I have been in the rare and antiquarian book business for over forty years; my family has been in the rare books business since 1876. Rare books are in my blood.
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
London: Macmillan and Co., 1899. Item #06602
A Classic Macmillan Issue Elegantly Rebound
CARROLL, Lewis. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. With Forty-Two Illustrations by John Tenniel. London: Macmillan & Co., 1899.
Octavo (8 x 5 3/8 inches; 203 x 137 mm.). [3–11], 12–122, [2] pp. Text block browned.
Handsomely bound ca. 1960 by Zaehnsdorf in full red polished calf, covers triple-ruled in gilt, upper cover with central Alice medallion in gilt, lower cover with Queen of Hearts medallion. Spine with five raised bands, elaborately decorated and lettered in gilt in compartments, with two green morocco labels. Gilt board edges and turn-ins, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt. A very attractive copy.
A pleasing late-Victorian Macmillan edition of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, retaining the classic suite of forty-two illustrations by John Tenniel, whose visual interpretation remains inseparable from the text itself. By the end of the nineteenth century, Tenniel’s images had become canonical, shaping the enduring iconography of Alice, the Mad Hatter, and the Queen of Hearts.
This 1899 issue represents the continued popularity of Carroll’s masterpiece into the fin-de-siècle period, when demand for the book remained strong and Macmillan maintained it in steady production. While later than the coveted early printings of the 1860s, such editions offer an accessible and highly readable form of the text, particularly when elevated by fine binding.
The present copy is notably enhanced by a mid-twentieth-century Zaehnsdorf binding of excellent quality, the red polished calf and decorative medallions lending a suitably rich and playful character to the work. Zaehnsdorf bindings of this type are widely regarded for their craftsmanship and durability, making them both practical and aesthetically appealing for collectors.
Price: $850.00