Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Originally written for 'the real Alice', Alice Liddell, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland has become one of the world's best-loved children's classics. This wonderful journey into Alice's imagination has fascinated and delighted readers of all ages. Although the story was written for a real child, Tenniel's original illustrations were quite different to the dark-haired Alice Liddell. Michael has returned to the photographs taken by Lewis Carroll of the 'real' Alice, and created a wonderful imaginative progression of illustrations, moving from sepia-toned realistic images, to the vivid colours and magical landscapes of Wonderland. Michael's Alice is bold, curious, dark-haired and distinctive - very different from some other contemporary Alices!

Source of legend and lyric, reference and conjecture, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is for most children pure pleasure in prose. While adults try to decipher Lewis Carroll's putative use of complex mathematical codes in the text, or debate his alleged use of opium, young readers simply dive with Alice through the rabbit hole, pursuing "The dream-child moving through a land / Of wonders wild and new." There they encounter the White Rabbit, the Queen of Hearts, the Mock Turtle, and the Mad Hatter, among a multitude of other characters--extinct, fantastical, and commonplace creatures. Alice journeys through this Wonderland, trying to fathom the meaning of her strange experiences. But they turn out to be "curiouser and curiouser," seemingly without moral or sense.

For more than 130 years, children have reveled in the delightfully non-moralistic, non-educational virtues of this classic. In fact, at every turn, Alice's new companions scoff at her traditional education. The Mock Turtle, for example, remarks that he took the "regular course" in school: Reeling, Writhing, and branches of Arithmetic-Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision. Carroll believed John Tenniel's illustrations were as important as his text. Naturally, Carroll's instincts were good; the masterful drawings are inextricably tied to the well-loved story. (All ages) --Emilie Coulter