All Posts Filed in ‘Products & reviews

Alice’s Adventures under Water available as eBook

I am very happy to announce that my book “Alice’s Adventures under Water” is now also available as eBook!

My book came out in 2021 as a paperback and I was regularly asked whether it was also available for eReaders. Well, it finally is!

The story is available in two formats: ePub and Kindle.
The ePub version can be downloaded from my website (cheapest option), Kobo, and Google Books.
The Kindle reader version can be downloaded from Amazon.

It’s out just in time for Christmas, so you can put it on your wish list, buy it as a gift for a fellow Alice in Wonderland lover, or treat yourself to something to read during the holidays!

Thesis: “A New Evaluation: The Theological Influence of F. D. Maurice on the Imaginative Works of Lewis Carroll”

Karen Gardiner published her thesis called “A New Evaluation: The Theological Influence of F. D. Maurice on the Imaginative Works of Lewis Carroll.”

The thesis explores how the fictional work of Lewis Carroll was influenced by mid nineteenth century eschatological ideas and controversies, particularly in relation to how eternity was understood and explored by F. D. Maurice and other Broad Church theologians who were friends and acquaintances of Carroll.

Read full post >

New book: “Design Theory, Language and Architectural Space in Lewis Carroll”

There’s a new book that analyses Lewis Carroll’s works: “Design Theory, Language and Architectural Space in Lewis Carroll” by Caroline Dionne.

In both “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” and “Through the Looking-Glass and what Alice found there”, we can find spacial challenges, like the strange rabbit hole, the chessboard-like landscape, and how Alice gets stuck when she grows. Here, Carroll plays with different understandings of space: space as a set of physical or material boundaries, or as an abstract geometry.

Read full post >

Auction: The Alice in Wonderland collection of Stephen and Nancy Farber

On November 30th, many Alice in Wonderland items (mainly books from other illustrators) will be auctioned at Potter & Potter Auctions, Chicago.

From the Potter & Potter website:

For nearly four decades, the Farbers have been “mad as a hatter” when it came to collecting everything related to Alice in Wonderland. One of their main focuses was on the hundreds of various illustrators that, since 1865, have been producing their own renditions of the characters and scenes from this popular children’s book. They also had a deep fascination for the many translations that were done including collecting one of the most important which just so happened to be the “original Alice’s copy” of Vladimir Nabokov’s Russian translation of Alice.

Other highspots of this sale include a presentation copy of Alice from Carroll to the British illustrator Richard Doyle, another presentation copy of Alice but this time from John Tenniel with one of his famous pencil sketches, a massive 6-foot prototype celestial globe from one of London’s leading globe makers that features all of the Alice characters, and many other rarities including toys, posters, art and more.

Date: 30 November 2023
More information: https://www.potterauctions.com/auctions/upcoming (no auction page yet, you may have to scroll down the page)

[edit 9 November 2023]
The catalog page is now online: https://auctions.potterauctions.com/Catalog.aspx?auctionid=1168

The auction notably includes a first edition, second issue ‘Appleton Alice’ (comprising sheets of the suppressed 1865 printing with a new title-page) together with a first edition of ‘Through the Looking-Glass and what Alice found there’ (Macmillan and Co, 1872) – estimated to sell for $8,000-$12,000, and an individual first edition of ‘Through the Looking-Glass and what Alice found there’ ($600-$800 estimate).

[edit] The items went for the following prices:

  •  Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. New York: D. Appleton, 1866, together with Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There. London: Macmillan and Co., 1872 [1871]: $10,200 (estimate: $8,000 – $12,000)
  • Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. London: Macmillan and Co., 1866 [1865]; presentation copy, inscribed by Dodgson to Richard Doyle, together with Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There. London: Macmillan and Co., 1872 [1871]: $36,000 (estimate: $30,000 – $50,000)
  • Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. London: Macmillan and Co., 1866 [1865]; presentation copy, inscribed by Tenniel with drawing: $13,200 (estimate: $15,000 – $25,000)
  • Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. London: Macmillan and Co., 1866 [1865]; with red gilt cover depicting The White Rabbit, in folding box: $6,600 (estimate: $4,000 – $6,000)
  • Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There. London: Macmillan and Co., 1872 [1871]: $1,560 (estimate: $600 – $800)
  • Alice’s Adventures Under Ground. Being a Facsimile of the Original Ms. Book Afterwards Developed into “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”. London and New York: Macmillan and Co., 1886; inscribed by Dodgson: $2,400 (estimate: $4,000 – $6,000)
  • Alice’s Adventures Under Ground. Being a Facsimile of the Original Ms. Book Afterwards Developed into “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”. London and New York: Macmillan and Co., 1886: $660 (estimate: $600 – $800)
  •  Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1869; first authorized American edition: $660 (estimate: $600 – $800)
  • Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There. Boston: Lee and Shepard; New York: Lee, Shepard, and Dillingham, 1872: $570 (estimate: $300 – $500)
  •  Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Mount Vernon, NY: [William Edwin Rudge for] The Limited Editions Club, 1932; with wood engravings by Bruno Rollitz after John Tenniel, limited edition number 163 of 1500, signed by Alice Hargreaves, together with Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There. Mount Vernon, NY: [William Edwin Rudge for] The Limited Editions Club, 1935; with engravings re-engraved by Frederic Warde after John Tenniel, limited edition number 1392 of 1500, signed by Alice Hargreaves: $4,560 (estimate: $2,000 – $3,000)

For sale: 1st edition of Sir John Tenniel’s wood-engraved illustrations to ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ & ‘Through the Looking-Glass’

For collectors: a copy from the limited edition of “Sir John Tenniel’s Wood-engraved Illustrations to ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ & ‘Through the Looking-Glass'” is now for sale!

This book set was part of the library of art lover and collector José Neistein, who passed away in 2020. It is now sold by his nephew and trustee, Rubens Neistein.

Read full post >

Review: “Reflecting Alice. A Textual Commentary on Through the Looking-Glass”

The book “Reflecting Alice. A Textual Commentary on Through the Looking-Glass” is a follow-up to the book “Elucidating Alice. A Textual Commentary on Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”, written by Selwyn Goodacre. It provides insight into the quality of Carroll’s writing skills and the narrative structure of his story.

Reflecting Alice - coverAfter 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.)

Read full post >