Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Price: $20,000.00
Tenniel, John. Hard Cover. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1866. First Edition. Near Fine.
With 42 black and white illustrations by John Tenniel. First edition, second issue (with suppressed first UK sheets and new title page); with variant B title page with the 'b' in 'bye' directly above the "T" in "Tenniel." Finely bound in red morocco by Bayntun-Riviere (signed by binder to front turn-in), with an illustration of Alice to the front board in gilt, illustration of the Cheshire Cat to the rear board in gilt, spine with five raised bands, lettered, decorated, and ruled in gilt, all edges gilt, wide turn-ins, and marbled endpapers. About fine, with minimal spotting to some pages, and contemporary gift inscription to verso of half-title page. Overall, a magnificently bound copy of the earliest obtainable issue of Alice. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland tells the story of a young and exceedingly rational girl who falls through a rabbit hole into a surreal world filled with strange and fanciful characters, including the Mad Hatter, the White Rabbit, the Cheshire Cat, and Mock Turtle. The story culminates in a court trial at the behest of the bloodthirsty Queen of Hearts, with Alice being called as a witness. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson wrote the nonsensical story under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll for 10-year-old Alice Liddell, who was a frequent subject of his revolutionary portrait photography. A well of inspiration and fascination for readers for more than 150 years, the book was ranked number two on the BBC's 100 Greatest Children's Books of All Time poll in 2023. The true first issue of Alice was published by Macmillan in London in a print run of 2,000 copies, but was quickly suppressed because neither author nor artist approved of the quality of the reproductive illustrations. Macmillan sold its remaining pages to Appleton in New York, who bound this second issue with a cancel title page. Aside from the new title, the Appleton Alice agrees with all textual issues of the 1865 Alice, including the slight variants on page [5] and [6], which neither indicate collecting priority nor earlier printing. Similarly, the slightly different Appleton title pages are the result of the book being "printed in pairs from two nominally identical settings of type." Only a handful of the true first issues survived (many were donated to children's hospitals), making the Appleton Alice highly sought after by collectors. Item #LC139
