The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition

The classic Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, collected under one cover, include notes from Martin Gardner on the meanings behind the words and solutions to the riddles buried in the famous text.

A welcome, greatly expanded third edition of Gardners beloved critical edition of Carrolls Victorian fairy tales. One of the longest ongoing love affairs in literature has to be that between Gardner, a prolific, popular writer on math and science, and Carrolls ostensible childrens tales, Alices Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. With a dedication rare even among scholars, Gardner has tracked down origins and meanings of the wordplay and mathematical puzzles the sly Carroll embedded in his texts. He has also researched Charles Dodgson's life and illuminated the two stories sly parody of high Victorian culture. This new volume combines the notes from The Annotated Alice (1960) and More Annotated Alice (1990) with Gardners latest discoveries, offering both ardent fans of Carroll's work and newcomers a chance to read the texts in the light of Gardner's labors. The result is rather like sitting in on the creation of a work of art; the manner in which the shy mathematician and tutor Dodgson poured everything that fascinated him (children's games, chess, mathematical riddles and logic, an amused view of Victorian literature and society) into the work by his alter ego Carroll is illuminated through Gardner's lucid and copious notes. They run in a narrow (and surprisingly unobtrusive) column accompanying Carroll's text on each page, turning the book into a fluid mix of Carroll and Gardner. The illustrations, by John Tenniel, also provide fertile ground for Gardner's commentary. The notes are so clear, enthusiastic, and helpful that it is now hard to imagine Carroll without Gardner. A unique collaboration has produced, for once, a book that lives up to its name. As close to a definitive take on a classic work as anyone is likely to come. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Clarkson Potter published The Annotated Alice in 1960, and Gardner published the sequel More Annotated Alice in 1990. Here, Gardner combines and expands both to produce The Definitive Edition. This presents the full texts of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Through the Looking-Glass, and "The Wasp in a Wig," a "suppressed" chapter of Looking-Glass. Each of these texts is accompanied by a lengthy marginal commentary that identifies historical and literary references and allusions, explains Carroll's logical and mathematical puzzles, and interprets colloquialisms and idiomatic expressions. Gardner's commentary is sufficiently detailed to be informative without burdening Alice with excessive pedantic baggage. The Definitive Edition also includes Tenniel's original illustrations and an exhaustive annotated list by David Shaefer of Alice on the screen. This is a happy contribution to those who appreciate Lewis Carroll.
-Thomas L. Cooksey, Armstrong State Coll., Savannah, GA
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.