Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

First published in 1865, these endearing tales of an imaginative child's dream world by Lewis Carroll, pen name for Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, are written with charming simplicity. While delighting children with a heroine who represents their own thoughts and feelings about growing up, the tale is appreciated by adults as a gentle satire on education, politics, literature, and Victorian life in general. All the delightful and bizarre inhabitants of Wonderland are here: the White Rabbit and the Cheshire Cat, the hooka-smoking Caterpillar and the Mad Hatter, the March Hare and the Ugly Duchess . . and, of course, Alice herself - growing alternately taller and smaller, attending demented tea parties and eccentric croquet games, observing everything with clarity and rational amazement.

Excerpt provided by Syndetics

From Chapter IV: The Rabbit Sends in a Little Bill It was the White Rabbit, trotting slowly back again, and looking anxiously about as it went, as if it had lost something; and she heard it muttering to itself, "The Duchess! The Duchess! Oh my dear paws! Oh my fur and whiskers! She'll get me executed, as sure as ferrets are ferrets! Where can I have dropped them, I wonder?" Alice guessed in a moment that it was looking for the fan and the pair of white kidgloves, and she very good-naturedly began hunting about for them, but they were nowhere to be seen--everything seemed to have changed since her swim in the pool; and the great hall, with the glass table and the little door, had vanished completely. Very soon the Rabbit noticed Alice, as she went hunting about, and called out to her, in an angry tone, "Why, Mary Ann, what are you doing out here? Run home this moment, and fetch me a pair of gloves and a fan! Quick, now!" And Alice was so much frightened that she ran o at once in the direction it pointed to, without trying to explain the mistake that it had made. "He took me for his housemaid," she said to herself as she ran. "How surprised he'll be when he finds out who I am! But I'd better take him his fan and gloves--that is, if I can find them." As she said this, she came upon a neat little house, on the door of which was a bright brass plate with the name "W. RABBIT " engraved upon it. She went in without knocking, and hurried upstairs, in great fear lest she should meet the real Mary Ann, and be turned out of the house before she had found the fan and gloves. "How queer it seems," Alice said to herself, "to be going messages for a rabbit! I suppose Dinah'll be sending me on messages next!" And she began fancying the sort of thing that would happen: "'Miss Alice! Come here directly, and get ready for your walk!' 'Coming in a minute,' nurse! But I've got to watch this mouse-hole till Dinah comes back, and see that the mouse doesn't get out.' Only I don't think," Alice went on, "that they'd let Dinah stop in the house if it began ordering people about like that!" By this time she had found her way into a tidy little room with a table in the window, and on it (as she had hoped) a fan and two or three pairs of tiny white kid-gloves: she took up the fan and a pair of the gloves, and was just going to leave the room, when her eye fell upon a little bottle that stood near the looking-glass. There was no label this time with the words "DRINK ME," but nevertheless she uncorked it and put it to her lips. "I know something interesting is sure to happen," she said to herself, "whenever I eat or drink anything: so I'll just see what this bottle does. I do hope it'll make me grow large again, for really I'm quite tired of being such a tiny little thing!" It did so indeed, and much sooner than she had expected: before she had drunk half the bottle, she found her head pressing against the ceiling, and had to stoop to save her neck from being broken. She hastily put down the bottle, saying to herself "That's quite enough--I hope I sha'n't grow any more--As it is, I ca'n't get out at the door--I do wish I hadn't drunk quite so much!" Alas! It was too late to wish that! She went on growing, and growing, and very soon had to kneel down on the floor: in another minute there was not even room for this, and she tried the effect of lying down with one elbow against the door, and the other arm curled round her head. Still she went on growing, and, as a last resource, she put one arm out of the window, and one foot up the chimney, and said to herself "Now I can do no more, whatever happens. What will become of me?" Excerpted from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Booklist Review

Gr. 4-6. First published in Czechoslovakia in 1982, this edition of Alice features expressive black-and-white ink drawings. With parallel lines, fine cross-hatching, and sensitive use of white space, Prachaticka creates a world as mysterious, yet as precise, as the nonsense of the text. She sometimes draws a series of illustrations on a single, long page, their angular panels and deft composition creating a sense of movement and energy. While at first glance the artwork has a sophisticated look, the many witty details and the winsome portrayal of Alice ensure child appeal. For this interpretation of Carroll's classic, the Czechoslovakian artist received the Premio Grafico award at the 1984 Bologna Children's Book Fair. The very large format (9 inches wide by 13 inches tall) could present shelving problems, but the size of the illustrations makes this edition effective for reading aloud to large groups. --Carolyn Phelan

Kirkus Book Review

First published in a Czech edition in 1982, Prachaticka's illustrations were awarded the Premio Grafico prize at Bologna in 1984. The large dimensions (9.6"" x 13.5"") of the book accommodate the generous scale of the more than 30 finely detailed, full-page drawings. Very European in flavor, and with a sophistication that will appeal more to adults than to children, they are a felicitous translation of Carroll's curious blend of logic and fantasy, employing geometrically defined but oddly shaped scenes in juxtapositions inspired by both form and sense; figures that are at once concrete, fey, and dreamlike; whimsically mathematical perspectives accentuated by fine parallel lines to suggest light and texture; and a serene, petite, dark-haired Alice, who is indeed a ""Child of the pure unclouded brow/And dreaming eyes of wonder!"" An expensive edition, with dauntingly large pages of text, but certainly of interest to Alice fanciers, larger library collections, and students of illustration. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Charles Luthwidge Dodgson was born in Daresbury, England on January 27, 1832. He became a minister of the Church of England and a lecturer in mathematics at Christ Church College, Oxford. He was the author, under his own name, of An Elementary Treatise on Determinants, Symbolic Logic, and other scholarly treatises.

He is better known by his pen name of Lewis Carroll. Using this name, he wrote Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. He was also a pioneering photographer, and he took many pictures of young children, especially girls, with whom he seemed to empathize. He died on January 14, 1898.

(Bowker Author Biography)