Alice's Adventures Under Ground

London: Macmillan and Co., 1886. The Original Alice: Carroll's Manuscript Facsimile in First Edition

CARROLL, Lewis [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson]. Alice's Adventures Under Ground. Being a Facsimile of the Original MS. Book afterwards developed into "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland." With Thirty-Seven Illustrations by the Author. London: Macmillan and Co., 1886.

First edition. Octavo (7 3/8 x 4 7/8 inches; 187 x 124 mm.). viii, [8], 95, [2], [2, advertisements], [1, blank] pp.

Publisher's original red cloth over boards, covers triple-ruled in gilt, upper cover and spine decoratively lettered in gilt, rear cover with central gilt medallion depicting the Mock Turtle, coated black endpapers, all edges gilt. A near fine copy, bright and unusually well preserved, housed in a fleece-lined quarter red morocco clamshell case, spine with five raised bands, lettered in gilt in compartments.

The Origin of Wonderland
One of the most evocative and desirable of all Carroll publications, this volume presents the facsimile of the original handwritten manuscript - the very book that Lewis Carroll prepared in 1864 as a Christmas gift for Alice Liddell. That manuscript, later expanded and transformed into Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865), represents the true genesis of one of the most enduring works of English literature.

Unlike the familiar Tenniel-illustrated editions, Alice's Adventures Under Ground offers a uniquely intimate encounter with Carroll's imagination: his own calligraphy, page design, and illustrations, preserving the story in its earliest, most personal form. The facsimile edition of 1886 - issued to benefit Carroll's charities - is therefore not merely a reprint, but a direct visual and textual echo of the original manuscript itself.

Williams, Madan, Green & Crutch 194.