no poetry, or the puns and jokes were not up to standard, or there were no hidden references, or other characteristic Carrollian elements were missing. It may be arrogant, but I thought that, even though English is not my native language, with all my background knowledge I surely could do better?

So here it is: another ‘Alice’ story in which she encounters silly characters in silly situations, this time in and under-water world. I’ve put in jokes, puns, and poetry, as well as more or less obscure references to well known people, politics, poems and songs, and mathematics. I also tried to incorporate into my story other specific elements that one can find in Carroll’s ‘Alice’ stories, like his particular use of punctuation, exactly 12 chapters, the covert return of the Hatter and the March Hare, and more. And as all good books must have pictures, it contains exactly 42 illustrations in the style of John Tenniel, skilfully drawn by the talented Robert Louis Black!

The book is now available for purchase. You can order it directly from me through this website, but you can also find it at Amazon and other online bookstores, or order a copy from your local bookseller.