In the 145 years since its initial publication, Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass (1872) have provided continuous inspiration for artists and illustrators. Blanche McManus, Arthur Rackham, Salvador Dalí, Ralph Steadman, and Yayoi Kusama have all taken their turn at bringing the “curious and curiouser” inhabitants of Wonderland to life, but the most iconic Alice images remain John Tenniel’s illustrations for the first edition published in 1865. This February marked the bicentennial anniversary of Tenniel’s birth, and in celebration of that milestone, The New York Public Library has digitized a set of Alice books interleaved with proofs of Tenniel’s illustrations from the Henry W. and Albert W. Berg Collection of English and American Literature. But before we take a closer look at that, let’s take a quick journey down the rabbit hole of illustrating Alice.

Illustration was central to Alice from the start. Carroll originally crafted this tale to amuse Alice Liddell and other children at a picnic in 1862, and he later presented Alice with a manuscript copy illustrated with his drawings. Carroll sought the finest craftsmen of his day to illustrate the first published edition; he commissioned renowned Punch cartoonist John Tenniel to draw the illustrations, and the talented Brothers Dalziel to engrave them on wood. Tenniel’s drawings, many of which were based on Carroll’s own sketches, are exquisite. But the author and artist were so dissatisfied with the printer’s published products that the first edition was recalled, and the book was reissued with improved (but still dissatisfactory) illustrations and an 1866 title page later that year. Alice was an instant classic. 

Carroll’s marketing of Alice was admirable; he licensed characters for commercial production, leading to quite an array of intriguing ephemera, including everything from board games to tea cups. So when he set about writing the sequel Through the Looking-Glass, Carroll again placed high value on the book’s illustration and how his characters were presented. Tenniel initially declined to work on the project. Carroll ultimately won him over, and Through the Looking-Glass was published in 1872. Like its predecessor, it was an immediate success.

For Tenniel scholars and Alice aficionados, the printed illustrations in first editions pale in comparison to the proof illustrations printed directly from the engraved woodblocks. To understand why, we need to take a closer look at the printing process. Tenniel drafted his drawings in pencil on paper, and then George and Edward Dalziel engraved those illustrations on wood blocks.  Proofs are printed directly from woodblocks created by the engravers and are considered exemplar of what the final image should look like. They are often printed on thin India paper, which captures the subtle details that are the hallmark of fine engraving.          

Once the proofs were finalized, the engraved woodblocks were electrotyped to produce metal copies; woodblocks can crack and warp over time, while electrotypes can endure the pressure of mass production. The illustrations we see in the first published editions of Alice and Looking-Glass were created by the printer (not the engravers) from the electrotypes. Printers can use various techniques to achieve the same level of detail and contrast as proofs, including overlay to add pressure to diversify ink intensity. The printers for Alice did not accomplish this to the degree that Carroll and Tenniel would have hoped; even the first 1866 edition after the suppressed 1865 edition fell short of their expectations.

Tenniel’s illustrations charmed adults as well as children. Alice art became popular among collectors shortly after the book’s publication, and individual Alice proofs are not uncommon in modern special collections. The Library’s proofs are notable for being a rare complete set, with each print signed by both Tenniel and Dalziel. They are bound opposite the corresponding published illustrations in a beautiful set of the Alice books that a former owner had cased in crushed morocco leather by the Rivière bindery. Not only is this an excellent resource for future scholarship, but it’s quite fun to toggle between the images to see the nuances of the different printing qualities!

These Alice proofs were acquired as part of the Owen D. Young collection, one of the Berg’s founding collections donated to the Library by Albert Berg and Owen Young in 1941. To learn more about the Berg’s Alice holdings, please see the finding aid for the Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) collection of papers, the finding aid for the John Tenniel collection papers, see the Berg’s dictionary catalog, or contact Berg staff at berg@nypl.org.  

For continued reading on Alice at The New York Public Library, please see:

• Glimpses of Alice by Meredith Mann
• Desperately Seeking Alice by Anne Garner
• Curating Alice Live! by Barbara Cohen Stratyner