Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
William Heinemann, 1907.
First Rackham edition. Edition de Luxe, one of 1100 copies printed on handmade paper. Large 4to. Publisher's full white buckram, with gilt titles and vignettes. Top edge gilt, others uncut. Pictorial endpapers, with usual offsetting. Thirteen colour plates mounted onto brown art paper and protected by captioned tissue guards. In addition there are lots of charming line drawings. A fine, bright copy.
This is an unusually nice version of this book, the handmade paper, larger format and the tipped in plates all add to the appeal. Unusually the Edition Deluxe of this book was numbered, but not signed by the artist, who was travelling at the time of publication.
The story of Alice had a special resonance with Rackham, as he wrote, "My experiences of the book are absolutely delightful... it was read aloud to us (3 about the same age, 11, 10, 9 sat) by my father & and at once became a household word... It is possible that my father's appreciation of it helped us children too. It was read with full dramatic effect, the songs sung and so forth".
Certainly Rackham's Alice is beautifully drawn, fresh faced and rosy cheeked, her sense of wonder clearly apparent. Carroll's fantasy world is perfectly suited to Rackham's humour and vivid imagination, making this a most appealing interpretation of Alice.
Stock ID: 40657
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