This gorgeous 150th anniversary edition of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is also a revelatory work of scholarship. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland--published 150 years ago in 1865--is a book many of us love and feel we know well. But it turns out we have only scratched the surface. Scholar David Day has spent many years down the rabbit hole of this children's classic and has emerged with a revelatory new view of its contents. What we have here, he brilliantly and persuasively argues, is a complete classical education in coded form--Carroll's gift to his "wonder child" Alice Liddell. In two continuous commentaries, woven around the complete text of the novel for ease of cross-reference on every page, David Day reveals the many layers of teaching, concealed by manipulation of language, that are carried so lightly in the beguiling form of a fairy tale. These layers relate directly to Carroll's interest in philosophy, history, mathematics, classics, poetry, spiritualism and even to his love of music--both sacred and profane. His novel is a memory palace, given to Alice as the great gift of an education. It was delivered in coded form because in that age, it was a gift no girl would be permitted to receive in any other way. Day also shows how a large number of the characters in the book are based on real Victorians. Wonderland, he shows, is a veritable "Who's Who" of Oxford at the height of its power and influence in the Victorian Age. There is so much to be found behind the imaginary characters and creatures that inhabit the pages of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. David Day's warm, witty and brilliantly insightful guide--beautifully designed and stunningly illustrated throughout in full colour--will make you marvel at the book as never before.

Emerging in several different versions during the author's lifetime, Lewis Carroll's Alice novels have a publishing history almost as magical and mysterious as the stories themselves. Zoe Jaques and Eugene Giddens offer a detailed and nuanced account of the initial publication of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass and investigate how their subsequent transformations through print, illustration, film, song, music videos, and even stamp-cases and biscuit tins affected the reception of these childhood favourites. The authors consider issues related to the orality of the original tale and its impact on subsequent transmission, the differences between the manuscripts and printed editions, and the politics of writing and publishing for children in the 1860s. In addition, they take account of Carroll's own responses to the books' popularity, including his writing of major adaptations and a significant body of meta-textual commentary, and his reactions to the staging of Alice in Wonderland. Attentive to the child reader, how changing notions of childhood identity and needs affected shifting narratives of the story, and the representation of the child's body by various illustrators, the authors also make a significant contribution to childhood studies.

This textual commentary looks at "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" quite simply, as a children's novel, investigating the book's narrative structure, analysing how Carroll successfully constructed a pioneering book for children that was to stand the test of time, remaining remarkably relevant to the present day. There are many depths and subtleties in this book that can only be properly appreciated by examining the text line by line. The writing is supremely skilful, and will stand the closest scrutiny-even virtually to every line of the narrative. Most books would crumble under such close analysis. It is testimony to the strength, depth, and quality of "Alice" that the book comes through such intense examination and survives triumphantly. ---- Selwyn Goodacre has a large Lewis Carroll collection including over 2000 copies of the "Alice" books. He is a past chairman of the Lewis Carroll Society, and edited the Society journal from 1974-1997. For years he has pursued a special interest in the text of the "Alice" books, which has led to his current commentary on, and analysis of, the way they were written."

Alice travels to Wonderland, first when she falls through a rabbit hole, and a second time when she goes through a mirror to the other side.

An in-depth analysis of the major battles of Tolkien's works, from The Hobbit to The Lord of the Rings. Find out how each battle came about and how it shaped the course of Middle-earth's history in this beautifully-bound leatherette volume, the third title in a successful trilogy

"The Great Auk, the Japanese Wolf, the Atlas Bear, the Cape Lion, the Elephant Bird, the Mauritius Giant Tortoise -- these are among the hundreds of beautiful birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish which the world will never see again. David Day and four leading wildlife artists have worked from expert research, museum records and contemporary sketches and notes, to recreate for the modern reader these beautiful and sometimes extraordinary creatures. The author's immediate and startling text describes the combination of cruelty, startling thoughtlessness and sheer commercial greed that largely led to the extinction of these species. His highly readable descriptions of each animal's appearance, behaviour and habitat, complemented by the authentic, breathtaking illustrations provide a dramatic historical record. David Day documents for the first time the extinction of almost 300 species and subspecies over the last 300 years. It is a fact that the rate of extinction during the last three centuries has multiplied several hundred times its previous rate and is still increasing ... Therefore, alongside reference maps and classification listings, David Day gives a "waiting list" of 400 critically endangered species ..."--Inside front cover