Alice s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, Alice Hargreaves, Signed, limited editions (7 results)

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Book Club Edition. LIMITED EDITION BOTH SIGNED BY ALICE HARGREAVES. 2 vols., illustrated by John Tenniel, Alice additionally signed by Frederic Warde on the colophon page, each limited to 1500 copies, Alice is #547, TTLG is #1276. Publishers original gilt stamped red and blue morocco, all edges gilt, inner and outer hinges fine, head and foot of spine fine, with the original cloth slipcases, no previous ownership bookplate or markings of any kind, VG/VG. Signed by Author(s).

Together two volumes. LIMITED EDITION, EACH BOOK SIGNED BY ALICE HARGREAVES, the "original Alice", LIMITED to 1500 hand-numbered copies, the first volume, one of only about 500 copies that were signed by Alice is also SIGNED by the typographer and binder Frederick Warde. The second volume, also one of those signed by Alice. Both volumes from the printing house of William Edwin Rudge in Mount Vernon, New York. For their editions of Lewis Carroll's two beloved 'Alice' books the L.E.C. wisely retained the original illustrations by John Tenniel, now engraved on wood by Bruno Rollitz and Frederick Warde. Tenniel's illustrations are quite rightfully called the most famous images from children's literature. 8vo, in the publisher's handsome bindings by Frederick Warde of full red morocco and full blue calfm with uniform elaborate gilt panel designs on the spines and covers, the spines also feature gilt lettering and within the panels are gilt tools of characters such as Alice, the Mad Hatter, the White Rabbit, Queen of Hearts, etc., the page edges are gilt. Each volume in the rarely surviving original glassine wrappers and in the cloth-covered slip cases with designs matching the book spines on the back strips. xiii, 183, [1]; xiii, [2], 212, [1] pp. A beautiful set, both of the books are pristine and in the finest of condition, without flaw inside and out. The rare glassine wrappers with some edge-wear, chipping and browning as one would expect, the slipcases in fine condition with just a bit of minor mellowing from age. LIMITED EDITIONS EACH BOOK SIGNED BY THE ORIGINAL ALICE, ALICE LIDDELL HARGREAVES, who, as a child, was a friend of, and photography model for, Lewis Carroll. One of the stories he told her during a boating trip became the classic 1865 children's novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The Liddell family had moved to Oxford in 1856. Soon after this move, Alice met Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll), when they encountered him photographing the cathedral on 25 April 1856. He became a close friend of the Liddell family in subsequent years. For this handsome edition the Limited Edition Club has retained John Tenniel's illustrations, which are some of the most charming to ever appear in children's literature. These are original to the Alice stories as they were when originally published in 1865 and 1871. The Alice books have proven themselves to be among the most enduring classics of literature--for children or adults. ALICE's importance might be gauged by the fact that it is one of only three books written for children (five, if one includes Aesop's Fables and Froebel's "Mutter- und Kose-Leider") included in the "Printing and the Mind of Man" exhibition. ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND and its sequel, THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS, are "unique among 'juveniles' in appealing equally--if not more strongly --to adults. Written by an Oxford don, a clergyman, and a professional mathematician, they abound in characters--the White Knight, the Red Queen, the Mad Hatter, Humpty Dumpty--who are a part of everybody's mental furniture. And the philosophic profundity of scores, if not hundreds, of these characters' observations, long household words wherever English is spoken, gains mightily from the delicious fantasy of their setting" (PMM 354).

Hardcover. This handsome Limited Editions Club edition of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, pseudonym of Charles Dodgson (1832-1898), is noteworthy for a trifecta of virtues for being in exceptional, truly fine condition, for retaining both the original glassine wrapper and slipcase, and for being signed by Alice Hargreaves, inspiration for the titular "Alice", and by the printer and typographer, Eric Warde.There were 1,500 copies issued of this 1932 Limited Editions Club edition, bound in extensively gilt-tooled and illustrated red Morocco, issued in a glassine dust wrapper and housed in a blue cloth slipcase with spine illustrations mirroring those of the binding. The in-text illustrations are by John Tenniel. This copy's colophon is hand-numbered "956" and signed "Frederic Warde" below his printed name. Within a debossed panel on the recto of the blank preceding the frontispiece is the signature of "Alice Hargreaves". It is noteworthy that Alice resisted signing other editions during her lifetime and signed only some copies of this edition (reportedly fewer than 1,000 and perhaps as few as 500) just a few years before her death.Condition of this copy is magnificently fine, certainly owing to the protection of both the original glassine dust jacket and the slipcase. Both the binding and contents are immaculate, with no discernible wear or deterioration. The sole "flaw" noted is mild differential toning to the endpapers corresponding to the dust jacket flaps, confirming that this copy has spent life jacketed. The original glassine dust jacket quite rare is worn and toned, with various tears and perimeter losses. Its chief virtues lie in remaining present and in having protected the splendid book beneath. The publisher's slipcase is near fine, with only trivial hints of wear to extremities and slight color shift to the spine. Lewis Carroll made numerous published contributions to mathematics and politics, publishing his first book at the age of 28. Exhaustively titled A Syllabus of Plane Algebraical Geometry, Systematically Arranged, with Formal Definitions, Postulates, and Axioms, this work may have inadvertently triggered Carroll's gift for encapsulating the plausibly ridiculous. Despite his scholarly career and publications, it was Alice's Adventures in Wonderland that would introduce and define him to posterity. Akin to how the fictional story begins, the real one started when Carroll had to come up with an impromptu tale to entertain a child while sitting along a river bank. Carroll's famous protagonist was based on the young Alice Pleasance Hargreaves, nee Liddell (1852-1934), whose father Henry George Liddell became the new dean of Christ's Church, where Carroll lectured on mathematics. The middle of three children, Alice was not yet four when Carroll first made her acquaintance. Carroll retained a close and trusted friendship with the Liddell family for seven years, during which time "his emotional attachment toAlicegrew and ripened, and for some seven years he lived the charmed life of a cherished friend and sometimes consort to the beautiful, impetuous child.In late June 1863, however, some event that he recorded on a page in his diary, but which aDodgsonheir later razored out, caused a breach in the relationship Although he and theLiddellsmanaged again to be civil to one anotherDodgsonkept a formal distance from his 'ideal child friend'".Alice asks at the outset of the adventure: what is the use of a book without pictures or conversations? Carroll's story and life surely answers the question. "HadDodgson [Carroll]never written theAlicebooks, he would have earned a nod or a paragraph in various specialized histories: mathematics and logic, photography, parliamentary voting systems, and games and puzzles. But theAlicebooks have earned him a place in the firmament of the great, for they are not only acts of imaginative genius but they also revolutionized writing for children." (ODNB).

Hardcover. John Tenniel (illustrator). In publisher's heavily gilt-decorated full red morocco leather. With the original illustrations by John Tenniel. Copy #1327 of 1500 with typography and binding by Frederick Warde who has SIGNED the colophon page. Additionally SIGNED for the publisher on a separate page bound in before the title page by Alice Hargreaves, "the original Alice," one of only about 500 copies of the total edition of 1500 copies that were signed by her a few years before her death. Alice refused to sign other editions of this famous book in her lifetime, written by Carroll for her when she was young Alice Liddell, but she was convinced with the help of monetary compensation to sign these copies. She would also sign two years later copies of THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS by the same publisher. A rare opportunity to acquire one of the most famous children's books ever published here signed by the subject of the book. Many have praised this book, but perhaps novelist Sir Walter Besant's remark is the most insightful: "It admits us into a state of being which, until it was written, was not only unexplored but undiscovered." Very light rubbing to the spine tips and corners, spine a bit sunned. Near Fine in a somewhat darkened, Very Good slipcase.

Condition: Near Fine. First edition thus. Number 1368 of 1500 copies signed on the limitation page by designer Frederic Warde and signed on a tipped in sheet by Alice Hargreaves, the author's inspiration for the book. Full crushed morocco ornately stamped in gilt. All edges brightly gilt. A Near Fine copy with minor darkening to the spine, but otherwise a handsome copy. Lacking the publisher's original slipcase, but this copy housed in a custom blue cloth slipcase retaining the original slipcase spine. Carroll's Alice in Wonderland is as memorable for its riddles and rhymes as it is for its rich cast of characters. Notable among them is Alice herself, an exceptionally curious and brave little girl who follows the White Rabbit down his hole and into the fantastical world of Wonderland. Ruled by the temperamental Queen of Hearts, Wonderland pushes Alice to push past logic and work toward creative and humorous solutions to social problems. Near Fine.

Condition: Near Fine. First edition thus. Number 871 of 1500 copies signed on the limitation page by designer Frederic Warde and signed on a tipped in sheet by Alice Hargreaves, the author's inspiration for the book. Full crushed morocco ornately stamped in gilt. All edges brightly gilt. A Near Fine copy with minor soiling to the boards, but otherwise a handsome copy. Lacking the publisher's original slipcase, but this copy housed in a plain red cloth slipcase. Carroll's Alice in Wonderland is as memorable for its riddles and rhymes as it is for its rich cast of characters. Notable among them is Alice herself, an exceptionally curious and brave little girl who follows the White Rabbit down his hole and into the fantastical world of Wonderland. Ruled by the temperamental Queen of Hearts, Wonderland pushes Alice to push past logic and work toward creative and humorous solutions to social problems. Near Fine.

Limited Edition. One of 1,500 numbered copies signed by typographer and binder Frederic Warde on the colophon, this being copy no.295. This copy is one of a smaller complement (ca.500 copies) signed by Alice Hargreaves (the "original Alice") on a preliminary leaf. Octavo (22.5cm); full dark red morocco, with titling and decorative elements stamped in gilt on spine and covers; all edges gilt; [iii],xiv,182,[6]pp; illus. Hint of sunning to spine, a few lightly rubbed spots toward spine ends, a gentle bump to crown, resulting in a 1.25cm crack to upper front joint; contents fresh; about Near Fine, lacking the publisher's original slipcase. An attractive production of Carroll's beloved novel, signed by the woman who was the inspiration for the main character. Lovett 90a; Bibliography of the Fine Books Published by The Limited Editions Club, No.36.