Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (Special Edition)

Shakespeare and Company edition, fully illustrated, with an introduction by Sylvia Whitman

An inquisitive girl named Alice chases after a waistcoated white rabbit, following him down a rabbit-hole and into Wonderland. A strange place indeed, here cats disappear leaving behind only their smiles, croquet is played with flamingo-mallets and hedgehog-balls, and eating a cake can cause a person to shrink to the size of a mouse. Curiouser and curiouser . . .

Original, experimental, and unparalleled in its charm, Lewis Carroll's marvellous tale, paired with John Tenniel's delightful drawings, has enchanted readers for more than 150 years.

This special edition, with a sublime wrap-around cover illustration by Neil Gower, is available exclusively at Shakespeare and Company in Paris and on our website.

The story's text comes from the last revision completed by Carroll himself, published in 1897, and is considered definitive by most scholars. Further, the layouts of the story text and illustrations reflect those of early editions of Alice on which Carroll and Tenniel worked closely together. One brilliant example of their collaboration occurs on pages 49 and 51. On the first page, an illustration depicts Alice at the base of a tall tree, arms clasped behind her back; she is looking up toward the Cheshire Cat, which is perched on a branch. When we readers turn the page, we encounter a similar drawing: the tree is there, in the exact same place, only the Cat has mostly disappeared, its grin alone remaining.