Alice's Adventures Under Ground [Hardcover]

Miriam Margoyles (Reader)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 22, 2005 | ISBN-10: 0712305254 | ISBN-13: 978-0712305259 | Edition: First Thus

"Turn The Pages of Lewis Carroll's original manuscript" is one of the British Library's most treasured possessions. On 4 July 1862, which he later remembered as a [registered] golden afternoon, the Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, a young mathematics tutor at Christ Church, Oxford, entertained three little girls on a river trip with a [registered] fairy tale, which was to become one of the most famous children's stories of all time. Alice Liddell, the heroine of the tale, implored him to write it down for her, but had to wait two years until she received the gift of a beautifully handwritten volume, with Dodgson's own pen and ink drawings, entitled "Alice's Adventures Under Ground". Later it was revised, expanded, given new illustrations by John Tenniel, and finally published as "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" by Lewis Carroll (the pseudonym that Dodgson adopted). Many hundreds of different editions have been published since then: but what can be better than reading the author's original version, just as he created it for Alice herself! This CD-ROM allows you to: turn all the pages of the manuscript (backwards, forwards, magnify any page); listen to Miriam Margolyes as she reads the whole story, while the pages are turned automatically; and view a short film about the [registered] original Alice.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Source of legend and lyric, reference and conjecture, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is for most children pure pleasure in prose. While adults try to decipher Lewis Carroll's putative use of complex mathematical codes in the text, or debate his alleged use of opium, young readers simply dive with Alice through the rabbit hole, pursuing "The dream-child moving through a land / Of wonders wild and new." There they encounter the White Rabbit, the Queen of Hearts, the Mock Turtle, and the Mad Hatter, among a multitude of other characters--extinct, fantastical, and commonplace creatures. Alice journeys through this Wonderland, trying to fathom the meaning of her strange experiences. But they turn out to be "curiouser and curiouser," seemingly without moral or sense.

For more than 130 years, children have reveled in the delightfully non-moralistic, non-educational virtues of this classic. In fact, at every turn, Alice's new companions scoff at her traditional education. The Mock Turtle, for example, remarks that he took the "regular course" in school: Reeling, Writhing, and branches of Arithmetic-Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision. Carroll believed John Tenniel's illustrations were as important as his text. Naturally, Carroll's instincts were good; the masterful drawings are inextricably tied to the well-loved story. (All ages) --Emilie Coulter --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly

An edition of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll contains all of Arthur Rackham's original artwork from the 1907 edition (published after Sir John Tenniel's illustrations). Pen-and-inks dot the text; full-page paintings, such as one sepia-toned frame showing Alice, in a delicate rose-patterned dress, addressing the hookah-smoking Caterpillar, plus a sewn-in satin bookmark make this an elegant gift choice.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: British Library; First Thus edition (September 22, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0712305254
• ISBN-13: 978-0712305259
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 4.6 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 ounces
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,650,774 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)