Customer Reviews

Alice in Wonderland / Through the Looking Glass (Children's Illustrated Classics)

5 star:		(175)
4 star:		(65)
3 star:		(44)
2 star:		(16)
1 star:		(21)

 

 

My first exposure to Lewis Carroll's classic children's story was through the 1951 Disney film adaptation "Alice in Wonderland," which I watched repeatedly as a child. The creative quality of the story never failed to fascinate me, and I kept going back despite my deep-rooted terror of the frightful Queen of Hearts, who always gave me nightmares! However, it was not until recently, as an adult, that I ever picked up the book/s upon which that film was based. In some ways I wish I had read it when I was younger, as the book certainly makes a great deal more sense than the movie does (as much sense as a story of this sort can, anyhow), but thankfully this book is unique in that it is just as enjoyable for adults as for children.

The story is actually spread across two books, here contained in a single volume. "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" was first published in 1865 and relates the events that take place after young Alice falls asleep during her lessons and dreams of following a white rabbit down a rabbit hole. Alice encounters all manner of strange creatures in her dream, and finds herself in all sorts of curious predicaments where common sense fails and the nonsensical comes to be expected. There is no central, concrete storyline, but rather Alice moves rapidly from one bizarre situation to the next before waking once more and relating the whole adventure to her sister.

The second of the two books, "Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There," appeared in 1871 and is very similar in nature to the first, though having a slightly different plot. Here Alice steps through an ordinary looking-glass one day, only to find herself in a world where, if you wish to get anywhere, you must walk in the opposite direction! Walking toward your desired destination only gets you further and further away. Also, interestingly, the land which Alice has entered is essentially a giant chessboard, and she must move through the different squares to reach the other side if she wishes to become a queen (which she does).

The characters Carroll created in these two stories are some of the most strikingly unique and unforgettable in the world of literature. Alice herself, based largely on Alice Liddell, a real-life child of whom Carroll was very fond, is a wonderful heroine that you can't help admiring. Throughout all of her backwards and upside-down adventures, she remains ever sensible and analytical, always trying to reason her way out of the most unreasonable situations. Other characters a reader won't soon forget include the White Rabbit, the Mad Hatter, the March Hare, the Dormouse, the Cheshire Cat, Bill the Lizard, the Caterpillar, the Duchess and her peppery cook, the aforementioned Queen of Hearts, the Mock Turtle, the Gryphon, the Red and White Queens, the talking flowers, Tweedledum and Tweedledee, the Sheep, Humpty Dumpty, and the Red and White Knights. Carroll also created many fascinating new creatures in his stories, including bread-and-butterflies, rocking-horseflies, "slithy toves," "mome raths" and more.

What I find most intriguing, as an adult reader of these books, is Carroll's brilliant use of wordplay and symbolism throughout the stories. Nearly everything has some sort of double meaning. There are hidden messags and subtle witticisms on every page. Carroll also includes several parodies of what were well-known songs and rhymes in England at the time. Young children will love the books for their fantastic qualities and imaginative inspiration, but most readers will not pick up on the many puns and jokes until they are a little older, so these stories really do have something to offer to anyone, no matter what age. I'd highly recommend the book to any reader - and be sure to get an edition that includes the original illustrations.

This review refers to the 2004 Barnes & Noble Classics printing, with introduction and notes by Tan Lin.

There is one thing that all potential customers must keep in mind when buying any Alice book: Do not purchase one that does not include the illustrations of John Tenniel! This edition includes all of them and the quality of the reproductions on the pages are excellent. Tenniel's illustrations help add to the childish excitement of Carroll's stories and will be especially invaluable to teenagers and adults, having just by nature of growing up lost some of the imaginative innocence, that ability to stretch reality, that we all possessed as kids.

Of course, the illustrations wouldn't mean jack if they didn't have a captivating story to work with. Carroll's amusing tale of nonsense is targeted as a kid's book, and that is always where many of our fondest memories of it will remain, but as a college student reading it I was amazed by its power to suspend reality and return me to a level of imagination that I had simply thought I lost somewhere along the way. The trip down the rabbit hole can be quite a different experience from a different point of view.

This particular edition also includes a good introduction and very helpful explanatory notes organized chapter by chapter. The introduction and notes offer insights to Carroll's life and his relations with the real life Alice and her family that, from a student viewpoint, reveal an interesting and more personal side of the Alice tales.

This is not a review of the book, you can refer to the printed (or many of the Kindle versions) for that. Rather this is a comment on the Kindle file. I was specifically looking for a version that included the illustrations, and as this version listed John Tenniel under author information I hoped these would be included... they aren't. It does look like a well formatted version of the book, with an introduction by the editor, the original poetry from the beginning of the story (which some public domain versions lack), the original italicized text rather than CAPITAL letters as in some public domain versions, and a good approximation of the unique text formatting as seen in the printed book. It does not have a table of contents.

I first read this book when I was eleven because I thought that I might be missing out on something if I didn't. I found Alice's Adventures in Wonderland kind of boring but still good. Then I read Through the Looking Glass, and I loved it! I memorized all of the poems (jabberwocky being my favorite poem in the world), read it about a million times, and recomended it to people. Between Tweedledum and Tweedledee and Humpty Dumpty and all the reat of them, I had a lot of pleasant laughs and thoughts and dreams. Unfortunately, I read that Alice is losing popularity because people aren't at the reading level to read it before they outgrow fairy tales. This is a shame. people should preserve their imaginations just to read an excellent book like this and dream about it for a while. Now I am 13, and I stll treaasure this book. The poem at the very end of the book was so sad in way. it really summed up about how I feel about the magic of childhood.

My first exposure to Lewis Carroll's classic children's story was through the 1951 Disney film adaptation "Alice in Wonderland," which I watched repeatedly as a child. The creative quality of the story never failed to fascinate me, and I kept going back despite my deep-rooted terror of the frightful Queen of Hearts, who always gave me nightmares! However, it was not until recently, as an adult, that I ever picked up the book/s upon which that film was based. In some ways I wish I had read it when I was younger, as the book certainly makes a great deal more sense than the movie does (as much sense as a story of this sort can, anyhow), but thankfully this book is unique in that it is just as enjoyable for adults as for children.

The story is actually spread across two books, here contained in a single volume. "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" was first published in 1865 and relates the events that take place after young Alice falls asleep during her lessons and dreams of following a white rabbit down a rabbit hole. Alice encounters all manner of strange creatures in her dream, and finds herself in all sorts of curious predicaments where common sense fails and the nonsensical comes to be expected. There is no central, concrete storyline, but rather Alice moves rapidly from one bizarre situation to the next before waking once more and relating the whole adventure to her sister.

The second of the two books, "Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There," appeared in 1871 and is very similar in nature to the first, though having a slightly different plot. Here Alice steps through an ordinary looking-glass one day, only to find herself in a world where, if you wish to get anywhere, you must walk in the opposite direction! Walking toward your desired destination only gets you further and further away. Also, interestingly, the land which Alice has entered is essentially a giant chessboard, and she must move through the different squares to reach the other side if she wishes to become a queen (which she does).

The characters Carroll created in these two stories are some of the most strikingly unique and unforgettable in the world of literature. Alice herself, based largely on Alice Liddell, a real-life child of whom Carroll was very fond, is a wonderful heroine that you can't help admiring. Throughout all of her backwards and upside-down adventures, she remains ever sensible and analytical, always trying to reason her way out of the most unreasonable situations. Other characters a reader won't soon forget include the White Rabbit, the Mad Hatter, the March Hare, the Dormouse, the Cheshire Cat, Bill the Lizard, the Caterpillar, the Duchess and her peppery cook, the aforementioned Queen of Hearts, the Mock Turtle, the Gryphon, the Red and White Queens, the talking flowers, Tweedledum and Tweedledee, the Sheep, Humpty Dumpty, and the Red and White Knights. Carroll also created many fascinating new creatures in his stories, including bread-and-butterflies, rocking-horseflies, "slithy toves," "mome raths" and more.

What I find most intriguing, as an adult reader of these books, is Carroll's brilliant use of wordplay and symbolism throughout the stories. Nearly everything has some sort of double meaning. There are hidden messags and subtle witticisms on every page. Carroll also includes several parodies of what were well-known songs and rhymes in England at the time. Young children will love the books for their fantastic qualities and imaginative inspiration, but most readers will not pick up on the many puns and jokes until they are a little older, so these stories really do have something to offer to anyone, no matter what age.

This particular edition (2004 Barnes & Noble Classics printing, with introduction and notes by Tan Lin) also contains several extra "goodies" in addition to the text of the two books. There is a brief biography of Lewis Carroll, a timeline of his life and career, a fascinating and insightful introduction (well worth the read!), information on various film adaptations, a short story by Carroll - "What the Tortoise said to Achilles," commentary on the text by various individuals and publications, and a set of questions designed to aid the reader's thought and analysis of the text. The book also contains all of the original illustrations, which are indispenable to a full enjoyment of the story. Highly recommended to any reader.

When Charles Ludwig Dodgson first began to tell the story of Alice's adventures underground to the three Liddell sisters, he had no idea whatsoever the impact that his work would one day have in the cultural history of humanity. Is there a person alive in Western civilization that *doesn't* know of Alice, the Mad Hatter, the Queen of Hearts, the White Rabbit and the Cheshire Cat? I seriously doubt it. Writing under the pen name of Lewis Carroll, Dodgson's quirky fairytale soon became a publishing sensation in Victorian England, quite an unusual feat for a dour mathematician who had no interest whatsoever in boys, women or most other human beings, and instead lavishing his attention on little girls - particularly one Alice Liddell, to whom he presented the original manuscript to. The story of Lewis Carroll is just as fascinating as his fictional Alice, so I would suggest following up the "Alice" books with a good Carroll biography.

In a story that is so random (basically made up of one little girl wandering about in a dream) there is plenty of room for all sorts of crazy theories as to exactly what everything means. Does "Alice" have a deep subtext, filled with hidden meaning and messages? Is it Freudian? Elaborate satire? Does it reflect the deep internal frustrations, anxieties and wish-fulfillment of a slightly-disturbed mathematician obsessed with little girls? Or is it simply a series of weird and wonderful events dreamed up for the enjoyment of children? The fact that nobody is really sure *what* to make of this story is probably the reason why it's still published, read and discussed today.

The other reason is its historical value. "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" was the first book designed for children that was entirely void of any sort of moral, and instead written solely for pure entertainment purposes. Before "Alice", children were stuck with stories that preached goodliness and virtue, something that Carroll himself pokes fun at during the course of the story, when he refers to "several nice little stories about children who had got burnt, and eaten up by wild beasts, and other unpleasant things, all because they would not remember the simple rules their friends had told them." His stories came like an unexpected breath of fresh air amongst Victorian society, and it was little wonder that adults as well as children helped to make "Alice" a bestseller during its day.

Another crucial feature to the tale is Alice herself, often considered the first realistic representation of a child in literature. She's curious, but sometimes a little shy. She's polite, but manners often give way to frustration and temper tantrums. She's intelligent, but not as intelligent as she would like to think she is (relying heavily on an education that often fails her). She often holds her own against the contradictory natures of the people she meets, but more often than not is baffled and belittled by them. She possesses some degree of common sense, but often does some remarkably stupid things. She's likeable, but she's also a bit of a show-off and a snob. In other words, she's the first (and perhaps the best) example of a three-dimensional child character in literature geared toward either children *or* adults.

"Alice in Wonderland" begins with the infamous sight of a white rabbit with a waistcoat and pocket-watch muttering to himself: "I'm late! I'm late!" Abandoning her sister and the dull book that she's reading, Alice follows the rabbit down a rabbit hole and unexpectedly finds herself drifting deep down underground. What follows is a series of weird and wonderful meetings with the likes of the Queen of Hearts, the Mad Hatter and the March Hare, the Cheshire Cat and the Gryphon and the Mock Turtle, as poor Alice - the only sane person in the madhouse - struggles to make herself heard against this twisted parody of the adult world.

Nearly every page contains a clever pun, nonsensical poem or mathematical puzzle, and there's plenty here to keep you fascinated, whether it be Alice's abrupt shrinking and growing (brought on by eating Wonderland food, and perhaps reflecting Carroll's desire to control the growth of his young protagonist), the beautiful garden that Alice cannot seem to reach (and when she does, she finds it not quite to her liking, perhaps suggesting a reverse-Eden, in which children desiring adulthood soon realize that it's not quite what they expected it to be) or Alice's internal crisis in which she debates whether the surreal circumstances she's found herself in have resulted in her loosing her own identity (I won't even try to open the jar on *that* one!) No wonder scholars can go mad trying to untangle this tale! Even the fact that the story succumbs to the ultimate cliché in fantasy-fiction, the ending that will reward you with an F if you use it in a creative-writing exercise at school (I am of course, referring to the fact that Alice wakes up at the conclusion of the story to find that it was just a dream), doesn't damage the power of Carroll's imaginative force.

"Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There" is a little more structured in terms of its storyline, perhaps because Carroll was not simply making most of it up on the spot, as he had done with its predecessor. This time, when Alice falls asleep, she crawls through the mirror on the top of the mantelpiece and into the room on the other side. There she finds a land organized into the shape of a giant chessboard, in which Alice herself is a little pawn that must journey to the end of the board if she wishes to become a Queen. On the way she meets several chess pieces, including the Red and White Queen, and the White Knight (widely believed to represent Carroll himself), as well as Tweedledum and Tweedledee, Humpty Dumpty, a garden of living flowers, and the Lion and the Unicorn, the latter of whom famously tells Alice: "If you'll believe in me, I'll believe in you." My favourite chapter would have to be the one that involves the ludicrously pompous Humpty Dumpty (who is really the one who coined the term "un-birthday", not the Mad Hatter and the March Hare as the Disney version would have you believe), though equally memorable is the intriguing episode when Alice happens upon the sleeping Red King, and is told that he's dreaming of her. Is Alice in the Red King's dream, or is the Red King in Alice's dream? What should happen if one of them should wake up before the other? It's a disturbing metaphysical conundrum, and hints at the depths with which a scholar (or deep-thinking child) could delve into these stories.

Of course, not every child will enjoy the "Alice" stories. What was once vividly imaginative and innovative for a stifled Victorian audience has long since become commonplace in children's fiction, and the randomness with which the adventures take place can often unsettle young listeners (as they certainly did me, as I always felt that Alice was caught inside a nightmare). However, others will delight in the madness that abounds throughout the story, and others still will learn to appreciate the work as they get older. There are hundreds of editions out there, most probably quite as good as the next, but I would encourage buyers to track down an edition with John Tenniel's famous illustrations - you simply cannot read the "Alice" books when they are not accompanied by Tenniel's portrayal of his demure little Alice, with her hooded eyes and large forehead. It would be like reading C. S. Lewis without Pauline Baynes, or Roald Dahl without Quentin Blake. Unthinkable!

I had not read these books since I was probably seven or eight, and I am glad that I finally got around to reading them again. These are some of the most fun childrens books (or any books for that matter) ever written. A previous reviewer gave this book a poor rating because it was only a childrens book. I fail to understand how being a childrens book means that a book is bad. Many childrens book are among the best books that I have ever read. Just because a book is a childrens book does not mean that it is a book just for children. Lewis Carroll wrote this for children, but it is probably even more enjoyable for me to read now than it was when I was a child, for now I understand many of the double meanings and world plays that you would never understand as a child. Carroll is better with word plays than any other author that I can recall reading. He is a master of molding sentences that simply slide right off of your tongue because they flow so smoothly. This is definitely one of the best childrens books ever written.

Overall grade: A+

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, better known as Lewis Carroll, was a shy, eccentric bachelor who taught mathematics at Christ Church, Oxford. He had a great fondness of playing with mathematics, logic, words, for writing nonsense, and for the company of little girls, especially a little girl called Alice Liddell (rhymes with fiddle), the daughter of Christ Church's Dean. Dodgson's passions somehow fused into two great masterpieces of English literature, the Alice Books, immortal fantasies whose fame surpassed that of all of Carroll's collegues at Oxford put together. If the Alice books had any "purpoise" other than to entertain little girls, it is to send you, the reader, to the pleasures of logic and philosophy and, as Carroll says in the introduction to Learners (1897) "to give a chance of adding a very large item to your stock of mental delights." Carroll's special genius lies in his ability to disguise charmingly the seriousness of his concerns and to make the most playful quality of his work at the same time its didactic crux. In the case of Alice, we are dealing with a very curious, complicated kind of nonsense, which explores the possibilities of the use and abuse of language and is actually based on a profound knowledge of the rules of clear thinging and logical thought. In fact, most of Carroll's apercus and all his jokes are inversions of the rules. Reason is here in service to the imagination, not vice versa. And oh my! Those interesting characters! I like to think that most of the characters that Alice meets are Oxford Dons that the real Alice knew. They sound like Dons with their fine mastery of Socratic logic, their crushing repartee, and the disconcerting and totally unself-conscious eccentricity of their conduct. The wealth of material which Carroll presents for the illumination of his subjects is almost without end. The more I read it, the more I think about it, the more I find. In fact, I have reached the conclusion that AAW is in actual fact a story so deep as to yield results in exegesis almost beyond belief. Also consider purchasing The Annotated Alice by Gardiner. It will help increase your reading pleasure.

People tend to lump "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking-Glass (and What Alice Found There)" into one collection which has taken on the new title of "Alice in Wonderland". This is probably a product of the movies, which took bits and pieces from each and made a composite adventure. This was possible, because Lewis Carroll (a.k.a. Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) managed to make the stories so even in quality that they can be put together seamlessly. He also managed to keep the stories enough different, that one can still enjoy reading both of them one after the other, without the feeling that the second is just a retelling of the first.

To be sure, there are several ways in which the stories are similar, but not to the point where it detracts from the reader's enjoyment of the story. There are only three characters which appear in both books, one of which is Alice. The other notable characters (the Cheshire Cat, the Queen of Hearts, Tweedledum and Tweedledee, Humpty Dumpty, etc.) are well distributed between the two books. Thus there is a looking-glass between the two, just as the looking-glass plays such a key role in the second book.

The Penguin Classics edition of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass" includes both books including the illustrations by John Tenniel. It also includes the original "Alice's Adventures under Ground" which includes Lewis Carroll's artwork. For additional features, it includes `"Alice" on the Stage' an article which Lewis Carroll wrote after seeing a production of the stage version, and it includes preface's to the books which Lewis Carroll wrote in 1896 for the 1897 editions. There are wonderful notes for both books, and a very informative introduction by Hugh Haughton. There is other supporting material as well. To sum up, this edition has pretty much anything one could want, other than a complete collection of Carroll's work.

A last comment on the introduction, it covers the biographical information for Reverend Dodgson, and the information on how the stories came about. Some of this information may detract from one's enjoyment of the story, but one can certainly understand the decision to include it for those who are interested in Reverend Dodgson and his life. All in all, this edition is packed with everything and will suit those who just want to read the stories as well as those who want to delve deep into their origins.

I first read Alice's Adventures when I was about nine or ten years old, and you know what? I didn't really like it. It didn't make any sense, I told my mother. It's not serious enough for me.

But years later, at age twenty, I acted on a whim and read it a second time. And I was captivated. No other book matches Alice in humor, oddness, or bizarre characters. All the imitators (and there have been many) have failed because they couldn't manage to hold together their story's oddness with such a strong, flowing narrative or protaganist as lovable as Alice. Lewis Carroll's plot drifts effortlessly from one bizarre situation to another with sublime grace. His genius was that he went into the bizarre without going too far; his creativity never turned cheap.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is an adult's children book. I doubt that children will, or even can, enjoy it to the extent that adults will. When I read it at age nine I wanted it to have some kind of meaning, some raison d'etre--how ironic that now I'm an adult and its dreamlike feel is just the kind of break from reality I could use. Of course children can love these stories too, and I don't want to give anyone the idea that Alice and Looking Glass are stories only for adults. Your kids probably don't read anything other than the Harry Potter books, over and over, so why not give them something else?

Some other things about Alice in Wonderland make it such a classic. It was unique in its time (and still so) for its complete lack of moralizing. It doesn't tell you how good boys and girls should act, or turn into a good-vs-evil tale. Its protaganist, Alice, has to be one of the greatest characters, female or otherwise, in all literature. Her cleverness and logic are Wonderful.

So buy the book. The edition to get is one with the original illustrations.