[10], 192 pp. Illustrated with wood-engraved frontispiece and 41 wood-engraved vignettes from drawings by John Tenniel. 7¾x5, original red cloth ruled in gilt, gilt vignettes on front and back covers, spine lettered in gilt, light blue/gray endpapers, a.e.g. First Published Edition.
Presentation copy inscribed in pencil with a sketch of the Mad Hatter by Tenniel on the half-title, "With JT's kind regards, Xmas 1867." The JT is Tenniel's characteristic monogram. Any original drawing by Tenniel of an Alice in Wonderland character is very scarce and highly desirable, and the presence of such a sketch in a first published edition of Alice is perhaps unique, there apparently being no other recorded examples. The true first edition of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is a legendary rarity, and unobtainable. It was printed in 1865, but immediately suppressed as Tenniel objected to the "disgraceful printing" of the illustrations. Warren Weaver located only nineteen copies of the original issue in his 1971 census. The remainder of the sheets from the 1865 printing, some 1,952 sets, were shipped to Appleton in New York for the American edition, the tastes of the citizens of the United States being deemed less discerning that those of Britons. The American edition, with a new title-page dated 1866, was not issued until about six months after the reprinted British edition. Gordon Ray, in The Illustrator and the Book in England, notes that "As an example of the printer's craft this edition is greatly to be preferred to its predecessor." The presence of a fine original pencil sketch by Tenniel of the Mad Hatter, very similar to the drawing reproduced on p.170 (though reversed), make this a highly desirable, and possibly unique, copy of the most enduring children's book of the nineteenth century, and perhaps of all time.
Condition:
Recased with repairs at spine ends, the endpapers appear to be the originals. Rubbing to covers and spine, corners worn and showing; occasional repairs within, mostly marginal, 2 illustrations lightly colored in pencil, half-title starting to split along gutter, a tender copy of a very significant book, in good to very good condition.