peter harrington...from jerome kern’s collection, see item 35 below. lewis carroll at texas: the...

Peter Harringtonl o n d o n

LEWIS CARROLL(CHARLES L. D OD GSON)

a selection from

The Library of an English Bibliophile

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c atal o gue 119

LEWIS CARROLL(CHARLES L. D OD GSON)

A collection of mainly signed and inscribed first and early editionsFrom The Library of an English Bibliophile

2

F OREWORD

In 1862 Charles Dodgson, a shy Oxford mathematician with a stammer, created a story about a little girl tumbling down a rabbit hole. With Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865), children’s literature escaped from the grimly moral tone of evangelical tracts to delight in magical worlds populated by talking rabbits and stubborn lobsters. A key work in modern fantasy literature, it is the prototype of the portal quest, in which readers are invited to follow the protagonist into an alternate world of the fantastic.

The Alice books are one of the best-known works in world literature. They have been translated into over one hundred languages, and are referenced and cited in academic works and popular culture to this day. Alice has been presented in numerous film and television versions over the years and inspired many artists and illustrators. There are no dependably accurate world figures for sales of the two Alice books, but these two books have never been out of print and they must be counted among the best sellers of all time.

When the original manuscript presented by Dodgson to Alice Liddell was auctioned at Sotheby’s London, 3 August 1928, it was bought by the American book dealer Rosenbach in a blaze of publicity and later sold to the collector Eldridge R. Johnson. The manuscript was bought in 1948 for $50,000 and presented to the British Museum by American donors appreciative of Britain’s war efforts. The manuscript currently resides in the British Library, where it is considered one of the national library’s greatest treasures.

The Alice books were appearing in the collecting market even before the author’s death, but it was in May 1893 in Oxford that the first and greatest auction of Carrolliana was held, the sale that dispersed the remnants of the author’s estate, a sale which could be said to mark the beginning of serious Lewis Carroll collecting.

Lewis Carroll was collected by some of the leading book collectors of the 20th century, appearing in landmark sales over the century such as the libraries of Jerome Kern (1929), Eldridge Johnson (1948) and Justin Schiller (1998).

PART I : ALICE AND HER SEQUEL S

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865)

The publication of the first Alice book set a pattern for many of Dodgson’s succeeding publications. The book was originally printed in Oxford at the Clarendon Press in June 1865. On 19 July 1865, Dodgson heard that the book’s illustrator John Tenniel was dissatisfied with the quality of the printing, so decided to suppress the whole edition of 2,000 copies. He recalled the few pre-publication copies he had sent out to his friends and donated them to hospitals, where most perished. Only 23 of those original “1865 Alices” are now extant, mostly in institutional holdings, thus creating one of the most famous black tulips of book collecting.

The book was entirely reset by Richard Clay for the authorized Macmillan edition which, although dated 1866, was in fact ready by November 1865, in time for the Christmas market. The unused Oxford sheets were sold to Appleton’s for use in their New York edition, published the following summer. The Macmillan edition was published in an edition of 4,000 copies.

All items are fully described and photographed at peterharrington.co.uk

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All items are fully described and photographed at peterharrington.co.uk Peter Harrington 119

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The first published edition1CARROLL, Lewis. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. With forty-two illustrations by John Tenniel. London: (Richard Clay for) Macmillan and Co., 1866

Octavo. Original red cloth, titles to spine gilt, triple gilt rules to covers, triple ruled gilt, gilt roundels with “Alice” motifs to covers, dark green coated endpapers, all edges gilt. Housed in a custom red linen chemise and quarter morocco slipcase. Frontispiece and 41 illustrations by John Tenniel. Bookplate of Mary Hemenway Field (1903–1957) and bookseller’s ticket to front pastedown, binder’s ticket to rear pastedown. Gift inscription dated 11 August 1866 to verso of front free endpa-per. Spine rolled, corner of p. i creased, front inner hinge with short split near head and just starting at foot, a few faint marks to contents. An exceptional copy in original condition.

second (first published) edition, with the in-verted “S” in the last line of the Contents page. Printing and the Mind of Man 354 (note); Williams–Madan–Green–Crutch 46.

£57,500 [108856]


6

The Appleton Alice, retaining the original printed sheets2CARROLL, Lewis. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. New York: (Clarendon Press, Oxford, for) D. Appleton and Co., 1866

Octavo. Original red cloth, spine lettered in gilt, triple gilt rules to covers, gilt roundels with “Alice” motifs to covers, dark green endpapers, all edges gilt. Housed in a custom red morocco pull-off case by Sangorski & Sutcliffe for E. P. Dutton, intricately decorated gilt, inlaid with green morocco roundels featuring Alice characters, onlaid with gemstones for eyes. Frontispiece with tissue-guard and 41 illustrations by John Tenniel. Spine expertly rebacked and laid down, an oc-casional mark or spot to contents. An excellent, bright copy.

first edition, second issue: the first practi-cably obtainable issue of the original sheets, comprising sheets of the suppressed 1865 printing of Alice with the Appleton cancel title page. The issue con-sisted of 1,000 copies, using the first printing sheets

but with new tipped-in title pages also printed at the Clarendon Press, Oxford. Dodgson authorized the sale to America on 10 April 1866 and was invoiced for the printing of the American title pages on 26 May.

This copy is handsomely presented in a magnificently decorated and bejewelled morocco case made in the 1920s by the London binders Sangorski & Sutcliffe for E. P. Dutton of New York. For a similar case on a book from Jerome Kern’s collection, see item 35 below.Lewis Carroll at Texas: the Warren Weaver Collection (1985) no. 2; Wil-liams–Madan–Green–Crutch 44.

£27,500 [108858]


7

The first of Dodgson’s seasonal greetings3CARROLL, Lewis. To all Child-Readers of “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”. [Oxford:] Christmas 1871

Vicesimo-quarto (24mo), single bifolium. Unbound, printed on wove paper. In this copy, the final “d” of “Wonderland” on the title page has failed to print. Fine condition.

first edition of a letter of good wishes for Christ-mas and the New Year. As there is no specific mention of Through the Looking-Glass, Williams–Madan–Green–Crutch speculate that this little four-page leaflet could have been inserted in copies of the 1872 edition of Al-ice and also in copies of Through the Looking-Glass, pub-lished the same month as this. On 22 November 1871, Dodgson noted in his diary: “Heard from Menella

Smedley, approving of the little Christmas address I had sent her in MS.”Williams–Madan–Green–Crutch 82.

£125 [108921]


8

Inscribed to Alice’s sister, in the rare white binding specially for presentation4CARROLL, Lewis. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Fifty-fifth thousand. London: Macmillan and Co., 1877

Octavo. Presentation binding of gilt-stamped white boards in imitation of white morocco, black endpapers, gilt edges. Housed in a custom buff linen chemise and slipcase with red

calf label. Frontispiece with tissue-guard and 41 illustrations by John Tenniel. Bookplate of Herbert Brenon to front past-edown. Spine marked and slightly indented around the gilt


9

letters “in”, boards lightly finger-marked, some light wear to extremities, a little light foxing to outer leaves, split to foot of front panel, text block sound. An exceptional copy.

sixth edition, presentation copy to alice’s younger sister, in the notably rare presen-tation binding of gilt-stamped white boards in imitation of white morocco, with Dodgson’s inscription in blue ink to Rhoda Liddell, sister of the original “Alice”: “Rhoda Liddell, from the Author. Nov. 28, 1891.” Rhoda Caroline Anne Liddell (b. Dec 1859) was the younger sister of Alice Liddell (b. May 1852), and still a little too young to join the party for the famous boat trip when Alice’s adventures were first conceived. She was the fourth of the five daughters of Henry George Liddell (1811–1898), lexicographer and dean of Christ Church, Oxford. Like her youngest sis-ter, Violet, she never married.

The relationship between Dodgson and the Liddell family has naturally been a matter of fascination to his biographers. There was some kind of break in their relationship in 1863, when Dodgson avoided the Lid-dell home for six months before returning for a visit in December, though the cause of this is much disputed. The friendship gradually faded away, although this copy demonstrates that it was capable of occasional revival. A fortnight before the date of this presenta-tion, in a letter dated 19 November 1891, Dodgson wrote to Mrs Liddell, enthusing over a recent royal visit to Oxford and inviting her two youngest daughters to visit him: “I have a store of ancient memories of visits from your elder daughters, but I do not think that Miss Rhoda and Miss Violet Liddell have ever even been in-side my rooms”. Dodgson suggests that they may be entertained by his “large collection of photos of little friends belonging to that very peculiar class, ‘stage-children’ … If I were 20 years younger, I should not,

I think, be bold enough to give such invitations – but, but, I am close on 60 years old now – and all romantic sentiment has quite died out of my life; so I have quite hardened as to having lady-visitors of any age!” The book demonstrates that Rhoda, now approaching 32 years of age and probably in company with her younger sister Violet, made the suggested visit to Dodgson in his rooms on Saturday, 28 November 1891, receiving this copy as a present on the occasion. A typescript of the letter accompanies the book; the original auto-graph letter was lost in the intervening years between the book’s sale at Sotheby’s in 1930, and its reappear-ance with the bookseller David Magee in 1948.

This style of white binding for presentation was Dodgson’s preferred choice for his closest friends. His preference for a white binding for presentation dates back to the first edition of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, when he originally ordered 50 copies for presentation in red cloth and a single copy in white vellum. In March 1876 he requested a lavish array of colours, including “20 bindings in white vellum and gold”, for The Hunting of the Snark. It would have been extremely difficult and expensive for a commercial publisher like Macmillan to produce so many gilt-stamped bindings in real vellum. Instead, they settled on this style of boards covered with a textured white cloth (variously described by auctioneers as imitation morocco, vellum, or parchment).

Dodgson liked to have a supply of his books in white bindings ready for presentation as occasion demand-ed. For a comparable white presentation binding on Through the Looking-Glass, see item 19 below; for white presentation bindings in a variety of materials on oth-er titles, see items 24, 25, 46, 47, and 48.

provenance: 1) sold at auction, (together with the original autograph letter) 14–17 April 1930, Sotheby’s London, for £64 to: 2) Irish film director Herbert Brenon (1880–1958), with his bookplate, then sold by him to: 3) David Magee Book Shop, San Francisco, of-fered for sale in August 1948 priced $250 and sold to: 4) Mrs Ethelinda Schaefer Castle (d. 1971), resident in Honolulu, described by her alma mater Bryn Mawr as “one of the most accomplished book collectors of the 20th century”; thence by descent.Williams–Madan–Green–Crutch 46d.

£42,500 [108859]


10

A triple presentation, both Alice books together with An Easter Greeting, all inscribed to his child-friend and photographic subject Mabel Amy Burton

5CARROLL, Lewis. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland; [together with:] Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There. London: Macmillan and Co., 1877; [and with:] An Easter Greeting to Every Child Who Loves “Alice”. [Oxford: by Parker] Easter 1876

Two works in book form, octavo. Original red cloth, titles to spine gilt, covers triple-ruled in gilt, roundel with Alice mo-tifs in gilt to covers, green coated endpapers, all edges gilt. Frontispieces with tissue-guard and 41 and 49 illustrations respectively by John Tenniel. Each work individually housed in a custom red linen chemise and red quarter morocco so-

lander box. Adventures: small cloth repair at head of front joint, a superb copy. Looking-Glass: an exceptionally bright copy. Pamphlet: Trigesimo-secundo (32mo), single bifo-lium. Unbound as issued, printed on paper watermarked “E. Towgood Fine”. Fine condition.


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sixth edition (55th thousand) of adventures; first edition (40th thousand) of looking-glass; first edition, first issue, of easter greeting. presentation copies to mabel amy burton, the books inscribed by the author in his customary purple ink on the half-titles, “Mabel Amy Burton, from the Author. Aug. 22 1877” and “Mabel Amy Burton from the Author. August 1, ’78”; the pamphlet “for Mabel from Lewis Carroll. Aug. 22. 1877”. Mabel Amy Burton (b. 1869) was one of the subjects of Dodgson’s photographs. Their first meet-ing is recorded by Dodgson in his diary entry for 16 August 1877: “Went on the pier in the evening, and made another fortunate acquaintance … my new friend is Mabel Amy Burton, of 53 Pentonville Road, Islington. She seems to be about 8 … Mabel herself is entirely charming, and without an atom of shyness: I never became friends with a child so easily or so quickly.” He later instructed Mabel that “my letters to you are for you and no one else” (“My Remembrances of Lewis Carroll”, unpublished typescript in the fam-ily’s possession), and it seems that for this reason Mabel refused to allow any of them to be copied and published by editors of Dodgson’s correspondence.

On 28 August 1877, Carroll noted in his diary: “Heard from Mabel’s mother in London (I had written there, having failed to find the address here [in Eastbourne]) to the effect that Mabel is home again: so sent off the promised Alice, a memorial to one of the briefest of friendships! (I met her only twice)”. Mabel herself later wrote: “before we left Mr Dodgson had one day asked me whether I had read ‘Alice in Wonderland.’ I remember my reply perfectly well, ‘No,’ I said ‘but I’m going to when I get home. A friend had promised to

lend it to me.’ Mr Dodgson had then promised to send me a copy and had told me that he was the author. I longed to possess the book, but hardly believed that such happiness would come my way. As for the author-ship – I doubt whether I grasped the meaning of it, for I do not think that the knowledge that I knew Lewis Carroll, sank into my mind … [later] I knew ‘Alice in Wonderland’ almost by heart and must have boasted of this to Lewis Carroll, for he challenged me to learn, and repeat correctly to him, the Duchess’s wonderful moral (Alice in Wonderland, p. 134), ‘Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise, etc.’ I accepted the chal-lenge and learned the ‘moral’. But alas! When the test-ing time came – I must then have been about 10 years old – stage fright took possession of me and I broke down utterly crying ‘I did know it, I did know it’. My friend took me on his knee and comforted me, but never again did he ask me to repeat that ‘moral’” (“My Remembrances of Lewis Carroll”).

The Easter Greeting leaflet was primarily intended to be put into copies of The Hunting of the Snark, but was also distributed separately, judging from Dodgson’s letter to Craik on 18 May 1876: “Please be prepared to sell Easter Greetings separately, if asked for; I have been asked if I will allow them to be sold, and of course I have no objection. You will know best what to charge: only remember that I want neither to gain nor lose by it.”

For Dodgson’s presentation of A Tangled Tale (1885) to the same recipient, see item 51 below.Williams–Madan–Green–Crutch 46d, 84 & 116.

£17,500 [107886]


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Inscribed to his sister’s goddaughter6CARROLL, Lewis. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Eighty-Third Thousand. London: Macmillan and Co., 1886

Octavo. Original red cloth, titles to spine gilt, triple gilt rules to covers, gilt roundels with “Alice” motifs to covers, black coated endpapers, all edges gilt. Housed in a custom pur-ple straight-grain morocco solander box. Frontispiece with tissue-guard and 41 illustrations by John Tenniel. Minor bub-bling to cloth, spine leaned and slightly faded, 3 illustrations of Alice with a little colour neatly applied, an excellent copy.

seventh edition, presentation copy, in-scribed by the author on the half-title, “Nellie

Welford from the Author. July 17, 1895.” It is most likely that this is the same Nellie Welford who was the god-daughter of Dodgson’s sister, Mary Charlotte Colling-wood (1835–1911), by whom she was left £5 in her will. The Carrollian, Issues 2–6, 1998, p. 12. Williams–Madan–Green–Crutch 46e.

£7,500 [108861]


13

Inscribed to a child-friend who had grown up to be a school teacher7CARROLL, Lewis. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland; [together with:] Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There. London: Macmillan and Co., 1891 & 1887

2 volumes, octavo. Original red cloth, spines lettered gilt, triple gilt rules to covers, roundel with “Alice” motifs to cov-ers gilt, black coated endpapers. Housed in a red cloth flat-backed box, velvet-lined, with individual chemises. Frontis-pieces with tissue guards and illustrations by John Tenniel. Spines uniformly faded, hinges of Adventures starting, an excellent set.

eighth edition (84th thousand) of adventures; third edition (59th thousand) of looking-glass, presentation copies, each inscribed by the author on the half-title: “Edith Miller, from the Au-thor. Oct. 3 1893.” Dodgson first met Edith Mary Miller (1870–1929) when she was 11 years old. Her family had moved to Eastbourne in 1873 after the death of her fa-ther, Henry Miller, in 1881. There, she met Dodgson during his fifth summer at the coast on the morning of 6 August, as he noted in his diary: “I went along the beach to the rocks and made friends with an attractive little girl who gave me her name as ‘Marion Richards’ … My acquaintance with Marion involved four others

who were playing with her – May and Edith Miller and Millicent and Mabel Pidcock” (Lewis Carroll’s Diaries, ed. Edward Wakeling, 2003, vol. 7, pp. 354–5). Edith and her sister came to be counted among Dodgson’s group of “child-friends”, and often visited him when he was in visiting Eastbourne. He maintained the friendship into adulthood, and they corresponded until the au-thor’s death.

In September 1893 Dodgson gave a reading to the small class of children which was taught by the Miller sisters, by then in their early twenties. Shortly after, on 3 Octo-ber, he noted in his diary that he “walked to Upperton to take the Millers the books I had promised for the school library at Ocklynge” (ibid. vol. 9, p. 97). These books were most likely delivered at the same time, or are perhaps the very copies to which Dodgson refers. Williams–Madan–Green–Crutch 46f & 84b.

£12,500 [108877]


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Alice’s adventures in Antarctica8CARROLL, Lewis. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland; [together with:] Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There. London: Macmillan and Co., 1899 & 1901

2 volumes, octavo. Original green cloth, titles to spines and front covers black, illustrations to front covers in red and black. Frontispieces with tissue-guards and illustrations by John Tenniel. “Presentation Copy” blindstamps to title pag-es. Spines rolled, covers a little marked, slight wear to spine ends and tips, some light spots and marks to covers, blind stamps on titles, some light foxing to contents, front hinge of Alice split but holding, hinges of Through the Looking-Glass split but holding. A very good set.

people’s editions, from the library of the dis-covery national antarctic expedition, with the library’s bookplate to the front pastedown of the first book. The books formed part of the library on board the expedition ship Discovery, which carried Captain Scott’s Antarctic expedition between 1901 and 1904. It was the first official British exploration of the Antarctic regions since James Clark Ross’s voyage 60 years ear-lier, and the books helped distract the men during the long, dark winters.

Reginald Koettlitz (1860–1916), one of two doctors ac-companying the expedition, brought the set of books back to land, and they were passed down through his descendants. A physician and geologist, Koettlitz was awarded the Royal Geographical medal for his role with the team, and is believed to be the first person to

perform an operation in Antarctica – the removal of a cyst from the face of Lieutenant Royds. He discovered two glacial features which were later named after him, the Koettlitz Glacier and the Koettlitz Neve. Prior to this, he had accompanied other expeditions to Abys-sinia, Somaliland and Brazil, and, following his ear-lier role in the 1894 Jackson–Harmsworth expedition to Franz Josef Land, Koettlitz Island in the Franz Josef Land archipelago was also named after him. In 1897 he returned to Dover with a polar bear, which stood in the family’s surgery until 1960, when it went to the Dover Museum. However, despite the breadth of his expedi-tion experience, his medical achievements, and inter-actions with Scott, Shackleton and Nansen, Koettlitz’s death in 1916 passed almost unnoticed. Sometimes referred to as the “unsung hero” of the expedition, he appears to have been somewhat underappreciated and underused by Scott: none of his work featured in the expedition’s final scientific reports, and his colour photographs, some of the first taken in Antarctica, re-mained unpublished for almost 100 years.Williams–Madan–Green–Crutch 46f. See Scott’s Forgotten Surgeon: Dr Reginald Koettlitz, Polar Explorer, 2011.

£3,750 [108878]


15

One of ten copies printed on vellum9CARROLL, Lewis. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. London: Medici Society; Riccardi Press Books, 1914

Octavo. Original vellum covers, titles to spine and front cover lettered gilt, green silk ties. With a plain dust wrapper, spine lettered by hand, and brown linen slipcase. Illustrations by John Tenniel, from fresh electros taken from the original woodblocks, four of them slightly enlarged. A superb copy; the jacket with some chips to extremities.

the riccardi press edition, number 4 of 10 cop-ies printed on vellum. A further 1,000 copies were printed on paper. The Riccardi Press was founded by Herbert P. Horne, who designed its typeface. It began to be used as the imprint for Medici Society publica-tions in 1909. This publication in the private press style

was a special collaboration between the Medici Society and Macmillan. The text was reprinted in the Riccardi Press typeface, which had no italic, so extra spacing was used to recreate the emphasis of words printed in italic in the original. The original Tenniel illustrations were reproduced from fresh electros taken from the original woodblocks, although four of them had to be slightly enlarged to fit the bigger page.Not in Williams–Madan–Green–Crutch.

£15,000 [108942]


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The French Alice, inscribed with both his authorial pseudonym and his real name10CARROLL, Lewis. [Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland; French.] Aventures d’Alice au pays des merveilles. London: Macmillan and Co., 1869

Octavo. Original blue cloth, titles to spine gilt, gilt roun-dels with “Alice” motifs to covers, triple gilt rules to covers, brown coated endpapers, all edges gilt. Housed in a custom blue linen chemise and blue quarter morocco slipcase. Fron-tispiece with tissue-guard, 41 illustrations by John Tenniel. Binder’s ticket to rear pastedown. From the library of Justin G. Schiller, with his bookplate to the front pastedown. Two minor stains to cloth, a very nice copy.

first edition in french. an exceptional copy, inscribed by the author with both his pseud-onym and real name on the half-title, in his cus-tomary violet ink: “Lewis Carroll: alias Charles Lut-widge Dodgson, Christmas, 1871.” This is a remark-able and highly unusual inscription, as Dodgson al-ways endeavoured to keep his two identities separate, both to protect his privacy and to prevent his serious mathematical works from being linked with his books for children. In 1890 he even had The Stranger Circular printed – a leaflet sent to discourage people from ad-dressing letters concerning his Lewis Carroll books to

the Rev. C. L. Dodgson. This accounts for the great rar-ity of inscriptions by him using both of his names (his standard forms being “from the Author” or “from C. L. Dodgson”: the use of “Lewis Carroll” even by itself being very unusual). Here we have the added humor-ous touch of the author pretending that his real name is the alias of his pseudonym.

Williams–Madan–Green–Crutch note that the bind-ing in most but not all copies has Macmillan at the foot of the spine above three gold lines. In this copy, the let-tering is absent. It would be interesting to see whether this was true of all presentation and inscribed copies.Williams–Madan–Green–Crutch 73. See Edward Guiliano, “C. L. Dodgson (alias Lewis Carroll)” in An Exhibition from the Jon A. Lind-seth Collection of C. L. Dodgson and Lewis Carroll, New York: The Grolier Club, 1998, pp. 17–19; Morton N. Cohen, Lewis Carroll: A Biography, New York, 1995, pp. 297–8.

£17,500 [108866]


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The French Alice in original cloth11CARROLL, Lewis. [Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland; French.] Aventures d’Alice au pays des merveilles. London: Macmillan and Co., 1869

Octavo. Original blue cloth, titles to spine gilt, gilt roun-dels with “Alice” motifs to covers, triple gilt rules to covers, brown coated endpapers, all edges gilt. Frontispiece with tissue-guard, 41 illustrations by John Tenniel. Bookseller’s ticket to front pastedown, binder’s ticket to rear pastedown. Gift inscription dated 25 October 1876 to verso of front free endpaper. From the library of Justin G. Schiller, with his bookplate to the front pastedown. Spine rolled and faded, tips rubbed, front hinge split but holding, rear hinge start-ing, occasional spotting to contents. A very good copy.

first edition in french. Dodgson hand-picked the translator, Henri Bué, who was the son of a French teacher and colleague of his at Oxford. This is the sec-ond foreign-language edition of Alice; it was preceded by the German translation earlier the same year. The binding on this copy has Macmillan in gold above the three lines at the foot of the spine.Williams–Madan–Green–Crutch 73.

£1,750 [108867]


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The Italian Alice, London issue12CARROLL, Lewis. [Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland; Italian.] Le avventure d’Alice nel paese delle meraviglie. London: Macmillan and Co., 1872

Octavo. Original red cloth, spine lettered gilt, roundel with “Alice” motif to covers, blind rules to covers, top edge gilt. Frontispiece and illustrations by John Tenniel. Spine faded, an excellent, bright copy.

first italian edition, first issue, in the remain-der binding. Williams, Madan and Green suggest that, though containing the first issue sheets, this form of the binding is probably a later one. There are some key differences between this and the first binding: the rules to the covers are blind-stamped, not gilt; the top

edge only is gilt, rather than all edges; and the endpa-pers are plain, rather than coated grey or green.Williams–Madan–Green–Crutch 85.

£1,000 [108880]


20

The Italian Alice, Turin issue13CARROLL, Lewis. [Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland; Italian.] Le avventure d’Alice nel paese delle meraviglie. Torino: Ermanno Loescher, 1872

Octavo. Original morocco-grain orange cloth, spine lettered gilt, roundel with “Alice” motif to covers, blind rules to cov-ers, dark green coated endpapers. Frontispiece and illustra-tions by John Tenniel. Minor spotting, a little abrasion to front endpaper and short closed tear to front free endpaper, contents lightly foxed. A very good copy.

first italian edition, second issue, with the To-rino (Turin) imprint.Williams–Madan–Green–Crutch 86.

£2,250 [108928]


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The Russian Alice, translated by Nabokov while studying at Cambridge14CARROLL, Lewis. [Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland; Russian.] Ania v stranie chudes [Cyrillic]. Translated by V. Sirin [Vladimir Nabokov]. Berlin: lzdaterstov Gamayun, 1923

Octavo. Original blue paper-backed white boards, pictorial front cover illustrated by Zalshupin, top edge blue. Housed in a blue cloth chemise and blue quarter morocco and cloth slipcase. With 12 illustrations by Sergei Aleksandrovich Zalshupin. A little rubbed, cheap paper stock browned as al-ways, an excellent copy.

first edition of nabokov’s russian transla-tion. It was prepared by Nabokov at the age of 24 while he was an undergraduate at Cambridge, and is an imaginative rendering of Dodgson’s classic, with strik-ing illustrations in the Russian Constructivist style.

Nabokov made some minor alterations to the text, changing some of the characters’ names, and parody-ing Slavic rather than British nursery rhymes. The work was one of Nabokov’s first publications. Throughout his career, Lewis Carroll was a powerful influence on his writing, nowhere more so than in Lolita.Lovett 793; Morgan/Houghton p. 132; Michael Juliar, Vladimir Nabok-ov: A Descriptive Bibliography (New York, 1986), A7.1 (variant a).

£12,500 [108934]

22


The first printed version of Alice for the stage15(CARROLL, Lewis.) FREILIGRATH-KROEKER, Kate. Alice and Other Fairy Plays for Children. London: W. Swan Sonnenschein and Allen, 1880

Octavo. Original green cloth, titles and vignettes to spine and front board in gilt and black, all edges gilt, cream coated endpapers. Frontispiece with tissue-guards, 7 plates, 4 picto-rial initials by Mary Sibree, and music scores to accompany each play. An excellent copy.

first edition of the first printed dramatic adaptation of the Alice stories, and the first version to appear without Tenniel’s illustrations. The volume includes two illustrations of Alice and a picture ini-tial of Alice by Mary Sibree. The play was “intended to be acted for children” (Cohen, p. 402) and includes scenes from both Alice books, together with musical settings for “Speak Roughly” and “Beautiful Soup”. Having failed to engage Arthur Sullivan to write some songs for a musical production in 1877, Dodgson might have been expected to be protective of his cop-yright, but he proved amenable: in the preface the au-

thor writes, “I have to express my sincerest gratitude to Mr. Lewis Carroll for the permission to dramatize his charming story.” On 6 November 1879 the author presented a copy to Dodgson, which he sent back for inscription: “I may candidly confess, it would be a much higher gratification to me to possess a copy given to me by the author, with my name written in it in her own hand”. Ten years later, on 19 December 1889 he notes in his diary “Went over to Birming-ham to see a performance of ‘Alice’ (Mrs. Freiligrath-Kroeker’s version) at the High School.”For a presentation copy of Through the Looking-Glass to a girl who acted in the first professional stage produc-tion of Alice, see item 20 below.Not in Williams–Madan–Green–Crutch. See Alice on Stage, 32–33.

£2,500 [108887]


Through the Looking-Glass (1871)

As with the first edition of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Through the Looking-Glass was published for the Christmas market but bears the following year’s date in its imprint. No copies are known with 1871 on the title. The first edition was 9,000 cop-ies. This time it was the last printing of the third edition, the 60th thousand, which caused trouble and was withdrawn.


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Presentation copy inscribed in the month of publication16CARROLL, Lewis. Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There. With fifty illustrations by John Tenniel. London: Macmillan and Co., 1872

Octavo. Original red cloth, title to spine gilt, gilt roundels with “Alice” motifs to covers, triple gilt rules to covers, green coated endpapers, all edges gilt. Housed in a custom red linen chemise and green linen slipcase backed with red quar-ter morocco. Frontispiece with tissue-guard and 49 illustra-tions by John Tenniel. Rubbed, cloth a little bubbled, hinges cracked, an excellent copy.

first edition, presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the half-title, “Mary Burnett from the Author. Christmas 1871.” This is an early inscrip-tion: Dodgson’s own copy was received on 6 Decem-ber 1871. Mary Burnett (b. 1853) met Dodgson while on holiday with her parents, Robert French Burnett and his wife, Harriet, on the Isle of Wight. Dodgson was there on holiday with his camera between 26 July and

19 August 1864, and, as usual, stayed at Plumbley’s Ho-tel in Freshwater. He called on the Tennysons at their Freshwater house, Farringford, on 27 July and returned with the Burnett family a couple of weeks later, as he records in his diary on 17 August 1864: “Mr and Mrs Burnett came with me to Farringford, with the two children, Frank and Mary, of whom I took pictures”.Williams–Madan–Green–Crutch 84; Dreaming in Pictures: The Photog-raphy of Lewis Carroll by Douglas Robert Nickel, Lewis Carroll, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 2002; Wakeling, Lewis Carroll: The Man and his Circle, p. 347.

£15,000 [108871]


25

First edition in original cloth17CARROLL, Lewis. Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There. London: Macmillan and Co., 1872

Octavo. Original red cloth, title to spine gilt, gilt roundels with “Alice” motifs to covers, triple gilt rules to covers, green coated endpapers, all edges gilt. Housed in a custom red linen chemise and red quarter morocco slipcase. Frontis-piece with tissue-guard and 49 illustrations by John Tenniel. Binder’s ticket to rear pastedown. Spine rolled and slightly

darkened, hinges starting, some faint foxing to endleaves, one leaf lightly creased; an excellent copy.

first edition.Williams–Madan–Green–Crutch 84.

£6,500 [108870]


26

An unpublished acrostic poem to a young lame actress and her orphaned siblings18CARROLL, Lewis. Autograph 15-line acrostic poem, signed and dated 18 January 1878

Holograph manuscript in violet ink, 15 lines of verse. Dis-bound bifolium with some spotting and soiling, and nicks to extremities.

this unpublished and otherwise unrecorded acrostic poem was written by Dodgson for one of his child-friends, Jessie Josephine Scrivener, the first words of the lines spelling out “Jessie Josephine”.

Dodgson met Jessie after seeing her younger sister Sarah “Sallie” Caroline (1868–1956) perform on stage: “When I first saw Sallie she was the première dan-seuse in the ‘Children’s Pantomime’ at the Adelphi – a sweet looking and graceful creature: and when I made friends with the family, I found her quite as charming in real life as she had looked on the stage. She is now 8 or 9; her elder sister Jessie, about 12, is lame (I fear for life), but is said to recite exceedingly well; the other two children are about 7 and 6 years old.” All four chil-dren are noted within this acrostic, with Jessie refer-enced as “elder sister” and Sallie as “La Petite”.

Dodgson took a special interest in the two girls and their siblings, Harry (1872–1940) and Kate Jemima (b. 1869), particularly so after the children were orphaned. Their father Joseph Henry Scrivener (1829–1879), an actor who took the stage name Sinclair, survived his

wife Maria by barely a year. The children were subse-quently cared for by Sophia Neate (1832–1908) with some financial support from several friends, including Dodgson and the actor Lionel Brough. Dodgson oc-casionally visited the family, keeping an eye on their progress, and corresponded with the girls.

The poem is written on the disbound printed title and conjugate leaf from a copy of the final impression (41st thousand, 1877) of the first edition of Through the Look-ing-Glass; the second edition, 1878, commenced with 45th thousand.See Williams–Madan–Green–Crutch 84.

£7,500 [108950]


27

Inscribed to Minnie, first met in a railway carriage, in the rare white binding specially for presentation 19CARROLL, Lewis. Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There. Fifty-first thousand. London: Macmillan and Co., 1882

Octavo. Original white paper-covered boards, covers let-tered and decorated in gilt, pale blue coated endpapers, all edges gilt. Housed in a custom cream slipcase. Frontispiece with tissue-guard and 49 illustrations by John Tenniel. Two newspaper clippings tipped-in to rear free blank. Spine dark-ened, boards gently bowed, board edges rubbed, small patch of abrasion to rear board, covers finger-marked, a few faint marks to contents.

second edition, presentation copy in the de-luxe presentation binding, inscribed by the author on the half-title: “Mary Frances Fuller, with the affectionate regards of her old friend the Author. Oct. 1882.” Mary “Minnie” Francis Fuller née Drury (1859–1935) was one of the girls with whom Dodgson formed a friendship, becoming a subject for his pho-tographs and recipient of his poems. She first met him

in a railway carriage with two of her sister and govern-ess, on their way from Southwold after their summer holidays in August 1869. Mary’s daughter Audrey later recounted the meeting: “They saw a clergyman on the platform, passing and re-passing the carriage window; and, just as my children would have done, they hoped he wouldn’t get in. He did get in and amused them all the way to London with puzzles, paper toys and stories … The friendship continued all through my mother’s married life, and I remember him coming from the time I was quite a small child to stay with us” (Wake-ling, p. 256).Williams–Madan–Green–Crutch 84a; Wakeling, E. Lewis Carroll: The Man and his Circle, 2015.

£27,500 [108873]


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With an unusually lengthy inscription to the child actress who performed in the premiere of Alice in Wonderland

20CARROLL, Lewis. Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There. Fifty-Seventh Thousand. London: Macmillan and Co., 1887

Octavo. Original red cloth, title to spine gilt, triple gilt rules to covers, gilt roundels with “Alice” motifs to covers, black coated endpapers, all edges gilt. Housed in a custom red quarter morocco flat-backed folding case, buff cloth sides. Frontispiece with tissue-guard and 49 illustrations by John Tenniel. Cloth a little marked, contents shaken, nicks to fore-edge of front free endpaper, very good.

third edition, presentation copy to the child actress who appeared in the first profession-al stage performance of alice. Inscribed on the front free endpaper: “Presented to Georgina Martin by Lewis Carroll as a memento of her having taken part in the DreamPlay ‘Alice in Wonderland’ written by H. Savile Clarke and first produced Christmas, 1886.” Fol-lowing a few amateur stage versions of Alice, Dodgson was convinced that his story had theatrical possibili-ties and he tried unsuccessfully to engage Arthur Sul-livan to write some songs for a musical production in 1877.

“Ten years passed, and Charles was still looking for an appropriate way of mounting Alice in the West End. Then, on August 28, 1886, he heard from Henry Savile Clarke, playwright, drama critic, and newspaper edi-tor, requesting permission to make an operetta of the Alice books” (Cohen, p. 435). After agreeing to a few of Dodgson’s conditions (including insisting that Clarke

not give any publicity to his real name), permission was granted and Alice in Wonderland, “A Musical Dream Play, in Two Acts, for Children and Others,” opened on 23 December 1886 at the Prince of Wales Theatre. Dodgson’s twelve year-old friend Phoebe Carlo was cast in the lead role of Alice, and the play was both a theatrical and critical success.

Georgina Martin (b. 1876) and Edith Martin (b. 1880) were the two youngest children of David Martin (b. 1839), a domestic servant and groom, and his wife, Laura (b. 1842), of 15 Castle Street East, Marylebone, London. Dodgson presented both children with cop-ies of Alice for performing in the Alice in Wonderland play (Diaries, Vol. 8, note 629).

[Laid-in:] Christmas Greetings [from a Fairy to a Child]. [London: Macmillan, 1884]. Small broadsheet (129 x 89 mm), printed on one side only. Williams-Madan-Green-Crutch 162. -- An Easter Greeting to Every child who Loves “Alice.” [Oxford, 1876]. 3 pp. 16o (131 x 94 mm). Later edition. See Williams-Madan-Green-Crutch 116Cohen, Lewis Carroll: A Biography, 1995; Williams–Madan–Green–Crutch 84b.

£25,000 [108874]


29

Sent to Noël, born on Christmas Day, to console her while “ill of low fever”21CARROLL, Lewis. Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There. Fifty-Seventh Thousand. London: Macmillan, 1887

Octavo. Original red cloth, title to spine gilt, triple gilt rules to covers, gilt roundels with “Alice” motifs to covers, black coated endpapers, all edges gilt. Frontispiece with tissue-guard and 49 illustrations by John Tenniel. A very good copy.

third edition, presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the half-title: “Caroline Mar-garet Noël Jeune, from the author. June 29, 1888.” In Dodgson’s diary on the date of inscription he records, “Called again on Mrs Jeune … Her grandchild, ‘Noël’ (a girl of 9), is ill of low fever. I offered (and sent same day) a copy of Looking-Glass for her.” He met her on July 14 of the same year. Mrs Jeune was the widow of Francis Jeune, the master of Pembroke College, Ox-

ford. Noël Jeune is mentioned in “Isa’s Visit to Oxford”, a 16-page manuscript composed by Dodgson as a me-mento for the actress and his close friend, Isa Bow-man, following her trip to Oxford in July 1888. Dodg-son wrote, “Then they rode in a tram-car to another part of Oxford, and called on a lady called Mrs. Jeune, and her little granddaughter, called ‘Noël’, because she was born on Christmas Day (‘Noël’ is the French name for ‘Christmas’).”Williams–Madan–Green–Crutch 84b.

£5,000 [108875]


30

Dodgson’s own copy of the poorly printed sixtieth thousand, angrily marked up by him for rejection22CARROLL, Lewis. Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There. Sixtieth Thousand. London: (Richard Clay for) Macmillan and Co., 1893

Octavo. Original red cloth, titles to spine gilt, triple rules to covers gilt, black coated endpapers, all edges gilt. Housed in a custom red morocco-backed folding case, black cloth sides. Frontispiece with tissue-guard and 49 illustrations by John Tenniel. Front hinge starting, some faint foxing to outer leaves, otherwise internally fresh. An exceptional copy.

charles dodgson’s annotated copy of the third edition, 60th thousand, and one of

only four copies known in the original cloth. In a situation reminiscent of the recalled 1865 Alice, this is the suppressed impression of Through the Looking-Glass. Dodgson summarises the printing problems that led to its suppression on the half-title here: “Received Nov. 21/93. Paper too white, 26 pictures over-printed, 8 of them very bad”, and has annotated the text with 34 comments on the produc-


31

32


tion faults (“very much over-printed, very bad indeed … very bad folding”). Dodgson made it a “point of supreme importance, that all books, sold for me, shall be the best attainable for the price”, and such was his dismay with the printing quality that it al-most provoked the termination of his contract with his long-time publishers. Dodgson wrote to Freder-ick Macmillan the same day he annotated this copy, complaining that “the book is worthless … much as I should regret the having to sever a connection that has now lasted nearly 30 years, I shall feel myself ab-solutely compelled to do so, unless I can have some assurance that better care shall be taken, in future, to ensure that my books shall be of the best artistic qual-ity attainable for the money” (Letters, p. 995).

Only 60 copies of this impression had gone out when Dodgson asked Macmillan to destroy the remainder, but Dodgson escalated the dispute, halting the work-ing-off of Sylvie and Bruno Concluded, and demanding that “no more Wonderlands are to be printed, from the present electrotypes, till I give permission” (24 No-vember 1893). Through the Looking-Glass remained out of print until 1897, although the whole of the impression was not in fact destroyed: Dodgson changed his mind and had it rebound for distribution to charitable in-stitutions, as had been done with the suppressed first edition of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. In an unpub-lished census, Selwyn Goodacre traced four copies in the original cloth, though one of these is since lost.Williams–Madan–Green–Crutch 84b.

£55,000 [108876]


Alice’s Adventures Under Ground (1886)

The story of Alice’s adventures was originally told by Dodgson on a boat-trip up the river from Oxford to Godstow on 4 July 1862. At the suggestion of Alice Lid-dell, Dodgson then wrote it up in manuscript, with illustrations, forming a text about half the length of the final published book version. In December 1886 Mac-millan published the first facsimile reproduction of that manuscript in an edition of 5,000 copies.

The original manuscript was presented by Dodgson to Alice Liddell on 26 No-vember 1864. It was subsequently auctioned at Sotheby’s, 3 August 1928, where it was bought by Rosenbach and later sold to the American collector Eldridge R. Johnson, who issued another (more accurate) facsimile edition. The manuscript was bought in 1948 for $50,000 and presented to the British Museum by American donors appreciative of Britain’s war efforts. The manuscript currently resides in the British Library.


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Inscribed for the Duchess of Albany, in the rare blue morocco presentation binding23CARROLL, Lewis. Alice’s Adventures Under Ground. Being a facsimile of the Original Manuscript Book afterwards developed into “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.” London: Macmillan and Co., 1886

Octavo. Publisher’s presentation binding in blue morocco, titles and decorations to spine and boards gilt, inner den-telles gilt, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt. Housed in custom quarter blue morocco and cloth solander box. With 37 illustrations by the author. With the Duchess of Alba-ny’s bookplate on the front pastedown. Extremities a little rubbed, some very minor wear to tips, small split to head of front hinge; an excellent copy.

first edition. presentation copy, inscribed by the author in his customary purple ink on the half-title, “Presented to H.R.H. The Duchess of Albany, by the author, in grateful recollection of three happy days, and of two sweet children, Aug. 6, 1889.” The duchess replied on 17 August, acknowledging the gift: “It gives me much pleasure as I am a great friend of Alice and her adventures. I must now also thank you for your letter to me and the two charming books with

which you made my children very happy. I think they will well remember the kind gentleman who spent so much time with them in amusing them and telling them stories.”

Dodgson knew her late husband, Prince Leopold, Queen Victoria’s fourth son, who matriculated at Ox-ford on 27 November 1872; he had his portrait taken at Dodgson’s Tom Quad studio at Christ Church in 1875 and signed his name in Dodgson’s album. For a brief period during his studies the prince was romantically linked with Alice Liddell, and, though nothing came of the romance, the two remained cordial.

In 1883 Alice (by then Mrs Hargreaves) wrote to con-gratulate the prince on the birth of his first child, Alice, at the same time inviting him to be godfather to her second son, Leopold Reginald, also born that year. The


35

following year the prince died of a brain haemorrhage, but it was not until June 1889 that Dodgson became ac-quainted with his widow, while staying Hatfield House as a guest of Lord Salisbury. The Duchess was accom-panied by her two children, Alice, and Charles, Duke of Albany aged 6 and 5 respectively. Dodgson – per-haps influenced by the coincidence of the little girl’s name – made gifts of several of his works, including the present example. Dodgson struck up a friend-ship with the children, and regularly sent them gifts of puzzles or presentation copies of his books. Prin-cess Alice recalled their early friendship in her auto-biography: “Doctor Dodgson or ‘Lewis Carroll’ was especially kind to Charlie and me, though when I was five I offended him once, when, at a children’s party at Hatfield, he was telling story. He was a stammerer and being unable to follow what he was saying I sud-

denly asked in a loud voice, ‘Why does he waggle his mouth like that?’ I was hastily removed by the lady-in-waiting. Afterwards he wrote that he ‘liked Charlie but thought Alice would turn out badly.’ He soon forgot all this and gave us books for Christmas with anagrams of our names on the fly-leaf.”

This is one of a very few known copies in this unre-corded presentation binding. By a letter to Macmillan of 17 December 1886, Dodgson is known to have re-quested three special copies, one in white vellum (the ultimate copy, for Alice Liddell) and two in morocco (one for Alice’s mother, the other untraceable), which were ready in time to be inscribed on Christmas Day.Williams–Madan–Green–Crutch 194.

£37,500 [108897]


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37

Inscribed to Jersey Lily, in the rare white binding specially for presentation, together with an autograph letter to her father

24CARROLL, Lewis. Alice’s Adventures Under Ground. London: Macmillan and Co., 1886

Octavo. Original white paper-covered boards, spine re-backed with vellum, covers lettered and decorated in gilt, cream coated endpapers, all edges gilt. Housed in a custom green cloth folding case. With 37 illustrations by the author. Covers a little rubbed and soiled, tips a little worn, superfi-cial cracks to hinges but held firm by reback, contents clean; overall very good.

first edition. presentation copy in the rare presentation binding of gilt-stamped white boards in imitation of vellum, with Dodgson’s presentation inscription in purple ink on the half-title: “Lily Falle, from the Author, Jan. 1887.” Albina “Lily” Bertram (b. 1859) was the second daughter of Joshua G. Falle (1820–1903), a judge and magistrate of the Royal Court of Jersey. On Dodgson’s visit to the island in 1884, he records his first meeting with Lily: “I had several pleasant hours with Judge Falle, his wife, and daughters; Rozel (now Mrs. Le Cornu) I had met in London with her father but the beautiful Albina (“Lily” they call her) I had never seen before.”

Dodgson first met Rozel Falle in early August 1869, at the United Hotel in London, and inscribed a copy of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland for her on 7 August. It is Rozel’s copy to which Dodgson refers in the au-tograph letter that accompanies this book. Dated 8

August 1869, Dodgson writes: “Happening to be at my publisher’s yesterday, I thought I might as well get the book for your little girl at once – I hope you received it safe.” He goes on to ask for a photograph of Rozel: “if you have ever had a good one taken of your little daughter (a vignette of the head & shoulders would be the best form) I should be much obliged if you would kindly allow me to purchase a print of it, as a reminis-cence of our very brief, tho’ pleasant acquaintance.”

This style of white binding for presentation was Dodg-son’s preferred choice, a preference dating back to the first edition of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, when he first ordered 50 copies for presentation in red cloth and a single copy for Alice herself in white vellum.

provenance: sold at auction, 3 March 1958, Sotheby’s London, £17, buyer J. Schwartz, the book noted in the auction catalogue as lacking its spine. With the loosely inserted bookseller’s description of James F. Drake, Inc, New York, describing the book as rebacked with vellum. The long-established firm of James F. Drake ceased trading in 1965.Williams–Madan–Green–Crutch 194.

£25,000 [108898]


38

Inscribed to his friend and Christ Church colleague, in the rare white binding for presentation, with the original plain dust jacket

25CARROLL, Lewis. Alice’s Adventures Under Ground. London: Macmillan and Co., 1886

Octavo. Original white paper-covered boards in imitation of vellum, covers lettered and decorated in gilt, cream coated endpapers, all edges gilt. With the plain dust jacket. Housed in a custom blue linen slipcase and blue morocco pull-off case. With 37 illustrations by the author. From the Private Collection of Justin Schiller, Christie’s New York, Wednesday 9 December 1998, Lot 17. Spine slightly rolled, extremities a little rubbed; an excellent copy in the jacket with toned spine, partial loss to spine panel and some chips to extremities.

first edition. presentation copy, in a deluxe presentation binding, complete with the plain dust jacket, inscribed by the author on the half-title, “E. F. Sampson, from the Author. Jan. 87.” Edward Frank Sampson (1848–1918) was a Christ Church tutor and mathematician, also a long-standing friend and travelling companion of Dodgson’s; they visited Sandown and Eastbourne together. He worked

with Dodgson on the subject of geometric conic sec-tions (see Cohen, p. 383), and succeeded Carroll as the mathematical lecturer at Christ Church. Carroll photo-graphed him in June 1875. Williams–Madan–Green–Crutch 194.

£37,500 [108940]


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Inscribed to his Limerick correspondent’s daughter, Violet, a future romantic novelist26CARROLL, Lewis. Alice’s Adventures Under Ground. London: Macmillan and Co., 1886

Octavo. Original red cloth, titles to spine and front cover gilt, black coated endpapers, all edges gilt. Housed in a custom purple straight-grain morocco solander box. Illustrated by the author. Spine faded, a couple of marks and bumps to front cover, the odd spot to outer leaves. An excellent copy.

first edition. presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the half-title, “Violet Langbridge from the Author. July 20 1897.” Violet Langbridge (1881–1963) was the youngest daughter of Frederick Langbridge, rector of St John’s, Limerick, who wrote books for children and was a correspondent of Dodg-son’s. Violet wrote a number of romantic novels; she married Archibald Colquhoun Bell (1880–1958), a

lieutenant-commander in the Royal Navy and naval historian. This copy is in the regular trade binding of red cloth.Williams–Madan–Green–Crutch 194. Lovett, Lewis Carroll Among His Books: A Descriptive Catalogue of the Private Library of Charles Dodgson, 2005, p. 187

£6,500 [108904]


40

Fine copy in original cloth27CARROLL, Lewis. Alice’s Adventures Under Ground. London: Macmillan and Co., 1886

Octavo. Original red cloth, titles to spine and front cover gilt, black coated endpapers, all edges gilt. Housed in a custom red cloth solander box. Spine a little rubbed, front hinge partly split but holding; an excellent, bright copy.

first edition, first issue. Williams–Madan–Green–Crutch 194.

£950 [108941]


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With the printed dust jacket28CARROLL, Lewis. Alice’s Adventures Under Ground. London: Macmillan and Co., 1886

Octavo. Original red cloth, titles to spine and front cover gilt, all edges gilt. With the dust jacket. Illustrated by the author. An excellent copy in the jacket with rubbed edges, and some nicks to spine ends and tips.

first edition, remainder issue with white end-papers, consisting of remainder sheets bound up per-haps as late as 1931, complete with the dust jacket.Williams–Madan–Green–Crutch 194.

£1,750 [108902]

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The superb Eldridge Johnson facsimile, one of perhaps fifty copies only29CARROLL, Lewis. Alice’s Adventures Under Ground. [Vienna: Privately printed by Max Jaffe, for Eldridge Johnson, 1936]

Octavo. Original limp green morocco, double gilt rules, titles in gilt on front cover, yellow endpapers, all edges gilt. With the green slipcase, as issued. Collotype facsimile reproduc-ing manuscript text and 37 illustrations by the author, 14 full-page; mounted photograph of Alice Liddell at foot of last page, with loose folded overslip. Extremities a trifle rubbed; an excellent, bright copy.

first and only edition of this rare facsimile, pri-vately printed for Eldridge Reeves Johnson (1867–1945), who bought the original manuscript from Dr Rosenbach in 1928. Johnson had made his fortune as co-founder of the Victor Talking Machine Company.

The facsimile was printed by the Viennese printers Max Jaffe, who specialised in lithographs and collo-

types including fine art reproductions and fine portfo-lio prints for photographers; Arthur Jaffe had opened their New York office in 1926. The exact edition size is not recorded, though it is likely to have been only 50 copies. “It is not too extravagant to say that this pro-duction is as near perfection as is possible for a printed facsimile. It has been said that if this facsimile is put beside the original, the only way that they may be dis-tinguished is that the facsimile is in better condition” (Selwyn Goodacre & Denis Crutch, Jabberwocky, 1978).Williams–Madan–Green–Crutch 38a (n).

£2,250 [108900]


The Nursery Alice (1889)

Dodgson decided to publish an abridged edition of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland with colour illustrations for younger readers. He rejected the entire first edition of 10,000 copies, which was printed on toned paper, on the grounds that the pictures were “far too bright and gaudy”. Twelve copies were bound with unpriced titles as samples for the American market in October 1889. The first 4,000 rejected sheets were sent to America for publication under the imprint of Macmillan & Co. of New York, with title page dated 1890; most of the remainder of the first printing sheets formed the London “People’s Edition” of 1891, initially priced two shillings, then in 1897 (though not dated as such) reissued and re-priced one shilling.

The second edition of 10,000 copies was printed on white paper with improved co-lour reproductions, dated 1890 and priced four shillings. It was re-issued priced one shilling in 1896 (though not dated as such).


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One of twelve copies sent as samples for the American market30CARROLL, Lewis. The Nursery Alice. Containing twenty coloured enlargements from Tenniel’s illustrations to “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” with text adapted to nursery readers, the cover designed and coloured by E. Gertrude Thomson. London: Macmillan and Co., 1889

Tall octavo. Original tan cloth-backed yellow glazed pictorial boards, title to front cover red and black, yellow coated end-papers. Housed in a custom yellow cloth solander box with black morocco label to spine lettered gilt. Colour frontis-piece with tissue-guard and 19 colour illustrations after John Tenniel. Faint gift inscription to front free endpaper. Tips slightly worn, boards toned and slightly soiled, tissue-guard detached, spine cracking where glue has dried between pp. 24–5, the odd spot to contents. An excellent copy.

first edition, first issue, one of 12 copies pro-duced as samples for the american market. Of the first print run, 12 copies were bound with unpriced title pages and received in the US on 29 October 1889. Williams–Madan–Green–Crutch 215a.

£6,000 [108910]


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The first printing, repriced “one shilling”31CARROLL, Lewis. The Nursery Alice. London: Macmillan and Co., 1889 [1897]

Tall octavo. Original tan cloth-backed yellow glazed pictorial boards designed by E. Gertrude Thomson, title to front cover red and black. Housed in a custom brown cloth velvet-lined solander box, with twin morocco labels to spine lettered gilt. Colour frontispiece with tissue-guard and 19 colour illustra-tions after John Tenniel. Ownership signature to front free endpaper. Spine rolled and darkened, boards toned, some wear to tips, internally fresh.

first edition, fourth issue. In 1897 all remain-ing sheets of the rejected first printing were “made-up

with priced titles, overprinted: Price One Shilling with an ornamental bar over the earlier price”, with plain white endpapers. These copies retain the original il-lustration of Alice and the Cheshire Cat on p. 34 with Alice’s profile visible; the profile was removed in the second edition.Williams–Madan–Green–Crutch 215d.

£750 [108908]


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The improved second edition, presentation copy to young Ada, met at Margate32CARROLL, Lewis. The Nursery Alice. London: Macmillan and Co., 1890

Tall octavo. Original white cloth-backed white glazed picto-rial boards designed by E. Gertrude Thomson, title to front cover red and black. With the glassine jacket. Housed in a custom red linen chemise and red cloth slipcase. Colour frontispiece with tissue-guard and 19 colour illustrations af-ter John Tenniel. Spine gently rolled, minor wear to tips and board edges, some faint soiling to boards, spotting to edges of text block; an excellent, bright copy in the jacket with a lit-tle spotting and short closed tear to spine panel.

second edition (the first published in the uk), first issue. presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the half-title, to “Ada Paine, from the Author. Mar. 25, 1890.” Ada (Adelaide) Paine (1866–1920) met Dodgson at Margate in 1875; the two exchanged correspondence, and Dodgson even con-sented to send her his portrait, averse though he was to publicity. In the accompanying letter he took care to ask that her “ordinary acquaintances … are not told an-

ything about the name ‘Lewis Carroll’” (Collingwood, The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll).

The most notable alteration between the first and second editions is the printing of the sheets on white rather than toned paper and the change to the illustra-tion of Alice and the Cheshire Cat on p. 34, removing Alice’s profile. The first issue has “Price four shillings” above the imprint.Williams–Madan–Green–Crutch 216.

£12,500 [108909]


47

48


The second edition, repriced “one shilling”33CARROLL, Lewis. The Nursery Alice. London: Macmillan and Co., 1890 [1896]

Tall octavo. Original white cloth-backed white pictorial boards designed by E. Gertrude Thomson, title to front cover red and black. Colour frontispiece with tissue-guard and 19 colour illustrations after John Tenniel. Minor wear to head of spine and tips, a little light toning to boards, occasional light spotting to contents.

second edition, second issue. As sales of the sec-ond edition and the People’s Edition (the third issue of

the first edition) were slow, Dodgson decided to re-is-sue the former, overprinted “Price One Shilling” with an ornamental bar over the earlier price.Williams–Madan–Green–Crutch 216a.

£500 [108911]


PART II : OTHER WORKS


50

Dodgson on Tennyson’s great elegy34[DODGSON, Charles Lutwidge.] Index to “In Memoriam.” London: (Bradbury and Evans for) Edward Moxon & Co., 1862

Small octavo. Original purple ribbed cloth, titles to front cover gilt, border to covers blocked in blind, cream coated endpapers. Housed in a velvet-lined red cloth solander box. Ownership inscription of the journalist Charles J. Hadfield (1821–1884) to verso of front free endpaper, bookplate of Thomas Hutchinson (Morpeth) and small bookseller’s de-scription to front pastedown. Inscription identifying Lewis Carroll as author to front free endpaper, facsimile of Dodg-son’s signature tipped-in to rear pastedown. Some wax stains to cloth, text block separating between pp. 40 and 41, an excellent copy.

first edition of one of dodgson’s earliest publications in book form. Endorsed by Ten-nyson, this anonymous index to his elegy on Arthur Hallam was suggested and edited by Dodgson, though “one or more of his sisters chiefly compiled the work.” The Index was also issued in sheets for binding with In Memoriam, by then in its eleventh edition, having been first published in 1850.Williams–Madan–Green–Crutch 31.

£375 [108952]


51

Presentation copy to an Oxford professor and his wife35CARROLL, Lewis. Phantasmagoria. London: Macmillan and Co., 1869

Octavo. Original blue cloth, titles to spine gilt, celestial mo-tifs to covers gilt, double rules to covers gilt, all edges gilt, brown coated endpapers. Housed in a custom blue silk che-mise and pull-off blue morocco box by Sangorski & Sutcliffe, title to spine gilt, richly decorated with gilt celestial motifs and inlaid with green and brown morocco roundels. Book-plate of Jerome Kern to front pastedown, binder’s ticket and bookplate of John Gribbel to rear pastedown. Spine expertly repaired, cloth cleaned, hinges repaired, still a very good copy.

first edition, first issue. presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the half-title, “G. Rolleston and Mrs Rolleston, with the Author’s kind regards. Jan. 1869.” George Rolleston (1829–1881), a professor of anatomy and physiology at Oxford, was acquainted with Dodgson, who wrote in his diary on 24 February 1863 that he called at the University Mu-seum “with a note for Dr Rolleston”. In 1857 Dodg-

son made a photographic group portrait (now in the V&A Museum) of Rolleston delivering a lesson at the Anatomical Museum at Christ Church to three other men: William or Charles Robertson, demonstrator of anatomy, and two undergraduates, A. V. Harcourt and Heywood Smith.

Dodgson’s first major collection of poetry, this copy is magnificently presented in a handsome morocco pull-off case by the London binders Sangorski and Sutcliffe for E. P. Dutton of New York. For a similar case, see item 2 above. This copy was in the library of the great American composer Jerome Kern. in 1929 he made worldwide news by selling his prized book collection at a New York auction for a record of over $1.7 million.Williams–Madan–Green–Crutch 68.

£4,500 [108865]

52


Teasing Alice’s father36[DODGSON, Charles Lutwidge.] The New Belfry of Christ Church, Oxford. A monograph by D.C.L. Oxford: James Parker and Co., 1872

Duodecimo, pp. 24. Original red wrappers, title printed in black to front cover. Provenance: J. V. Hodgson, with owner-ship inscription to front cover, dated August 1898, and gift inscription to the half-title. Partial loss to spine, wrappers slightly creased, loss to lower tips of front and rear wrappers, short closed tear to head of rear wrapper, some light spots to contents.

first edition, first issue, with no mention of J. H. Stacy in the imprint. One of Dodgson’s Oxford squibs, light-heartedly aimed at Dean Liddell, the father of

Alice, “this pamphlet is a humorous skit on the bald wooden cube erected to contain the bells extruded from the Cathedral (when the Tower was opened up to the base of the spire), and placed over the beautiful staircase leading to the hall, in the south-east corner of Tom Quad”.Williams–Madan–Green–Crutch 88.

£750 [108868]


The Hunting of the Snark (1876)

After the two Alice books, The Hunting of the Snark is the most enduring of Lewis Car-roll’s works. It was originally issued in March 1876 in an edition of 10,000 copies.

The first edition is notable for its many variant bindings. The regular trade cop-ies were bound in buff cloth with designs printed in black. It was issued in a grey printed dust jacket with flaps, a notably early example of the format.

But Dodgson also ordered copies for presentation in variant coloured cloths with the designs blocked in gold: white, red, dark blue, light blue, dark green, and light green are all recorded.

Around the time of publication, Dodgson prepared one of his little letters to place inside the book, An Easter Greeting to Every Child Who Loves “Alice”, printed in Oxford by Parker. He was racing to finish the manuscript on 22 March; Easter Sunday that year fell on 16 April. The book is bibliographically complete without it, but all five copies in this catalogue have the leaflet tipped or laid in.


54

Inscribed on the day of publication, in the red and gold presentation binding37CARROLL, Lewis. The Hunting of the Snark an Agony in Eight Fits. With nine illustrations by Henry Holiday. London: Macmillan and Co., 1876

Octavo. Original scarlet cloth, titles to spine gilt, illustra-tions to front board gilt, green coated endpapers, all edges gilt. Housed in a custom red velvet-lined solander box. Fron-tispiece and 8 illustrations by Henry Holiday with tissue-guards. Binder’s ticket to rear pastedown. With the book-plate of Alice R. Sandford to the front pastedown. Spine slightly rolled, covers a little rubbed, marginal ink spot to pp. 3–12; an excellent, bright copy.

first edition. presentation copy, specially bound in red cloth and inscribed by the au-thor on the day of publication on the half-title, “Alice Sandford from the Author. Mar. 29, 1876.” The book is inscribed just over a year after Dodgson last saw her, during a visit to Hatfield House in December 1874, when he had noted in his diary that “even Alice has grown out of my recollection”.

On 21 March 1876 Dodgson wrote to Macmillan order-ing special bindings for presentation: “100 in red and gold, 20 in dark blue and gold, 20 in white vellum and

gold”, and mentions that bindings in dark green are also available. On publication day, 29 March, Dodg-son went to London to inscribe copies, though only 80 were ready that day. Dodgson initialled and dated at least two copies in red cloth which he retained for himself (red was, after all, the colour of the two Alice books), and presentation copies in red are known to others of his child-friends. The presentation copies he inscribed to two of his sisters that day are both in dark blue cloth; that to his adult friend Catherine Lloyd is dark green. In copies inscribed on publication day at auction since 1975 we trace seven copies in red (includ-ing his own retained copy), five copies in blue, and one in green. We cannot trace any presentation copy of this title in a white binding, and we may conjecture that these were not ready. Williams–Madan–Green–Crutch 115.

£7,500 [108884]


55

Inscribed to Walter Crane’s daughter, in the green and gold presentation binding, the rarest of all recorded variants

38CARROLL, Lewis. The Hunting of the Snark. London: Macmillan, 1876

Octavo. Original dark green cloth, titles to spine gilt, illus-tration to covers gilt, green coated endpapers, all edges gilt. Housed in a custom green solander box. Frontispiece with tissue-guard and 8 illustrations by Henry Holiday. Binder’s ticket to rear pastedown. Spine rolled and a little rubbed, rear hinge partly split, short tear to front free endpaper, a couple of light marks to contents, title page darkened from tissue guard; overall, a very good, bright copy.

first edition. presentation copy, one of very few copies specially bound in dark green cloth and inscribed by the author on the half-title: “Beatrice Crane from the Author. Dec. 28, 1877.” Beatrice Crane was the daughter of Walter Crane (1845–1915), the popular children’s artist whom Dodg-son considered as a replacement for Tenniel after the artist declined to illustrate any further books. Dodg-son wrote to Crane on 27 November 1877 about com-missioning drawings for Phantasmagoria and “Bruno’s Revenge”, but Crane was too busy to undertake the

proposed collaboration. Crane afterwards noted that Dodgson’s letters “gave one the impression of a most particular person, and it is quite possible that he may have led Tenniel anything but a quiet life during the time he was engaged upon his inimitable illustrations” (Cohen & Wakeling, p. 337).

This copy also contains a first issue presentation copy of Dodgson’s Easter Greeting to Every Child Who Loves “Al-ice” ([Oxford:] 1876) – the four-page pamphlet tipped-in to the verso of the front free endpaper and inscribed by the author on the title page: “Beatrice Crane from Lewis Carroll, Dec. 28, 1877”. Many, perhaps most cop-ies of The Hunting of the Snark are found with the Easter Greeting pamphlet loosely inserted (Williams, p. 91). Williams–Madan–Green–Crutch 115.

£17,500 [108883]


56

Inscribed to Dollie Barrett, in the rare blue and gold presentation binding39CARROLL, Lewis. The Hunting of the Snark an Agony in Eight Fits. London: Macmillan and Co., 1876

Octavo. Original blue cloth, titles to spine gilt, illustration to covers blocked gilt, green coated endpapers, all edges gilt. Housed in a custom blue velvet-lined solander box. Frontis-piece with tissue-guard and 8 illustrations by Henry Holiday. Binder’s ticket to rear pastedown. With the bookplate of Wilson Barrett to front pastedown. Spine rolled and faded, contents lightly spotted and marked, few small ink blots to frontispiece, rear hinge partly split, a very good copy.

first edition. presentation copy, specially bound in blue cloth and inscribed by the au-thor on the half-title to “Dorothea Barrett from the Author, May 5 ,83.” Dorothea (“Dollie”) Barrett was one of the five children (three daughters and two sons) of Wilson Barrett (1846–1904), an English manager, actor, and playwright. Wilson Barrett first appears in Dodgson’s diaries on 28 March 1883 (p. 415), when Dodgson saw him in The Silver King, regarded as the most successful melodrama of the 19th century in Eng-land. It debuted on 16 November 1882, with Barrett as Wilfred Denver. He played the part for 300 nights with-out a break, and repeated its success in W. G. Wills’s Claudian (which Dodgson saw three times). Dodgson

records in his diary a failed attempt to hand over a book (perhaps this very copy) to Dorothea: “Then called at Mr. W. Barratt’s hoping to see the five young ‘admirers’ he had told me of, specially Dorothea, to whom I am to give a book. But I saw nobody: Mrs. Bar-ratt merely sending down one message after another to the effect that she knew nothing about me (!)” (Wake-ling, p. 533).

The exact number of copies specially bound in blue cloth is uncertain, though it is certainly small, per-haps no more than the 20 originally called for. Edward Wakeling, editor of the Lewis Carroll Diaries, and Selwyn Goodacre, Carrollian bibliographer, located 12 copies bound in blue cloth in their census of Snark edi-tions, to which may be added the Mary C. Collingwood copy inscribed by Dodgson on the day of publication.Williams–Madan–Green–Crutch 115; Wakeling, ed. Lewis Carroll’s Diaries: Containing Journal 11, January 1877 to June 1883.

£15,000 [108882]


57

In the rare green and gold presentation binding40CARROLL, Lewis. The Hunting of the Snark. London: Macmillan and Co., 1876

Octavo. Original dark green cloth, titles to spine gilt, illus-tration to covers blocked gilt, green coated endpapers, all edges gilt. Housed in a custom green velvet-lined solander box. Frontispiece with tissue-guard and 8 illustrations by Henry Holiday. Binder’s ticket to rear pastedown. Spine ends a little rubbed, front hinge split but holding, rear hinge partly split, front free endpaper partly loose, contents lightly toned with a couple of creases and slight marks.

first edition, in the rare presentation bind-ing of dark green cloth, though the copy is un-inscribed. Dodgson had the book specially bound in an array of colours for presentation, as seen from his

letter to Maud Standen, one of his “child-friends”, in which he offered her a copy in the colour of her choice: “I have had them bound in various coloured cloths, with the ship and bell-buoy in gold: e.g. light blue, dark blue, light green, dark green, scarlet (to match ‘Alice’), and (what is perhaps prettiest of all) white, i.e. a sort of imitation vellum, which looks beautiful with the gold” (18 December 1877).Williams–Madan–Green–Crutch 115.

£3,750 [108881]


58

With the original printed dust jacket41CARROLL, Lewis. The Hunting of the Snark. London: Macmillan and Co., 1876

Octavo. Original buff boards, titles to spine black, illustra-tions to covers in black, green coated endpapers, all edges gilt. With the dust jacket. Housed in a custom brown mo-rocco solander box. Frontispiece and 8 illustrations by Henry Holiday with tissue-guards. Spine rolled, covers foxed, a lit-tle spotting to contents; an excellent copy in the lightly foxed dust jacket, with some loss to spine ends, a couple of chips to extremities, short closed tears to spine panel and tape re-pairs to verso.

first edition, with the scarce grey dust jack-et. The printed dust jacket for The Hunting of the Snark is not the earliest recorded, but it has considerable interest as a particularly well-documented example. Dodgson’s letter of 6 February 1876 to his publisher, Alexander Macmillan, indicates the thinking behind its use: he asks that the book’s title be printed on the spine of the paper wrapper, so that the book “can stand

in bookstalls without being taken out of paper, and so can be kept in cleaner and more saleable condition”. Being conceived of as a temporary wrapper at point of sale, the paper used for the jacket is inexpensive and uncoated, liable to foxing and wear, and was almost invariably discarded. Rather than repeating the deco-rative blocking of the front cover, as some 19th-century publishers did, Macmillan printed on the front panel a letterpress title laid out in the style of a title page and, on the back, advertisements for other Lewis Carroll books.Williams–Madan–Green–Crutch 115. See G. Thomas Tanselle, Book-Jackets; Their History, Forms, and Use, Bibliographical Society of the Uni-versity of Virginia, 2011, p. 68.

£17,500 [108885]


59


60

Puzzling it out, one letter at a time42CARROLL, Lewis. Doublets: A Word Puzzle. London: Macmillan and Co., 1879

Octavo. Original red cloth, title to front cover gilt, blindstamp to front cover. Housed in a custom quarter red morocco solan-der box and chemise. Covers a little finger-marked and very slightly cockled, contents lightly toned, an excellent copy.

first edition in book form. The game was invented by Dodgson for Julia and Ethel Arnold, “two little girls who found nothing to do” on Christmas Day 1877. It consists of transforming a given word into another, changing only one letter at a time, and forming a new word with

each letter alteration; the winning chain was the one with the fewest links. The first puzzle, for example, was “Head” to “Tail” (head–heal–teal–tell–tall–tail), and ap-peared in the March issue of Vanity Fair in 1879.Williams–Madan–Green–Crutch 133a. Wakeling, Lewis Carroll’s Games and Puzzles, 1992, p. 39.

£750 [108886]

A new use for the chess board43[DODGSON, Charles Lutwidge.] Lanrick: A Game for Two Players. 1879–81

4 sets of instructions for the Lanrick game. Housed in a black linen chemise and black quarter morocco and cloth slipcase. Some light foxing and creasing, second edition with some chips and tears to extremities. In very good condition.

Lanrick, a chessboard game for two players, is men-tioned in Dodgson’s diary on 31 December 1878 as his new invention, “Natural Selection, afterwards called Lanrick” – a reference to a line of Sir Walter Scott’s poem “The Lady of the Lake”: “The muster-place be Lanrick-Mead.” The game passed through many it-erations: in a letter to May Forshall in 1870, Dodgson

wrote that he had been “inventing it for almost two months, and the rules have changed almost as often as you change your mind during dinner when you say ‘I’ll have meat first then pudding – no, I’ll have both at once – no, I’ll have neither’” (Gardner, p. 134).

1) A Game for Two Players. A single folded leaf, dated 16 January 1879: The rules of the game are printed here without a title. The sheet is annotated by Dodgson, who added the game’s title, and made corrections in manuscript in his customary violet ink: “Lanrick. ‘The


61

muster-place be Lanrick mead’”; Rule 1 was altered from “The men are set alternately, on any border-squares” to “The Players set their men, in turn, on any border squares”. Williams–Madan–Green describe this as “an anonymous early form” of Lanrick, but we suggest that perhaps it is a proof copy of the game, as Dodgson records the receipt of ten proof copies on 11 February 1879, “in nearly its final state, I hope”. Wil-liams–Madan–Green–Crutch state “there is no further reference to this edition”, but they do not note the ex-istence of the following item:

2) A single folded leaf, dated 20 February 1879: First edition (?) Not noted in Williams–Madan–Green–Crutch. The pamphlet is anonymous but prints the al-terations made by Dodgson to the previous item.

3) 25 October 1880: A cyclostyled copy of the manu-script for the game, written by Dodgson in violet ink.

4) Bifolium, printed on both sides, dated July 1881: second edition. presentation copy from Dodg-son to Agnes Smith, “Agnes Smith, from Lewis Car-roll”, with “July 1881” inscribed to verso in violet ink (in Dodgson’s hand?) The second edition was not is-sued separately, but appeared in the August 1881 edi-tion of the Monthly Packet. Agnes Smith was the daugh-ter of Charles Smith, vicar of Tarrington, and his wife, Frances Elizabeth (née Boddington). Dodgson writes in his Diaries of the day he met Agnes and her family on 6 September 1877: “Met Mr. Dymes with a friend (over from Brighton for the day) Mrs. Smith, with two girls (Agnes and Gracille, 10 and 8) and a boy, Reginald: Agnes is beautiful.”Williams–Madan–Green–Crutch 135; 142; Gardner, The Universe in a Handkerchief: Lewis Carroll’s Mathematical Recreations, 1996.

£6,500 [108888]

62


A newly invented wordgame44[CARROLL, Lewis.] Mischmasch. [Oxford: University Press, November] 1882

Bifolium, printed on brown wove paper, as issued; 4 pp. Housed in a custom black velvet-lined solander box. Small erasure mark to front cover; a fine copy.

Mischmasch, a wordplay game for two players, was first published in The Monthly Packet in June 1881 (pp. 491–2). This is a revised anonymous reprint of that article, with some minor revisions. The article was originally credited to Lewis Carroll, rules 5 and 6 were trans-posed, and a note requesting comments and criticism was appended. The game requires two sets of players, of which one proposes a nucleus of letters, and the

other side “tries to discover a common English word in which those letters appear adjacent to one another” (Gardner, p. 141). For example, “emo” would become “lemons”. Dodgson at Auction 1893–1999 records only the author’s own copy selling at auction (Frank Irving Fletcher sale, Anderson Galleries, 19 April 1932, lot 230) and no copy is listed by ABPC since 1975. Scarce.Williams–Madan–Green–Crutch 155; Garder, The Universe in a Hand-kerchief: Lewis Carroll’s Mathematical Recreations, 1996.

£2,750 [108889]


Rhyme? And Reason? (1883)

The text is made up of comic poems chiefly reprinted from Phantasmagoria and the whole of The Hunting of the Snark, together with a few new pieces. The first edition was issued on 6 December 1883 in an edition of 3,000 copies.

The trade binding was olive green cloth with three-line gilt frames surrounding cen-tral devices, echoing the Alice bindings, but, as with The Hunting of the Snark, Dodg-son ordered variant bindings for presentation.


64

Presentation copy to John Tenniel45CARROLL, Lewis. Rhyme? And Reason? With sixty-five illustrations by Arthur B. Frost and nine by Henry Holiday. London: (R. Clay, Sons, and Taylor for) Macmillan and Co., 1883

Octavo. Original green cloth, covers with central gilt devic-es, spine lettered in gilt, three-line gilt ruled borders and at head and tail of spine, dark green coated endpapers, all edges yellow. Housed in a custom purple morocco-backed solander box and chemise. Frontispiece with tissue-guard, illustrated in the text throughout, 24 full-page. Spine slightly rolled, extremities a little rubbed, spine and edges dust-soiled, marks of bookplates removed from both past-edowns, offsetting from tissue guard onto frontispiece and title, text block cracked between pp. 80–1 but holding; overall a very good copy.

first edition. a remarkable presentation copy inscribed by the author to john tenniel on the half-title in purple ink: “J. Tenniel, with sincere regards from the Author. Dec. 7/83.” Never a close per-sonal friend of the author, Tenniel famously refused

further commissions from Dodgson after Through the Looking-Glass, but out of respect Dodgson kept him on his list for presentation copies of his later titles. Dodg-son received the first 12 copies of Rhyme? And Reason? on publication day, and sent this copy out in the first batch of presentations the following day.

provenance: (1) sold at auction, Sotheby’s London, 3 Dec. 1915, £6 to renowned New York bookseller George D. Smith (1879–1920); 2) his sale, Anderson Galleries New York, 24–25 May 1920. Smith had purchased at So-theby’s several other Carroll titles inscribed to Tenniel, which were also in his Anderson Galleries sale.Williams–Madan–Green–Crutch 160.

£17,500 [108890]


65

Inscribed to Lady Maud Wolmer, one of very few copies bound in vellum for presentation46CARROLL, Lewis. Rhyme? And Reason? London: Macmillan and Co., 1883

Octavo. Original vellum, titles to spine gilt, triple rules to covers gilt, black coated endpapers, all edges gilt. Housed in a custom cream cloth slipcase. Frontispiece with tissue-guard, illustrated in the text throughout, 24 full-page. Vel-lum toned, boards bowed with some light spotting, some light marks to contents, front hinge starting, rear hinge slightly sprung; a very good copy.

first edition, one of only five known cop-ies in the rare vellum presentation binding, inscribed by the author on the half-title, “Lady Maud Wolmer with the sincere regards of the Author. Feb. 9, 1884.” Lady Maud Wolmer (née Cecil) was the elder daughter of future Prime Minister Robert Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury. She first met Dodgson in 1871 on a visit to Hatfield House when she was a lit-tle girl: he spent three nights there to help celebrate a birthday, and described the visit as “one of the pleas-antest visits I have ever spent” (Diary 6, 2001, p. 165). Dodgson returned the following year, and again at the end of the year, when “he took up the ritual of spend-ing New Year’s Day at Hatfield. Dodgson’s story-telling became very much a part of his visits, and Dodgson

invented some of the early chapters in Sylvie and Bruno expressly for the Cecil children” (Letters p. 212n). This copy is inscribed to Maud just a few months after her marriage to William Waldegrave Palmer, future 2nd Earl of Selborne, on 27 October 1883; he was styled Viscount Wolmer between 1882 and 1895. Dodgson re-mained friends with Lady Wolmer after her marriage: in the summer of 1889 he took his child-friend the ac-tress Isa Bowman to lunch with the Wolmers and their daughter Mabel, nicknamed “Wang”.

One of an unrecorded but evidently small number of copies bound in vellum; this is the only such copy re-corded by ABPC having sold at auction in the last 30 years. Dodgson’s preference for a white binding for presentation dates back to the first Alice, but vellum is a difficult and expensive material to work with and Mac-millan’s binders more often supplied paper textured in imitation of white morocco (see following item).Williams–Madan–Green–Crutch 160.

£4,500 [108894]


66

Inscribed to “pretty little” Joanna, in the rare white binding specially for presentation, with an original acrostic poem

47CARROLL, Lewis. Rhyme? And Reason? London: Macmillan and Co., 1883

Octavo. Original white paper stamped in imitation of moroc-co, title to spine gilt, triple gilt rules to covers, gilt roundels to covers with “Alice” motifs, all edges gilt, dark green coated endpapers. Housed in a brown linen chemise, and brown quarter morocco and cloth slipcase. Frontispiece with tissue-guard, illustrated in the text throughout, 24 full-page. Very skilfully, almost imperceptibly rebacked, corners worn, some marks to covers, front hinge split but holding, rear hinge start-ing, some light foxing to first few pages, very good.

first edition. presentation copy in the de-luxe binding, inscribed by the author to Joan-na de Morlot Pollock on the half-title, with a six-line acrostic poem that spells “Joanna”: “Joa Pollack from the Author: in memory of an Awful Afternoon”, dated 4 July 1884 at the end.

Joanna de Morlot Pollock (1862–1949) was the step-daughter of Dodgson’s cousin Amy Menella Dodgson (1842–1922). Joanna was born to Sir Charles Edward Pollock (1823–1897), a High Court judge and last baron of the Court of Exchequer, and his second wife Geor-gina (1838–1864). Amy became Charles’s third wife,

marrying him on 23 December 1866. Dodgson attend-ed their wedding and kept in touch with the family, occasionally dining at their home in Putney and invit-ing Charles Pollock to call when he visited Oxford to oversee the local assizes. Dodgson records in his di-ary that on 24 June 1866 he visited the family and “saw the pretty little Joanna”. A subsequent visit in July 1872 found that “Joa [has] grown out of all recollection”.

This book, inscribed seven months after publication, is in a special white binding, Dodgson’s preferred col-our for presentation. Accompanying it is an undated three-page autograph letter signed from Dodgson to Joanna, laid down to the front pastedown. Dodgson teases her about her greying hair and writes, “I had fancied you were hardly more than 35. How deceptive appearances are!” In closing he asks, “I’m not quite clear that I like your calling me ‘Mr Dodgson’. Would not ‘Cousin Charles’ be more friendly?”Williams–Madan–Green–Crutch 160.

£7,500 [108891]


67

Inscribed to Emmie, first met in a railway carriage, in the superbly white Japanese vellum binding specially for presentation

48CARROLL, Lewis. Rhyme? And Reason? London: Macmillan and Co., 1883

Octavo. Original Japanese vellum, title to spine gilt, triple gilt rules to covers, gilt roundels with vignettes to covers, pale grey coated endpapers, all edges gilt. Housed in a custom green and white solander box. Frontispiece with tissue-guard, illus-trated in the text throughout, 24 full-page. Small wormhole to head of spine, front hinge cracked and partly separated at head, rear hinge with spot of worming to foot (also affecting two pages) and hinge repaired, still a very good copy.

first edition, in a rare presentation binding, inscribed by the author on the half-title in purple ink: “Emmie Wyper, with the affectionate regards of her old friend the Author. November 14 1885.” Emily (“Emmie”) Wyper née Draper first met Dodgson with her two sisters, Minnie and Ella, and their parents on a railway journey in 1869, beginning a close friendship that lasted for 25 years. On the free endpaper, Emmie has re-written in beautiful calligraphy an acrostic that

had been written for one of her sisters on 6 April 1876 in her copy of The Hunting of the Snark. Since the acros-tic features all of them, Emmie apparently wanted the acrostic in a book she owned. The first letters of each line spell out their names. It begins with “Maidens if you love the tale …”

Dodgson had a long established preference for white bindings for special presentation copies, so he must have been pleased with this unusual variant binding. Instead of natural vellum, which has a tendency to bow the un-derlying boards and to discolour, this binding uses Japa-nese vellum, a thick handmade paper polished to resem-ble vellum, and has retained its bright whiteness.Williams–Madan–Green–Crutch 160; Cohen, Lewis Carroll: A Biogra-phy, 1995, p. 468.

£5,000 [108943]


68

With a clipped signature49CARROLL, Lewis. Rhyme? And Reason? London: Macmillan and Co., 1883

Octavo. Original green cloth, titles to spine gilt, triple gilt rules to covers, gilt roundels with vignette to covers, dark green coated endpapers, all edges yellow. Housed in a cus-tom green cloth slipcase. Frontispiece with tissue-guard, il-lustrated in the text throughout, 24 full-page. With the book-plates of Joseph Bowstead Wilson and Simon Nowell-Smith to the front pastedown. An exceptional copy.

first edition, the regular trade cloth binding, this copy with Dodgson’s signature tipped-in to the first blank.Williams–Madan–Green–Crutch 160.

£1,000 [108893]


69

Presentation copy, inscribed to a child-friend in the name of Lewis Carroll50CARROLL, Lewis. Christmas Greetings (from a Fairy to a Child). [London: Macmillan and Co., 1884]

Sextodecimo (16mo), single leaf, printed on one side only. Unbound as issued, printed on paper watermarked “E. Tow-good Fine”. Fine condition.

first separate edition, presentation copy, inscribed by the author in his customary purple ink, “Dorothea Winterbotham, from Lewis Carroll. A me-mento of Xmas, 1889.” Dodgson only used his famous pseudonym in presentations to child-friends, as op-posed to the usual “from the Author” inscription. Although he used the name of Lewis Carroll to avoid all personal publicity, Dodgson “broke his rule of dis-avowal often, usually with children whose friendships had ripened to the point where he wished to confide in them, to share a great secret with them, but sometimes

even earlier, when he was in pursuit and he rightly as-sumed that the fame of the author of the Alice books would help to break the ice with the parents of likely candidates” (Cohen, p. 191). Originally written in 1867, this short poem was first published in 1869, when it appeared in Phantasmagoria with slight variations. This poem also appears as the final text on the last page of his 1886 facsimile, Alice’s Adventures Under Ground (1886).

provenance: Private Collection of Justin Schiller, Christie’s New York, Wednesday 9 December 1998, Lot 15. In a plastic sleeve with the Schiller bookplate. Williams–Madan–Green–Crutch 162.

£2,500 [108914]


70

Inscribed to Mabel Amy Burton51CARROLL, Lewis. A Tangled Tale. London: Macmillan and Co., 1885

Octavo. Original red cloth, title to spine gilt, triple gilt rules to covers, gilt roundels with motifs to covers, dark green coat-ed endpapers. Housed in a custom red cloth chemise and red quarter morocco and cloth slipcase. Frontispiece with tissue-guard and 5 illustrations by Arthur B. Frost. Spine faded and gently rolled, front hinge starting but text block tight, a little spotting to endleaves; an excellent, bright copy.

first edition. presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the half-title, “Mabel Burton from

the Author. Mar. 29 1886.” For the recipient Mabel Amy Burton (b. 1869), see item 5 above.Williams–Madan–Green–Crutch 182.

£3,750 [108895]


71

In the original cloth52CARROLL, Lewis. A Tangled Tale. London: Macmillan and Co., 1885

Octavo. Original red cloth, title to spine gilt, triple gilt rules to covers, gilt roundels with motifs to covers, dark green coated endpapers. Housed in a custom red cloth slipcase with brown morocco label. Frontispiece with tissue-guard and 5 illustra-tions by Arthur B. Frost. With the bookplate of Bertodano Solo to the front pastedown. Spine slightly faded, front hinge split but holding, short closed tear to front free endpaper, occa-sional light spotting to contents. An excellent copy.

first edition. The book consists of ten mathemati-cal problems, which originally appeared in the Monthly Packet, between April 1880 and May 1885. Dodgson called the puzzles “knots” – a reference to Alice’s re-mark to the Mouse in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, “A knot! Oh, do let me help undo it!”Williams–Madan–Green–Crutch 182.

£300 [108896]


72

The rare suppressed issue, complete with the playing card, counters, and envelope53CARROLL, Lewis. The Game of Logic. London: Macmillan and Co., 1886

Octavo. Original red cloth, titles to spine and front cover gilt, black coated endpapers. With the playing card, 9 playing counters (4 pink and 5 grey), and printed envelope as issued. Housed in a custom red linen chemise and red quarter mo-rocco and cloth slipcase. With the bookplate of Beverly Chew to the front pastedown. Bookseller’s ticket to verso of front free endpaper. Spine slightly rolled; a superb copy.

first edition. the rare suppressed issue, de-scribed by Williams, Madan, and Green as “a mystery edition”. Once again, Dodgson decided to reject a first edition due to the poor printing quality. He noted in his diary on 5 December 1886 that “the printing of The Game of Logic (by Baxter at Oxford) has not been a suc-cess: and I wrote today to Macmillan my decision to have it printed again by Clay, for England, and send these 500 to America – just what happened in ‘65 with Alice, when the first 2,000, done at the University Press, turned out so bad that I condemned them to the same fate.”

At least 50 copies were bound in red cloth, as here, though the bibliographers have not identified any copies of the American issue. In Dodgson’s letter to Macmillan on the subject he declared that “they will do very well for the Americans, who ought not to be very particular as to quality, as they insist on having books for very cheap … They must not begin to be sold in America until the English Edition is ready … I would still like the 50 copies bound, as already ordered.” Ac-companying the book are a playing board marked in a lattice pattern and coloured counters; Dodgson’s aim with the game card was to depict syllogistic reasoning in such a way that even a child could understand it.Williams–Madan–Green–Crutch 193.

£3,000 [108905]


73

The first published edition, presentation copy with an accompanying autograph letter to a female student of logic

54CARROLL, Lewis. The Game of Logic. London: Macmillan and Co., 1887

Octavo. Original red cloth, titles to spine and front cover gilt. Complete with original printed envelope, containing the separate card-diagram, and 9 counters (4 pink and 5 grey). With a custom red linen chemise and red quarter morocco and cloth slipcase. Wood-engraved diagram frontispiece and numerous diagrams in text. Bookplate of Justin Schil-ler (Christie’s New York, Wednesday 9 December 1998, Lot 19) to front pastedown. Spine slightly faded, pp. 35–7 slightly creased, an excellent, bright copy.

second (first published) edition. presentation copy, with an accompanying letter, inscribed by the author on the half-title, “Bessie Badcock, from the Author. Feb. 23, 1894.” With the board and original envelope each additionally inscribed, “Bessie Badcock, from L.C.” Together with an autograph letter signed (“C. L. Dodgson”) to Bessie Badcock presenting this copy, also dated 23 February 1894.

My dear Bessie, I feel vexed about your disappointment in not being able to go on with the Logic Class, & I hope this may make up for it a little. You will find the first few

pages easy, I think: & perhaps it will help you to know whether you are likely to care to learn the subject. As there are more than 40 years between our ages, perhaps you won’t be offended if I sign myself, yours affection-ately, C. L. Dodgson.

Dodgson was 62 at the time of writing, making Bes-sie probably around 20 years old – too young for his “Lewis Carroll” signature (although interestingly he does sign both the envelope and board “L.C.”) The text is not in Letters. She may have been a member of the Badcock family, furniture-makers, of Oxford. In a letter of 12 June 1883 to J. R. Dasent, Dodgson makes reference to a Messrs Badcock, whom he recommends for making the legs for a slab of elm given to Christ Church to be made into a table for the Common Room (see Letters, pp. 497–8). Williams–Madan–Green–Crutch 196.

£7,500 [108947]

74


First published edition, with the playing card, counters, and envelope as issued55CARROLL, Lewis. The Game of Logic. London: Macmillan and Co., 1887

Octavo. Original red cloth, titles to spine and front cover gilt, and black coated endpapers. With the playing card, 9 playing counters (4 pink and 5 grey), and printed envelope as issued. Spine gently rolled and a little faded, a little foxing to edges of text block and a couple of spots to outer leaves. An excel-lent copy.

second (first published) edition. This edition is dated a year later than the suppressed first edition (see item 53 above).Williams–Madan–Green–Crutch 196.

£1,000 [108906]


Sylvie and Bruno

Sylvie and Bruno was the last major work issued by Dodgson. It grew around two stories, “Fairy-Sylvie” and “Bruno’s Revenge”, which had first appeared in Aunt Judy’s Magazine.

The first volume was published in December 1889, the second and concluding vol-ume in December 1893. Each was priced 7/6 on publication. Surviving dust jack-ets of Sylvie and Bruno Concluded often have over-stamps on the spine repricing the volume 8/6.


76

The genesis of Sylvie and Bruno56CARROLL, Lewis. “Bruno’s Revenge.” In: Aunt Judy’s May-Day Volume for young people. No. 20. Edited by Mrs Alfred Gatty. London: Bell and Daldy, 1867

Octavo. Original blue-green wrappers, titles to spine and front cover black. Housed in a custom green linen chemise and green cloth slipcase. Spine ends a little worn, some ton-ing to wrappers, a little light foxing to contents.

first edition of the story that eventually formed the nucleus for Sylvie and Bruno. The editor, Marga-ret Gatty, was delighted: “the story is delicious. It is beautiful and fantastic and child-like … Some of

the touches are so exquisite, one would have thought nothing short of intercourse with fairies could have put them into your head”.Williams–Madan–Green–Crutch 60; Collingwood, The Life and Let-ters of Lewis Carroll, p. 109.

£975 [108913]


77

Presentation copies, each volume inscribed to May Wilcox on the respective days of publication57CARROLL, Lewis. Sylvie and Bruno, with forty-six illustrations by Harry Furniss; [together with:] Sylvie and Bruno Concluded, with forty-six illustrations by Harry Furniss. London: Macmillan and Co., 1889 & 1893

2 works, octavo. Original red cloth, titles to spines gilt, black coated endpapers, all edges gilt. Sylvie and Bruno Concluded with the dust jacket priced at 7/6, without the over-price sticker. Housed in custom red linen chemises and red morocco slip-cases. Frontispieces with tissue-guards, illustrations in the text by Harry Furniss. Provenance: May Wilcox from the Au-thor, as above; by descent (?) to her niece (?) – Laura Beatrice Allen, signed on the front free endpapers verso. The Rosen-bach Company, booksellers, with their stock numbers 230/3 and 230/1 and price-code “hvors (13250)”. Two leaves of in-serted advertisements at the end of Sylvie and four leaves of integral advertisements and an integral blank at the end of Concluded; Sylvie quires Y and Z transposed. Spines faded, cloth a little bubbled, a couple of faint marks to covers, hinges of Sylvie and Bruno split but holding. An excellent, bright set.

first editions, first issues. presentation cop-ies, inscribed by the author at the time of publication on the half-titles: Sylvie and Bruno, “May

Wilcox from her affectionate Cousin the Author Dec. 12. 1889”, in purple ink; Sylvie and Bruno Concluded, “May Wilcox, with the Author’s love. Dec. 27, 1893”, in black ink. No earlier presentation copy of Sylvie and Bruno is known and the Concluded inscription is dated two days before publication. May Wilcox was the wife of Dodg-son’s cousin, Reverend Arthur Wilcox. Dodgson had often visited Whitburn, where the Wilcox family was originally based, and composed “Jabberwocky” there during an evening of verse-making. He remained a frequent correspondent with the Wilcox siblings, and continued to visit his cousins after they married and moved away.Williams–Madan–Green–Crutch 217 & 250; Wakeling, Lewis Carroll: Child of the North, 1995, p. 174.

£2,500 [108918]


78

First edition of both parts58CARROLL, Lewis. Sylvie and Bruno; [together with:] Sylvie and Bruno Concluded. London: Macmillan and Co., 1889 & 1893

2 volumes, octavo. Original red cloth, titles to spines gilt, black and brown coated endpapers, all edges gilt. Sylvie and Bruno Concluded with the plain dust jacket with the 8/6 over-price sticker. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. Sylvie and Bruno with some discolouration to boards, some light spotting to

contents; jacket of Sylvie and Bruno Concluded a little toned with some small chips and nicks to extremities.

first editions. Williams–Madan–Green–Crutch 217 & 250.

£750 [108922]


79

“I promise you that I will never invite you again” – Dodgson teases one of his child-friends59DODGSON, Charles Lutwidge. Autograph letter signed to Charlotte Jane Rix. Eastbourne: 21 August 1890

Bifolium (175 x 140 mm). Autograph letter, manuscript in violet ink. Housed in an acetate window within quarter pur-ple morocco and cloth drop case, with purple morocco label lettered gilt to front cover. In fine condition.

In characteristically teasing terms, Dodgson writes to one of his child friends: “My dear Lottie, I’m so sorry to have done what you don’t like, in asking you to come for a visit. But you needn’t be afraid that I shall ever say another word about it. I promise you that I will never invite you again, or mention the subject to you, unless you yourself give me a hint that you would like to come! (‘And that’, says Lottie to herself, ‘is just about as likely as that I should jump over the moon!’) …” The letter continues in similar vein over three pages and is signed “Your penitent and loving friend, C. L. Dodgson”.

Sisters Charlotte and Edith Rix were close friends of Dodgson. On 30 May 1890, Dodgson took Charlotte Rix (1867–1952) to Furniss’s studio. “Spent day in town. I called on ‘Louie’ Ibis, at her school in St. James’s Ter-race; I took her with me to Mr Furniss where we had luncheon and a business talk” (Diaries, p. 436). Char-lotte recorded the outing in a letter to her mother (Let-ters, pp. 578–80): “He told me that he had business with an artist who would give us some dinner. So we started. And on the way he told me that the artist was that Harry Furniss who draws those splendid parlia-mentary pictures in Punch and that his business with

him was that he was illustrating another book he was writing, which he hoped would be out by next Xmas twelve-month.. .. Mr. and Mrs. Furniss were very kind and after dinner I went down with Mr. Dodgson and Mr. Furniss to his studio. I saw the first drawing for the book; it is most absurd and will come in with a piece of poetry like the Walrus and the Carpenter. Mr. Fur-niss showed me some drawings he had done for a new children’s book that is coming out called Romps. They were splendid, and while Mr. Dodgson was talking to a Mr. Barber (who had come to show him some pho-tographs and who has a good picture in the Academy this year) I had quite a talk with him. He is very short and has red hair and he had on his working jacket, and I liked him very much. He has three children but I only saw two: a boy and a girl, both rather pretty (about 4 or 5 I should think) and lots of the children in the book are taken from them. We were in the Studio about an hour, and I couldn’t help thinking, how six months ago I little thought I should ever find myself in Mr. Furniss’s studio, with another artist and Lewis Carroll, talking to them just as if they were anybody else, and hearing Lewis Carroll and Mr. Furniss discuss his new book!”Morton Norton Cohen, Edward Wakeling (eds.), Lewis Carroll and His Illustrators: Collaborations & Correspondence, 1865–1898.

£3,500 [108907]

80



Eight or Nine Wise Words (1890)

Eight or Nine Wise Words about Letter-Writing is a small stitched pamphlet which, in its final form, is accompanied by The Wonderland Postage Stamp Case and a printed pink envelope containing both.

According to Williams–Madan–Green–Crutch, the Stamp Case was produced first, in March 1890. On its first publication in June 1890, the Wise Words was accompa-nied by the second edition of the Stamp Case, both enclosed together within the first edition of the envelope. There were several later printings of all three parts. Green notes that Emberlin still had copies for sale in 1944.


82

Presentation to the future bishop of Oxford60CARROLL, Lewis. The Wonderland Postage Stamp Case. Oxford: Emberlin and Son, March 1890

curred to me when I got home this afternoon that as your youngest daughter is so interested in Lewis Car-roll, she might like to have the enclosed relic … I am sure he would have liked me to give it to a little girl – specially.” Subsequently, in a letter dated 4 February 1932, signed “Thomas Oxon”, he gives permission to Miss Bartlett to loan the gift to the 1932 centenary ex-hibition (“it is, at least, yours, and you can do what you like with it”).

This scarce early issue of the Stamp Case appears to have been distributed by Dodgson for presentation around two months before its formal publication in a pink printed envelope with Eight or Nine Wise Words. With the required issue points: no imprint above the Cheshire Cat on the outer sleeve, and the space below reading “Price One Shilling.”Williams–Madan–Green–Crutch 223.

£5,250 [108948]

Folded card (97 x 78 mm). Stamp case with pictorial covers, containing 12 small sewn pockets to hold stamps from 1/2d to 1s in value, in the original linen-backed pictorial sleeve. Housed in a custom blue linen chemise, blue folding presen-tation case and quarter blue morocco. From the Private Col-lection of Justin Schiller, Christie’s New York, Wednesday 9 December 1998, Lot 20. A few light marks and a little foxing. In excellent condition.

first edition, first issue. presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the lower inside bor-der, “T. B. Strong, from the Inventor, Ap./90.” The recipient, Thomas Banks Strong (1861–1944), was a student, teacher, and Dean of Christ Church, Oxford (1901–20), who later became bishop of Ripon and Ox-ford successively.

It is accompanied by two autograph letters from Bishop Strong. The first dated 5 June 1921, and signed “Thomas Ripon”, presents this copy as a gift to Miss E. Bartlett, the youngest daughter of a friend: “It oc-


83

Presentation to Bessie Slatter61CARROLL, Lewis. Eight or Nine Wise Words about Letter Writing. Oxford: Emberlin and Son, 1890Duodecimo. Original cream wrappers, title to front cover black. Housed in a custom red linen chemise and red quar-ter morocco and cloth slipcase. Small chip to foot of front cover, small tear to foot of spine, some foxing to covers and contents.

first edition. presentation copy, inscribed by the author to “Bessie Slatter from the Author. July 10 1890.” John Slatter (1818–1899), curate of Sandford-on-Thames, vicar of Streatley, and rector of Whitch-urch, his wife, mother, and daughter Elizabeth (“Bes-sie”) were all close friends of the author, who visited and photographed them (Letters, Cohen ed., I:46, n. 4). Williams–Madan–Green–Crutch 223.

£1,250 [108923]


84

The author’s annotated proof copy of the second edition, with his holograph corrections62CARROLL, Lewis. Eight or Nine Wise Words about Letter-Writing. Oxford: Emberlin and Son, 1890

Duodecimo (112 x 83 mm). Bound in near-contemporary green morocco, front cover lettered in gilt, rules to covers blinds-tamped, all edges gilt. Spine refurbished, a little rubbing to edge, some spotting to endleaves. An exceptional copy.

charles dodgson’s annotated proof copy of the second edition, featuring his correc-tions in manuscript. The title-page is inscribed by Dodgson in his customary violet ink, noting that the copy was corrected on “July 9, 1890. Please send fresh proof to no. 7 Lushington Road, Eastbourne.” Dodgson’s inked corrections throughout tend towards greater concision, though he inserted an extra rule in the chapter on “How to go on with a Letter”: “Do not fasten up the envelope till post-time is close at hand.

Otherwise, you will have to tear it open again, to insert something you had forgotten to say.” Williams–Madan–Green–Crutch 223.

£9,750 [108854]


85

First combined edition63CARROLL, Lewis. Syzygies and Lanrick. A Word Puzzle and a Game for Two Players. London: (Richard Clay and Sons, Limited for) “The Lady”, 1893

Octavo, pp. 30. Original pale grey printed wrappers, title to front cover black. Housed in a custom black cloth velvet-lined solander box. A fine copy.

first combined edition, published in an edition of 250 copies. Syzgies was first published, and reprinted separately, in 1891; Lanrick was first published in De-cember 1880 in the Monthly Packet; this is the fourth and final edition of the rules for the game. Scarce.

Dodgson at Auction 1893–1999 records only the author’s own copy selling at auction (George Williamson sale, Anderson, 30 January 1908, lot 214 and again in the El-dridge R. Johnson sale, Parke-Bernet Galleries, 3 April 1946, lot 61).Williams–Madan–Green–Crutch 244.

£3,000 [108924]


86

Inscribed to May Miller, “a very charming companion” befriended at Eastbourne64(DODGSON, Charles Lutwidge.) YONGE, Charlotte Mary. The Girl’s Little Book. London: Skeffington, 1893

Small octavo. Original pictorial blue cloth, blocked red, green and white to the front cover, patterned endpapers. Housed in a custom blue velvet-lined solander box. Spine slightly faded, spine ends and tips rubbed, a little spotting to outer leaves. An excellent copy.

third edition, presentation copy from dodg-son, inscribed by him on the verso of the front free endpaper, “Marion Miller from C. L. Dodgson. Oct. 25, 1893.” Dodgson maintained a lifelong correspondence with Marion Louisa “May” Miller (1868–1946), whom he first befriended with her sister Edith at Eastbourne in 1881, and subsequently met there again for at least five consecutive summers. Dodgson described her as “a very charming companion” (Letters p. 443n), and re-cords an eventful outing with May to Brighton in Au-

gust 1893 and dining with her on 7 October (cf. Letters pp. 983–4 and 982).

This is the third edition of Yonge’s book, published the same year as the first. Dodgson first met the pro-lific author Charlotte Yonge (1823–1901) on 3 May 1866; the following day he took two photographs of her in his studio. In the 1880s he contributed the whole of A Tangled Tale to her monthly magazine, The Monthly Packet, and they remained friends and correspondents throughout his life. Ironically, The Girl’s Little Book is ex-actly the kind of evangelical, moralistic work for chil-dren that the Alice books effortlessly eclipsed.

£1,500 [108926]


87

Inscribed to Dolly Blakemore, a child who grew to be a lifelong friend65CARROLL, Lewis. Symbolic Logic. Part I Elementary. London: Macmillan and Co., and New York, 1896

Octavo. Original brown cloth, titles to front cover black. With the dust jacket. Spine rolled, boards gently bowed; an excellent copy in the jacket with some short closed tears to extremities.

first edition. presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the half-title, “Edith Blakemore with the Author’s affectionate regards. Feb. 22, 1896.” Dodgson first made the acquaintance of Edith Rose (“Dolly”) Blakemore (1872–1947) while staying for his annual holiday at Eastbourne in the summer of 1877. He noted in his diary on 2 August that “this evening, on the pier, I have made friends with quite the bright-est child, and nearly the prettiest, I have yet seen here.”

Dodgson, who estimated that he had known some “200 or 300 children”, noted in a letter written on 31 March 1890 that Edith was “rather the exception among the hundred or so child-friends who have brightened my life. Usually the child becomes so entirely a different being as she grows into a woman that our friendship has to change too: and that it usu-ally does by sliding down, from a loving intimacy,

into an acquaintance that merely consists of a bow and a smile when we meet! ... I hope we may continue equally good friends during the years – few or many – that I have still before me.” A year later, he teasingly wrote to her: “when we have reached the exact mo-ment when you are beginning to give me up finally, as a hopeless correspondent and a useless friend … [I shall] write you just one more letter, so as to wind up the works of friendship (please observe this quite original simile – treating friendship as a clock! You see it needs the joining of two hands: and though things are sometimes at sixes and sevens, yet they al-ways come round at last) and set it going again.”

The first edition was published in February 1896 in an edition of 500 copies only, of which 100 were reserved for authorial presentation. Three further editions were published by Christmas the same year.Williams–Madan–Green–Crutch 270; Cohen, Lewis Carroll: A Biogra-phy, 1995, p. 469.

£5,000 [108930]


88

Dodgson’s cousin’s “tale for tiny boys” Dodgson’s own (the only recorded) copy of the privately printed issue, together with a presentation copy

of the published edition, expanded at his suggestion and with his new introduction66(CARROLL, Lewis, intro.) WILCOX, E[lizabeth]. G[eorgina]. The Lost Plum-Cake. A Tale for Tiny Boys. With nine illustrations by E. L. Shute. Oxford: Horace Hart “Printed for private Circulation” 1896 & London: (Horace Hart, Oxford, for) Macmillan and Co., 1896 & 1897

2 works, octavo. Original red textured paper boards, titles to front covers gilt, watered silk pastedowns. Housed in cus-tom red linen chemises and a red velvet-lined solander box. Illustrations after E. L. Shute. Spine expertly repaired, lightly rubbed and soiled.

dodgson’s own copy of the rare privately printed issue with his manuscript monogram, together with a pre-publication presenta-

tion copy of the first trade edition inscribed by him and an autograph letter signed. The trade edition is inscribed by Dodgson: “For Dorothy from Lewis Carroll. Christmas 1897,” together with an accompanying autograph letter signed from Lew-is Carroll to six-year-old Dorothy Nutcombe Gould, Christ Church, 23 December 1897 (1 page, duodecimo):


89

“My dear Dorothy, here’s a lot more plum-cake for you. I hope you won’t make yourself ill with it.”

Dorothy Nutcombe Gould (b. 1891) was the daughter of the actor James Nutcombe Gould, whom Dodgson had seen as Orlando in a production of As You Like It (with his friends Violet and Irene Barnes) in 1888. However, he was only introduced to Nutcombe Gould and three of his daughters in October 1895, and met Dorothy in December of that year. On the day that he sent this letter and book (the last to be published in his lifetime), Dodgson left for Guildford to spend Christ-mas with his family, where he was taken ill and died on 14 January 1898.

Mrs Allen was Dodgson’s cousin. He had taken interest in the book, giving advice and suggesting incidents for its expansion for commercial publication. He recruited the illustrator and cover designer and convinced Mac-millan to publish the book on condition that he write a preface. The story is composed in words of no more than four letters each. The privately printed copy is the only one known: there is no copy in the British Library, in the British Union Catalogue, nor the Library of Congress.Williams–Madan–Green–Crutch 285 (trade edition, noting but not listing separately the privately-published edition).

£12,500 [108927]


90

His last work67CARROLL, Lewis. Three Sunsets and Other Poems. London: Macmillan and Co., 1898

Octavo. Original green cloth, titles to spine and front cover gilt, vignette to front cover gilt, all edges gilt. Frontispiece with tissue-guard and 11 illustrations by E. Gertrude Thom-son. Spine faded to brown, covers a little sunned, tips slight-ly worn. An excellent copy.

first edition. A collection of poetry, including por-tions of Phantasmagoria (1869) and two poems from Syl-vie and Bruno, which, the author notes in the introduc-tion, are “books whose high price (made necessary by

the great cost of production) has, I fear, put them out of the reach of most of my readers.” Three Sunsets was priced 4s. It was issued in February 1898, the month af-ter Dodgson’s death. The preface, dated January 1898, is perhaps the last thing he wrote.Williams–Madan–Green–Crutch 286.

£450 [108932]


91

Rare privately printed account of Dodgson’s European tour68DODGSON, Charles Lutwidge. Tour in 1867. From the original manuscript in the collection of M. L. Parrish, Esq., Pine Valley, New Jersey. Philadelphia: Privately Printed, 1928

Octavo. Original red leather, titles to spine and front cover gilt, single rule gilt to covers, top edge gilt. Housed in a red linen chemise and red quarter calf and cloth slipcase. A few faint marks to covers, a little toning to endpapers; an excel-lent, fresh copy.

first edition, limited issue. One of 66 copies printed from the original manuscript, a diary of Dodg-son’s European tour with Canon Liddon in the summer of 1867, written in two notebooks. Dodgson and Lid-don travelled to Russia via Berlin, Brussels, Cologne and Königsberg, where they visited Saint Petersburg

and Moscow, and returned through Warsaw, Breslau, Dresden and Paris.

Pencilled to the front free endpaper of this copy is “Dodgson, 8 Lillington Rd, Leamington Spa”, and be-low are the pencilled initials “G.M.D., 1961”. This copy was possibly from the library of Dodgson’s nieces Vio-let and Mennella, who moved to Leamington Spa dur-ing the Second World War.Williams–Madan–Green–Crutch 299.

£2,000 [108864]

92


Written for the private amusement of his family69CARROLL, Lewis. The Rectory Umbrella & Mischmasch. London: Cassell and Company, 1932

Octavo. Original blue cloth, title to spine gilt, front cover let-tered and decorated in light blue, top edge blue. With the dust jacket. Illustrations to text in black and white. A little rubbing to board edges; an excellent, fresh copy in the jacket with toned spine and and some creases and nicks to extremities.

first edition, containing the text of the seventh and eighth of Dodgson’s domestic magazines, which he

wrote and illustrated in manuscript for his family be-tween 1855 and 1862.Williams–Madan–Green–Crutch 308.

£150 [108936]


I N D E XReferences are to item numbers

Albany, Duchess of 23Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9; French

translation 10, 11; Italian translation 12, 13; Russian translation 14

Alice’s Adventures Under Ground 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29Aventures d’Alice au pays des merveilles 10, 11 Avventure d’Alice nel paese delle meraviglie, Le 12, 13Badcock, Elizabeth (“Bessie”) 54Barrett, Dorothea (“Dollie”) 39Bartlett, E. 60Blakemore, Edith 65Bowman, Isa 21, 46“Bruno’s Revenge” 56Burnett, Mary 16 Burton, Mabel Amy 5, 51Christmas Greetings ( from a Fairy to a Child) 20, 50Collingwood, Mary Charlotte 6, 39Clarke, Henry Savile 20Crane, Beatrice 38Discovery Expedition 8Dodgson, Mennella 68Dodgson, Violet 68Doublets: A Word Puzzle 42Drury, Mary See Fuller, Mary “Minnie” Francis Dutton, E. P. 2, 35 Easter Greeting to Every Child Who Loves Alice, An 5, 20, 38Eight or Nine Wise Words about Letter-Writing 61, 62Falle, Albina (“Lily”) 24Freiligrath-Kroeker, Kate 15 Frost, Arthur B. 45, 51, 52Fuller, Mary “Minnie” Francis 19Furniss, Harry 57, 58, 59 Game of Logic, The 53, 54, 55Girl’s Little Book, The 64Goodacre, Selwyn 22, 29, 39 Gould, Dorothy Nutcombe 66Hargreaves, Alice See Liddell, Alice.Hatfield House 23, 37, 46Holiday, Henry 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 45Hunting of the Snark, The 4n, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41 Index to “In Memoriam” 34Jeune, Ceroline Margaret Noël 21Koettlitz, Reginald 8Langbridge, Violet 26

Lanrick: A Game for Two Players 43, 63 Leopold, Prince 23Liddell, Alice 4, 23, 29Liddell, Rhoda 4Liddell, Violet 2Lost Plum-Cake, The 66Martin, Georgina 20Miller, Edith 7, 64Miller, Marion Louisa (“May”) 7, 64Mischmasch 44, 69 Nabokov, Vladimir 14New Belfry of Christ Church, Oxford, The 36Paine, Adelaide (“Ada”) 32Pollock, Joanna de Morlot 47Rectory Umbrella, The 69Rhyme? And Reason? 47, 48, 49Riccardi Press 9Rix, Charlotte (“Lottie”) Jane 59Rolleston, George 35Sandford, Alice 37Sangorski & Sutcliffe 2, 35Scrivener, Jessie Josephine 18Shute, E. L. 66Standen, Maud 40Strong, Thomas Banks 60Sylvie and Bruno 46n, 56, 57, 58Sylvie and Bruno Concluded 57, 58, 22nSymbolic Logic 65Syzygies 63Tangled Tale, A 51, 52Tenniel, John 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 16, 17, 19, 20,

21, 22, 45Tennyson, Lord Alfred 16, 34Thomson, Gertrude E. 30, 31, 32, 67Three Sunsets and Other Poems 67Through the Looking-Glass 5, 7, 8, 16, 17, 19, 20, 21, 22 Tour in 1867 68Welford, Nellie 6 See also Collingwood, Charlotte.Wilcox, Elizabeth Georgina 66Wilcox, May 57Wolmer, Lady Maud 46Wonderland Postage Stamp Case, The 60Wyper, Emily (“Emmie”) 48Yonge, Charlotte Mary 64


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