Hidden Treasures
“The chief difficulty Alice had at first was managing her flamingo”…
Witty, imaginative and anti-establishment, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland has influenced music, art, films, cultures and minds around the world for over a hundred and fifty years. Its been translated into 97 languages and never been out of print. Remy was given a set of postcards with copies of the 42 black and white wood engravings created by artist John Tenniel specially for the book. We look at them closely and ponder over the characters. We’re reading the book (again). Charles Dodgson, an Oxford University scholar of mathematics and a teacher, wrote the novel under his pen name Lewis Carroll. He was inspired after going boating together with family friends and keeping the children entertained by making up a story. He began writing the manuscript of his story the very next day and presented it with his own drawings to muse Alice Liddell two years later. It was first printed in Oxford in June 1865 but almost immediately recalled as John, the illustrator, was unhappy with the print quality. Charles had requested 50 copies be leather bound to give to friends and family. He asked for all of them to be returned. One of these legendary first edition copies was sold at Christie’s in 2015 for between $2-3 million dollars. They are incredibly rare, a bibliophile’s dream. Remy and I imagine finding this coy treasure in an attic laden with coffee-coloured dust or inside the lining of a second-hand suitcase under the stairs! We make each other laugh with random quotes. Thank you to yet another dedicated soul who spun years of their life into writing. Charles was worried he wouldn’t make his money back on the second print run that he forked out for. Luckily its success went far beyond the six hundred quid he invested. It deftly and indelibly influenced the collective consciousness of humanity forever.
Read Lewis Carroll’s first copy in his very neat hand-writing online at the British Museum (https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/alices-adventures-under-ground-the-original-manuscript-version-of-alices-adventures-in-wonderland#)