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, no. 392 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. Thirteen colour plates mounted onto brown art paper and protected by captioned tissue guards. In addition there are lots of charming line drawings. An unusually fine, bright copy, with buckram and gilt clean and fresh, all plates perfect, some offsetting to the endpapers.
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: 44724
Sold
We have sold this item, but similar items
may become available in the future