Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass

By Lewis Carroll and MinaLima

Lewis Carroll’s beloved classic stories are reimagined in this deluxe illustrated gift edition from the award-winning design studio behind the graphics for the Harry Potter film franchise, MinaLima—designed with stunning full color artwork and several interactive features.

Originally published in 1865, Lewis Carroll’s exquisite Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass have remained revered classics for generations. The story of Alice, an inquisitive heroine who falls through a rabbit hole and into a whimsical world, has captured the hearts of readers of all ages. Perhaps the most popular female character in English literature, Alice is accompanied on her journey of trials and tribulations by the frantic White Rabbit, the demented and terrifying Queen of Hearts, the intriguing Mad Hatter, and many other eccentric characters.

Lewis Carroll’s beloved companion stories Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass are reinvented on one volume by the talented design firm MinaLima, whose fey drawings of some of Western literature’s most famous characters will delight and enthrall, In addition, they have created interactive features exclusive to this edition, including:

• Alice with extendable legs and arms
• The rabbit’s house which opens to reveal a giant Alice
• The Cheshire cat with a pull tab that removes the cat and leaves the cat’s grin
• A flamingo croquet club that swings to hit the hedgehog
• A removable map of the Looking Glass world

This keepsake illustrated edition—the sixth book in Harper Design’s series of illustrated children’s classics—will be treasured by for years to come.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Oct 29, 2019
• ISBN: 9780062936639

Lewis Carroll

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832-1898), better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, published Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in 1865 and its sequel, Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, in 1871. Considered a master of the genre of literary nonsense, he is renowned for his ingenious wordplay and sense of logic, and his highly original vision.

Book preview

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

All in the golden afternoon

Full leisurely we glide;

For both our oars, with little skill,

By little arms are plied,

While little hands make vain pretence

Our wanderings to guide.

Ah, cruel Three! In such an hour,

Beneath such dreamy weather,

To beg a tale of breath too weak

To stir the tiniest feather!

Yet what can one poor voice avail

Against three tongues together?

Imperious Prima flashes forth

Her edict ‘to begin it’—

In gentler tone Secuna hopes

‘There will be nonsense in it!’—

While Tertia interrupts the tale

Not more than once a minute.

Anon, to sudden silence won,

In fancy they pursue

The dream-child moving through a land

Of wonders wild and new,

In friendly chat with bird or beast—

And half believe it true.

And ever, as the story drained

The wells of fancy dry,

And faintly strove that weary one

To put the subject by,

‘The rest next time—’ ‘It is next time!’

The happy voices cry.

I

Down the Rabbit-Hole

‘. . . and what is the use of a book,’ thought Alice, ‘without pictures or conversation?’

Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, ‘and what is the use of a book,’ thought Alice, ‘without pictures or conversation?’

So she was considering in her own mind (as well as she could, for the hot day made her feel very sleepy and stupid), whether the pleasure of making a daisy-chain would be worth the trouble of getting up and picking the daisies, when suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her.

There was nothing so very remarkable in that; nor did Alice think it so very much out of the way to hear the Rabbit say to itself, ‘Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be late!’ (when she thought it over afterwards, it occurred to her that she ought to have wondered at this, but at the time it all seemed quite natural); but when the Rabbit actually took a watch out of its waistcoat-pocket, and looked at it, and then hurried on, Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to take out of it, and burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and fortunately was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge.

In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again.

The rabbit-hole went straight on like a tunnel for some way, and then dipped suddenly down, so suddenly that Alice had not a moment to think about stopping herself before she found herself falling down a very deep well.

Either the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly, for she had plenty of time as she went down to look about her, and to wonder what was going to happen next. First, she tried to look down and make out what she was coming to, but it was too dark to see anything; then she looked at the sides of the well, and noticed that they were filled with cupboards and book-shelves; here and there she saw maps and pictures hung upon pegs. She took down a jar from one of the shelves as she passed; it was labelled ‘ORANGE MARMALADE,’ but to her great disappointment it was empty: she did not like to drop the jar for fear of killing somebody, so managed to put it into one of the cupboards as she fell past it.

‘Well!’ thought Alice to herself, ‘after such a fall as this, I shall think nothing of tumbling down stairs! How brave they’ll all think me at home! Why, I wouldn’t say anything about it, even if I fell off the top of the house!’ (Which was very likely true.)

Down, down, down. Would the fall never come to an end! ‘I wonder how many miles I’ve fallen by this time?’ she said aloud. ‘I must be getting somewhere near the centre of the earth. Let me see: that would be four thousand miles down, I think—’ (for, you see, Alice had learnt several things of this sort in her lessons in the schoolroom, and though this was not a very good opportunity for showing off her knowledge, as there was no one to listen to her, still it was good practice to say it over) ‘—yes, that’s about the right distance—but then I wonder what Latitude or Longitude I’ve got to?’ (Alice had no idea what Latitude was, or Longitude either, but thought they were nice grand words to say.)

Presently she began again. ‘I wonder if I shall fall right through the earth! How funny it’ll seem to come out among the people that walk with their heads downwards! The Antipathies, I think—’ (she was rather glad there was no one listening, this time, as it didn’t sound at all the right word) ‘—but I shall have to ask them what the name of the country is, you know. Please, Ma’am, is this New Zealand or Australia?’ (and she tried to curtsey as she spoke—fancy curtseying as you’re falling through the air! Do you think you could manage it?) ‘And what an ignorant little girl she’ll think me for asking! No, it’ll never do to ask: perhaps I shall see it written up somewhere.’

Down, down, down. There was nothing else to do, so Alice soon began talking again. ‘Dinah’ll miss me very much to-night, I should think!’ (Dinah was the cat.) ‘I hope they’ll remember her saucer of milk at tea-time. Dinah my dear! I wish you were down here with me! There are no mice in the air, I’m afraid, but you might catch a bat, and that’s very like a mouse, you know. But do cats eat bats, I wonder?’ And here Alice began to get rather sleepy, and went on saying to herself, in a dreamy sort of way, ‘Do cats eat bats? Do cats eat bats?’ and sometimes, ‘Do bats eat cats?’ for, you see, as she couldn’t answer either question, it didn’t much matter which way she put it. She felt that she was dozing off, and had just begun to dream that she was walking hand in hand with Dinah, and saying to her very earnestly, ‘Now, Dinah, tell me the truth: did you ever eat a bat?’ when suddenly, thump! thump! down she came upon a heap of sticks and dry leaves, and the fall was over.

Alice was not a bit hurt, and she jumped up on to her feet in a moment: she looked up, but it was all dark overhead; before her was another long passage, and the White Rabbit was still in sight, hurrying down it. There was not a moment to be lost: away went Alice like the wind, and was just in time to hear it say, as it turned a corner, ‘Oh my ears and whiskers, how late it’s getting!’ She was close behind it when she turned the corner, but the Rabbit was no longer to be seen: she found herself in a long, low hall, which was lit up by a row of lamps hanging from the roof.

There were doors all round the hall, but they were all locked; and when Alice had been all the way down one side and up the other, trying every door, she walked sadly down the middle, wondering how she was ever to get out again.

Suddenly she came upon a little three-legged table, all made of solid glass; there was nothing on it except a tiny golden key, and Alice’s first thought was that it might belong to one of the doors of the hall; but, alas! either the locks were too large, or the key was too small, but at any rate it would not open any of them. However, on the second time round, she came upon a low curtain she had not noticed before, and behind it was a little door about fifteen inches high: she tried the little golden key in the lock, and to her great delight it fitted!

Alice opened the door and found that it led into a small passage, not much larger than a rat-hole: she knelt down and looked along the passage into the loveliest garden you ever saw. How she longed to get out of that dark hall, and wander about among those beds of bright flowers and those cool fountains, but she could not even get her head through the doorway; ‘and even if my head would go through,’ thought poor Alice, ‘it would be of very little use without my shoulders. Oh, how I wish I could shut up like a telescope! I think I could, if I only knew how to begin.’ For, you see, so many out-of-the-way things had happened lately, that Alice had begun to think that very few things indeed were really impossible.

There seemed to be no use in waiting by the little door, so she went back to the table, half hoping she might find another key on it, or at any rate a book of rules for shutting people up like telescopes: this time she found a little bottle on it, (‘which certainly was not here before,’ said Alice,) and round the neck of the bottle was a paper label, with the words ‘DRINK ME’ beautifully printed on it in large letters.

It was all very well to say ‘Drink me,’ but the wise little Alice was not going to do that in a hurry. ‘No, I’ll look first,’ she said, ‘and see whether it’s marked "poison" or not’; for she had read several nice little histories 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 taught them: such as, that a red-hot poker will burn you if you hold it too long; and that if you cut your finger very deeply with a knife, it usually bleeds; and she had never forgotten that, if you drink much from a bottle marked ‘poison,’ it is almost certain to disagree with you, sooner or later.

However, this bottle was not marked ‘poison,’ so Alice ventured to taste it, and finding it very nice, (it had, in fact, a sort of mixed flavour of cherry-tart, custard, pine-apple, roast turkey, toffee, and hot buttered toast,) she very soon finished it off.

‘What a curious feeling!’ said Alice; ‘I must be shutting up like a telescope.’

And so it was indeed: she was now only ten inches high, and her face brightened up at the thought that she was now the right size for going through the little door into that lovely garden. First, however, she waited for a few minutes to see if she was going to shrink any further: she felt a little nervous about this; ‘for it might end, you know,’ said Alice to herself, ‘in my going out altogether, like a candle. I wonder what I should be like then?’ And she tried to fancy what the flame of a candle is like after the candle is blown out, for she could not remember ever having seen such a thing.

After a while, finding that nothing more happened, she decided on going into the garden at once; but, alas for poor Alice! when she got to the door, she found she had forgotten the little golden key, and when she went back to the table for it, she found she could not possibly reach it: she could see it quite plainly through the glass, and she tried her best to climb up one of the legs of the table, but it was too slippery; and when she had tired herself out with trying, the poor little thing sat down and cried.

‘Come, there’s no use in crying like that!’ said Alice to herself, rather sharply; ‘I advise you to leave off this minute!’ She generally gave herself very good advice, (though she very seldom followed it), and sometimes she scolded herself so severely as to bring tears into her eyes; and once she remembered trying to box her own ears for having cheated herself in a game of croquet she was playing against herself, for this curious child was very fond of pretending to be two people. ‘But it’s no use now,’ thought poor Alice, ‘to pretend to be two people! Why, there’s hardly enough of me left to make one respectable person!’

Soon her eye fell on a little glass box that was lying under the table: she opened it, and found in it a very small cake, on which the words ‘EAT ME’ were beautifully marked in currants. ‘Well, I’ll eat it,’ said Alice, ‘and if it makes me grow larger, I can reach the key; and if it makes me grow smaller, I can creep under the door; so either way I’ll get into the garden, and I don’t care which happens!’

She ate a little bit, and said anxiously to herself, ‘Which way? Which way?’ holding her hand on the top of her head to feel which way it was growing, and she was quite surprised to find that she remained the same size: to be sure, this generally happens when one eats cake, but Alice had got so much into the way of expecting nothing but out-of-the-way things to happen, that it seemed quite dull and stupid for life to go on in the common way.

So she set to work, and very soon finished off the cake.

II

The Pool of Tears

‘Curiouser and curiouser!’ cried Alice . . .

‘Curiouser and curiouser!’ cried Alice (she was so much surprised, that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English); ‘now I’m opening out like the largest telescope that ever was! Good-bye, feet!’ (for when she looked down at her feet, they seemed to be almost out of sight, they were getting so far off). ‘Oh, my poor little feet, I wonder who will put on your shoes and stockings for you now, dears? I’m sure I shan’t be able! I shall be a great deal too far off to trouble myself about you: you must manage the best way you can;—but I must be kind to them,’ thought Alice, ‘or perhaps they won’t walk the way I want to go! Let me see: I’ll give them a new pair of boots every Christmas.’

And she went on planning to herself how she would manage it. ‘They must go by the carrier,’ she thought; ‘and how funny it’ll seem, sending presents to one’s own feet! And how odd the directions will look! Oh dear, what nonsense I’m talking!’

Alice’s Right Foot, Esq.

Hearth-rug,

near the Fender,

(with Alice’s love).

Just then her head struck against the roof of the hall: in fact she was now more than nine feet high, and she at once took up the little golden key and hurried off to the garden door.

Poor Alice! It was as much as she could do, lying down on one side, to look through into the garden with one eye; but to get through was more hopeless than ever: she sat down and began to cry again.

‘You ought to be ashamed of yourself,’ said Alice, ‘a great girl like you,’ (she might well say this), ‘to go on crying in this way! Stop this moment, I tell you!’ But she went on all the same, shedding gallons of tears, until there was a large pool all round her, about four inches deep and reaching half down the hall.

After a time she heard a little pattering of feet in the distance, and she hastily dried her eyes to see what was coming. It was the White Rabbit returning, splendidly dressed, with a pair of white kid gloves in one hand and a large fan in the other: he came trotting along in a great hurry, muttering to himself as he came, ‘Oh! the Duchess, the Duchess! Oh! won’t she be savage if I’ve kept her waiting!’ Alice felt so desperate that she was ready to ask help of any one; so, when the Rabbit came near her, she began, in a low, timid voice, ‘If you please, sir—’ The Rabbit started violently, dropped the white kid gloves and the fan, and skurried away into the darkness as hard as he could go.

Alice took up the fan and gloves, and, as the hall was very hot, she kept fanning herself all the time she went on talking: ‘Dear, dear! How queer everything is to-day! And yesterday things went on just as usual. I wonder if I’ve been changed in the night? Let me think: was I

Reviews for Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass

[klefort_2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I absolutely love Lewis Carroll and I would gladly read anything with his pseudonym on it, regardless of length. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland and Through The Looking Glass are both full of creativity and imagination. Even though you can find them in the children's section, I wouldn't recommend it for younger readers because it's not an easy read. It's more suitable, perhaps, for middle-school aged children. At the end of the book, we find out that Alice had been dreaming throughout the entire story. I find it curious that, at times, Alice can not understand the characters that her very own sub-conscience mind has made up. The characters that she meets in Wonderland often speak in riddles that have no answers, as Alice once pointed out. Certainly if Alice made up these characters, she of all people should be able to understand them. Just an interesting thought.

[middleearthtraveller · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Truly wonderful book. Utter and complete nonsense written in a charming manner.

[kendrarenee · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A really creative guy, that Lewis Carroll... but I wish he would've written these books more with the goal of publication in mind than that of entertaining a child, because Alice's adventures wander far too much to keep my attention very well.

[chrisweir-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Having seen a number of versions of the book made into movies was not at the top of my reading list. Was interesting to see how the movies have taken bits and pieces of both of the stories and made them into one. Most of us are familiar with Tweedle Dee and Dum being in the story which is actually from Through the Looking Glass. But didn't know that the Mad Hatter and March Hare are stuck at tea time due to an argument with time. Also who knew that Humpty Dumpty is a whole chapter in the book. was interesting to read. Wonderland is much easier to read than Looking Glass. Looking Glass seems to jump around a lot.

[abigailadams26 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Alice plummets down a rabbit hole in the first part of this bind-up edition of Lewis Carroll's classic children's novels, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking Glass (1871), and she steps through a mirror in the second. In both cases she finds herself in a fantastical alternate world, encountering extraordinary creatures and having a series of surreal adventures...Despite their status as towering classics in the field of children's literature, and the undoubted influence they have had on that literature and on the wider culture, I had never read either Alice's Adventures in Wonderland or Through the Looking Glass until they were assigned as texts in my masters course. I was pleased to be given the impetus I apparently needed in picking them up, as they had long been on my to-read list. The stories themselves were every bit as delightful as I'd hoped they'd be, the accompanying artwork by John Tenniel was lovely. This particular edition, from Oxford University Press, included a wealth of critical notes, which proved invaluable in helping to bring to light many significant details which might otherwise have eluded me. The significance of Carroll's parodies of well-known poetry from Isaac Watts, for instance, might otherwise have escaped me. We had an interesting discussion about these books in my class, and whether they could still be considered children's literature, given that today's children would miss so much of what made them entertaining to their 19th-century counterparts. For my part, I think they can still be enjoyed by children, even though I myself didn't read them when young. I highly recommend the stories themselves to all readers, and I recommend this Oxford publication to readers looking for a good critical edition.

[jthierer_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A brilliant children's classic that doesn't talk down to its readers. Its heroine is far from perfect and the characters she meets are almost subversively zany.

[mattries37315 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The childhood classics Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass for almost 150 years have been referenced and adapted numerous times over the years, but it’s not until you’ve read the originals that you truly understand why Lewis Carroll’s work has stood the test of time.In both stories, young Alice has fantastical adventures in two different worlds entered through portals. The adventures are well known, though most times people believe that both stories deal with Alice in Wonderland both times based on other adaptations, mostly in film and television. However, Wonderland and Looking-Glassland are completely different though illustrator John Tenniel was the first two “crossover” characters from one imaginary world to another with the March Hare and Mad Hatter as the Red King’s Messengers. It’s Tenniel’s original illustrations that really help one realize how Carroll’s stories truly became a classic while turning the Victorian “growing up” children’s genre on it’s head of realizing how absurd adult life can be.The Barnes & Nobles class edition of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass is a wonderful book for those looking for classics, if you’re looking to get your hands on the original stories of Alice by Carroll then I recommend this particular edition.

[wethewatched · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Alice in Wonderland is a story that I knew but never read. I finally picked up the illustrated version (via Kindle), and it surpassed my expectations -- it's refreshingly absurd and a great escape from the working life.

I wasn't as hooked on Through the Looking-Glass, perhaps due to the abundance of nonsensical poetry. But it's well worth reading too if you can get the two books in a set.

[cbruiz_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

In this classic children's story, the reader follows Alice along on her adventures, running into all sorts of oddball characters, such as the Chershire Cat, the Catepillar, the Mad Hatter, and the March Hare. In the world described, known as "Wonderland," anything seems to be possible if the conception is right, as Alice initially enters it falling down a well, and therefrom becomes tiny, then 9 feet tall and skinny, subsequently running into these characters after having followed the "white rabbit." Within the story lie poems which describe the particular character or scene; one of which "Father William," describes old age to his son. I found this book very hard to get through. The characters themselves are interesting, and the book offers artwork to accopany the pictures, but the storyline continuity and descriptions themselves made the story quite dull. When the reader finds out her Adventures were just a dream, the surprise did not inspire any emotive response from me, nor did I even care. I found this book to be gravely overrated, and not worth the time.

[christinelstanley · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This may be a favorite for many, but I dislike it intensely. Imaginative and superbly written; absolutely, but also sinister and weird and irritating! Not for me!

[lorisbook · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I absolutely love Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. It is good to have a wonderfully magical place to escape to that can be as confusing as in real life. And, a wonderland quest is a perfectly curious escape. Plus, I am a huge lover of unusual anthropomorphic creatures. And, I want you all to picture bunny's wearing waistcoat-pockets as they scamper about. I loved the Disney picture book and movie too. There is the benefit of the bold colors to stimulate the senses and elevate the mood. And, I have often questioned if this is why I love Masonic checkered floors.

[takeitorleaveit_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

so, he liked little girls. a bit quirky but if he didn't, he wouldn't have had no motivation to write this ultimate classic that activates any odd-thinkers thinking capacities and should be made into a musical not another movie for the songs in it are brilliant.

[est2lm · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I think most people are familiar with Alice to some degree; as children (and maybe more often as adults) we go through periods of complete and utter boredom. We sit with a vacant expression that provokes the dreaded question -

"Don't you have something to do?"

Or, during a lesson about how 12 times 1 is 12, 12 times 2 is 24, 12 times 3 is 36...

It is so easy to slip into a daydream when one is faced with boredom. For Alice, this daydream is a white rabbit with a pocket-watch, muttering some complete nonsense about how it is late! The next thing Alice knows, she is taken into a series of absurd adventures in a land where she is the most logical person there.

In a way, the Alice books are a parody of those children's stories that are very clearly written to teach a moral lesson to its young readers; Alice already knows what is right and wrong, as demonstrated by the way she handles conflicts with unreasonable characters. She even understands on some level how, as people grow up, they sometimes forget (or neglect) their common sense.

Alice, being a child, struggles with communicating her feelings and often runs into fake words that try to articulate those emotions. It is a very accurate representation, I think, of how children react to their emotions. There is a great deal of crying when they fail to string words together in order to articulate their thoughts or feelings.

This is a book full of wonderful nonsense - riddles not meant to be solved, poetry that sounds gorgeous but doesn't necessarily make sense at first glance, puns on words and names and situations; and despite all the improbable things that happen, it is not impossible to find true meaning in Alice's dreams. I think anyone who had a childhood can find a bit if familiarity and even comfort within the pages of these fantastic tales.

[valerieandbooks · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass has been so highly quoted, and adapted into several movies, that I just didn't feel a strong urge to read the originals. I'm glad I finally did -- motivated by the fact that this is included in the list of 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die.

[snukes-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Possibly my favorite book of all time. Before I understood the mind-altering influences that led him to write this, I was captivated by the world of wonder and fantasy he created. It was everything I wished my own adventures could be.

[leslitgs · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Avoiding the humdrum happenstance of her quotidian existence, Alice wanders off and finds herself in new worlds of remarkable impossibilities. She goes on many disjointed adventures and meets the most unlikely of creatures and characters. A cheap summation, to be sure, but it's Alice's freaking Adventures in Wonderland. How are you supposed to accurately summarize that chaos? Sheesh. I have honestly never known what to do with these books. Aside from read them, of course. But even in reading them, one not only is transported away from one's base reality [as should occur while reading in the first place], but also from almost all things sensical. Even our protagonist is completely off the beaten path. Alice is seven years old, but she is an overly bright child with a peculiar penchant for daydreams and etiquette. But perhaps both of those relate to the period-based upbringing [which I know little about]. Moving on. While wandering the plotless paths of these texts, I was struck by Caroll's power as an author. Plotless is regularly regarded as a pejorative term; here he has not only managed to carry it off with some style but also to entrance generations with his madness. We practically relish the fairytale chaos. How is it that something so odd and so frequently against our understanding and order be beloved? The easiest answer, I imagine, is escape. Alice's story is to us what Wonderland is to her. Escape. Freedom. She and I are, perchance, not so different then. Tired of being bound within the constrictions of a purportedly ordered life, we take leave of our senses. Now, I am ill-equipped for any quality kind of examination or technical analysis of the text, and have no real interest in picking Alice's story apart for signs of Caroll's depravity. Alice is to me a rest from order, and will forever be so.

[carlienichole · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This gave a interesting insight to parts of the mind normally unexplored or given much thought to. Carroll puts and empahtic look on the dreamworld that we all enter but don't ussually give much thought to. It opens up this world to further consideration and review.

[the_bibliophibian · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

When people want to praise a book, especially a children's book, they say that readers of all ages will enjoy it. Mostly this is so that adults will buy the book too, because they're the ones with money. There are a lot of all-ages children's books that are just insulting if read by an adult.Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and its sequel, Through the Looking-Glass, actually are for all ages. I know this because I read them for the first time at the age of fifteen, without any childhood nostalgia to color my judgment. Not only are they the most quotable books in the English language (and I was very surprised at the amount of text that I had seen before elsewhere and not identified as belonging to Carroll), but they make absolutely no sense in the best way: all of their nonsense is in some way connectible to real life, and making sense of the parallels between satire and reality makes you feel really really smart. Yes, I liked that.My best advice: don't judge the books by Disney's movie, which is what I did until recently. Old Walt left out some of the best stuff, and combined elements of both books in a mashup so complete that you can't even really distinguish between them anymore.

[shepline · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Hard as it might be to believe, but I don't think I have ever read Alice's Adventures in Wonderland before. It is one of those books and those stories that is so ingrained in our culture that makes everyone think that they have read it. Indeed I have, at times, read some of the first book and I know much of the story, but even so there were surprises for me. Oh, this quote comes from there? That event comes from there...?I finally decided that I *must* read this book after reading The Story of Alice last year, and with it being 150 years since the publication of Alice In Wonderland last year and Creation Theatre Company's marvellous (if deliciously weird) adaptation of it in the gardens of St Hugh's College, Oxford. I'm glad that I finally have. There is a loose story running through the two books, but its a more of a series of events conncected with a mix of indefectible logic and nonsense, the like of which is bonkers but you just cannot argue with. To add to this, there are so many images and ideas in the book that I can take in quotation and reflection to layer beneath my own work-in-progress. Alice in this book is the heroine and is good, but what would happen if 'Alice turned bad'? What would happen if crossing the chessboard in Through The Looking Glass to become Queen took on a more sinister turn?

[slightlyfan · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Of course, a classic. The silliness and randomness of the book is genius. You can't not read it.

[rayaal9aamri · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

تعتبر رواية ” أليس في بلاد العجائب ” واحدة من معالم الأدب العالمي البارزة، تستهوى الأطفال و الكبار ، جيلاً بعد جيل. تدور أحداثها حول شخصية أليس الحالمة والمغامرة وحول كثير من الشخصيات الغريبة مثل الأرنب الأبيض وقط الشيشاير وأرنب مارس الوحشي … وتجعل من مغامراتها عملاً أدبيًا خالدًاIs the novel "Alice in Wonderland" and one of the prominent landmarks of world literature, appealing to children and adults, generation after generation. Takes place around the figure of Alice and dreamy adventure about a lot of strange characters such as the White Rabbit and never Cichair and rabbit March brutal ... and make their adventures immortal literary work

[jnwseid · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

In this classic the eponymous character follows a dignified white rabbit down a hole and into a strange, magical world where she must endure numerous trials and tribulations both whimsical and disturbing. This book can be appreciated on multiple levels, and is suitable both for young children (who can enjoy the majestic setting and strange adventures) and young adults (who will be better able to appreciate its more complex underlying themes and symbolism).

[liscarey · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a really beautiful recording of Lewis Carroll's classic children's books. In the first, Alice sees a rabbit wearing a waistcoat, who pulls a watch out of his pocket and frets about being late, and she follows him down his rabbit hole. She finds herself in a surreal and comical landscape, with food that makes her shrink or grow when eaten, talking animals, a cat that appears and disappears in stages, and a royal court composed of a deck of cards ruled by the King and Queen of Hearts.

In the second, on a dark winter day, Alice walks through a looking glass that has turned to mist, into the mirror house. Once through, she finds that outside the range of what's visible in the mirror, it's very different indeed. Here, she finds herself in a chess game, with living Red and White chess pieces, as well as talking flowers, fairy tale creatures such as Humpty Dumpty, and even the food served at a fancy dinner party speaks and has personality. Also, here, it's summer, not winter.

Whether you've read Alice's adventures before or not, this is a delightful listen.

Recommended.

I received a free copy of this audiobook from the publisher.

[linyarai · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A great classic.

[filialibri-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Diese und weitere Rezensionen findet ihr auf meinem Blog Anima Libri - Buchseele

Ich denke, zur Geschichte, die Lewis Carroll in seinem berühmten Klassiker „Alice im Wunderland“ und der Fortsetzung „Alice hinter den Spiegeln“ erzählt, braucht man gar nichts mehr zu sagen, wer den Roman noch nicht kennt, sollte das schleunigst ändern, denn dieses Buch ist definitiv nicht umsonst ein Klassiker.

Passend zum 150. Jahrestag der Erstveröffentlichung hat der Gerstenberg Verlag beide Teile des populären Kinderbuchs in einem Band raus. Und zwar in einem wirklich schmucken Band.

Dank der Arbeit der niederländischen Illustratorin Floor Rieder, die hier eine Kombination aus historischen Techniken und digitalen Möglichkeiten verwendet hat, erwacht der Text zum Leben und bekommt seine ganz eigene Note, denn die Niederländerin hat ihrer Alice – statt des allseits bekannten Outfits mit blauem Kleidchen und weißer Schürze – Chucks und Brille verpasst. Das erscheint vielleicht erstmal ein wenig seltsam, passt aber eigentlich ganz hervorragend in die eh schon skurrile Geschichte.

Dazu kommt die Art, auf die diese beiden Romane hier in einen Band gepackt sind: Statt die Geschichten lediglich aneinander zu reihen, ist „Alice im Wunderland & Alice hinter den Spiegeln“ aus dem Gerstenberg Verlag ein Wendebuch, auf der einen Seite versteckt sich hinter dem grünen Cover mit roten Akzenten „Alice im Wunderland“ und dreht man das Buch dann einmal um, hat man ein weiteres Cover, rot mit grünen Akzenten, vor sich, hinter dem sich „Alice hinter den Spiegeln“ verbirgt – der Titel ist übrigens passend in Spiegelschrift auf dem Cover abgedruckt.

Alles in allem ist „Alice im Wunderland & Alice hinter den Spiegeln“ aus dem Gerstenberg Verlag eine wirklich rundum gelungene, wunderschöne Ausgabe, die den Klassikern von Lewis Carroll alle Ehre macht! Für alle Fans dieses Meisterwerks absurder Logik, Nonsens, Paradoxa und Absurdem ist diese Ausgabe definitiv eine große Empfehlung wert und auch für alle, die die Romane bislang noch nicht gelesen haben, denn das sollte schnellstens nachgeholt werden ;)

[tapestry100 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

With all the talk recently about Tim Burton's upcoming version of Alice in Wonderland for Disney, it got me in the mood to reread Lewis Carroll's original. I have read Alice's Adventures in Wonderland numerous times, but only until recently have I reread Through the Looking Glass, as I found a lovely collected edition at my local Barnes & Noble. This edition is particularly nice as it includes the original illustrations by Sir John Tenniel for both volumes.Alice's Adventures in Wonderland opens with Alice sitting outside with her sister, doing her lessons. Alice is bored with her lessons, and when she notices a white rabbit run by wearing a waistcoat and looking at watch, which she finds a curious thing, she decides to follow him, where she falls down the rabbit hole and her adventures properly begin.Wonderland proves to be a nonsensical home to many wondrous characters: the Caterpillar, the Mad Hatter, March Hare and Doormouse and their Tea-Party, the Duchess and her baby and Cook, the Cheshire Cat, the Mock Turtle and the Queen of Hearts and her pack-of-cards court. I won't go into too much detail of the story, as I'm sure most are familiar with the tale, and if you're not, my explaining it won't make much sense until you read it. The book reads very much like a dream, with one scenario leading into another without much in the way of logic.Through the Looking Glass is the sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, taking place some six months later, even though there is no real reference to the first volume. The only two characters to really carry over from Wonderland are the Mad Hatter and the March Hare (here known as Hatta and Haigha) and even then Alice doesn't seem to recognize them. While Wonderland's court theme was based on a pack of playing cards, the court system in Looking Glass is based on chess, with a Red Queen and White Queen both playing important roles in this volume. Again, the story reads much like a dream, with no real rhyme or reason to the procession of the story.I love the illustrations by Sir John Tenniel. They are perfectly suited to story, capturing the look and feel of the characters and Wonderland.In doing some reading about Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, I made some interesting discoveries. I always assumed that both stories were based on Lewis Carroll's stories that he told to Alice Liddell and her sisters, and while this is partly true, as the chess theme from Looking Glass did in fact come from discussions that Carroll had with the Liddell children while he was teaching them chess, the idea of the looking glass came from a discussion that Carroll had with another Alice, his cousin, Alice Raikes.Alice's Adventures in Wonderland remains one of my favorite books, and I like to wander back into Wonderland every so often, just to remind myself how much I enjoy it. Every time I read it, the Cheshire Cat always sums up the story best for me: 'But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked.'Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat: 'we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad.''How do you know I'm mad?' said Alice.'You must be,' said the Cat, 'or you wouldn't have come here.' This conversation always makes me smile. For me, it is the perfect description and explanation for the story, since in our dreams, aren't we all a little mad?

[stuart10er_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed it more than I expected. Certainly a staggering number of puns helped that along. In a Bullwinkle and Rocky type style there is something for both adults and children in this simultaneously.

[celestialfingerpaint · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A lot of people would classify this as a "children's classic". I suppose it is. After all, it was written for a child. However, if you read it again as an adult, there's so much that has more meaning. And, in some cases, there's just a lot more that finally makes sense. Now I'm old enough to know what a caucus race really is, and to understand why there is such thing as a mock turtle. I also finally know, thanks to this book, why King James bibles often have a picture of a lion and a unicorn holding a crown between them. If you've stuck this one away in a box of books from your childhood, I suggest dragging it out and reading it again.

[unko_2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Maybe You Know This Book.I Have Read This Story Once When I Was A Young,But I Forgot Most Of It ,So I Read This Book.Ther Are Many Humor And I Like It Very Much.I Enjoyed This Book Differently From When I Read This Book In My Childhood.You Should Re-Read This Book!

[jfslone · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is one of those books that everyone needs to read at least once in his/her lifetime. Aside from my constant amazement at the number of people who seem to think only of the Disney version of Carroll's work, the actual writing itself is unique, strange, and at the same time a wonderful testament to his time. You'll never look at film versions the same way again!