Through the Looking Glass And What Alice Found There

6W Lewis Carroll. London: Ward, Lock, and Co., ca.1935. 

Notes

Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, first published in late 1871 by Macmillan and Co. in London, stands as a brilliant, winter-themed sequel to Wonderland that perfected the art of literary nonsense. The innovative narrative follows a clever, logical seven-year-old girl named Alice as she steps through the parlor mirror into an upside-down, inverted world structured entirely like a giant, high-stakes game of chess on a landscape divided by brooks and hedges. Operating as a pawn on the back rank, Alice travels across the board to achieve queenship, navigating an unforgettable landscape of talking flowers and backwards logic while encountering iconic figures like Humpty Dumpty, Tweedledum and Tweedledee, the White Knight, and the volatile Red and White Queens [1]. Masterfully defined by the definitive, sharp wood-engraved illustrations of Sir John Tenniel [1], the text functions on a deeper level as a brilliant satire of Victorian social conventions, a complex exploration of mathematical and linguistic philosophy, and a poignant, melancholy allegory for the inevitable, accelerating loss of childhood innocence. This surreal masterpiece permanently established the framework for modern portal fantasy and speculative fiction, providing a lasting linguistic vocabulary—including the timeless nonsense poem "Jabberwocky"—that continues to influence global pop culture, literature, and computer science.

Description

Blue cloth binding with black illustrations and lettering. Original dust wrapper. Dustwrapper in fair condition missing sections near to spine and at lower points. Adding along hinge. Inscription to preliminary flyleaf. Good condition overall.