Product Description

This selection of Carroll's works includes Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel, Through the Looking-Glass, both containing the famous illustrations by Sir John Tenniel. No greater books for children have ever been written. The simple language, dreamlike atmosphere, and fantastical characters are as appealing to young readers today as ever they were. Meanwhile, however, these apparently simple stories have become recognised as adult masterpieces, and extraordinary experiments, years ahead of their time, in Modernism and Surrealism. Through wordplay, parody and logical and philosophical puzzles, Carroll engenders a variety of sub-texts, teasing, ominous or melancholy. For all the surface playfulness there is meaning everywhere. The author reveals himself in glimpses.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #61083 in Books
• Published on: 1992-05-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

About the Author
With an Introduction and Notes by Michael Irwin, Professor of English Literature, University of Kent at Canterbury

Customer Reviews

CORRECTION...
The above synopsis remarks that this edition includes the previously missing 'Wasp in a Wig' episode - in fact it doesn't. That chapter (actually only part of chapter) appears in another edition... however this edition includes comprehensive notes second only to Martin Gardner's annotated edition as well as the full text of Carroll's first draft, 'Alice's Adventures Underground'. As such, this is probably the best value edition of these ingenious and priceless works.

Enjoyment for anyone of any age.
the adventures of Alice is a timeless classic which should be in ever children's library. Following the adventures of Alice, makes you go on an adveture of your own. childern will love it and adults should not disregard it as just a book for childern as there is a deeper side to the story too. Within the frame of a idillic young girl's adventure is Lewis Carroll's own philosophy and debated ideas on an idea world. A story to be enjoyed again and again, for anyone of any age.

Quite charming, really
I must confess I had never read the account of Alice's adventures before. As an adult, though, I found the two books to be quite charming and fun to read. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland is the much more enjoyable tale of the two, perhaps because so much of it was already familiar to me as a part of popular culture. Through the Looking Glass seemed to me to be much more contrived and less magical. I found myself trying to puzzle out hidden messages and motifs in the latter work, while I basically just read the Wonderland story for pure enjoyment. The latter tale also seemed to fall apart at the seams as it began to approach its conclusion. Without rereading the books, I have trouble seeing all of the complex and satirical things mentioned by academic types (such as a critique of Victorian society and contemporary educational methods), nor does the whole chess game motif make complete sense to me, although the workings of the game apparently pleased the mathematician in Carroll's alter-ego enough that he attempts to explain it at the start of Through the Looking Glass.

It was a treat to see the original illustrations of John Tenniel interspersed throughout both stories, despite the fact that Alice appears a good bit more sullen than I envision her in my own mind. It was also good to be formally introduced to such well-known entities as the Cheshire Cat, although Humpty Dumpty certainly comes across as a rather taciturn figure. For those of you who love puns, Lewis Carroll offers you a gold mine of them, although I doubt that many children will actually understand very many of them until they reach an age in which they will probably reject a reading of Carroll as "baby stuff." I'm no expert on children's literature (or on children, for that matter), but the story of Alice's adventures would seem to offer a free ticket to an enticing fantasy world for youngsters and a delightfully quaint vacation spot for adult readers.