Illustrators of Alice in Wonderland
by Terry A. Stillman
There are many books that just seem to lend themselves to illustration and for which artists
are simpy clambering to provide illustrations. Books such as Gulliver's Travels, Robinson Crusoe,
Treasure Island, the Arabian Nights, Aesop's Fables; books of verse such as Mother Goose,
Stevenson's A Child's Garden of Verses, and the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam have been
republished over and over with different sets of artwork, some mundane, some outstanding.
Literary characters such as Peter Pan, Pinocchio, King Arthur, Robin Hood, Ichabod Crane
have appeared in a host of guises, more or less akin to the authors' original conceptions. However,
one of the most illustrated characters of all since her 1865 appearance is Alice in Wonderland,
the little Victorian girl who chased a White Rabbit down a rabbit hole and found herself in a
peculiar set of circumstances.
Lewis Carroll (Charles Hodgson, Oxford Don), creator of perhaps the greatest fantasy
ever penned, invented such a host of unique characters in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
and its sequel that a multitude of artists have spent untold hours trying to capture their
essence in inks and paints for more than one hundred and forty years.
John Tenniel was the first artist to illustrate Alice in Wonderland and Through the
Looking Glass. He contributed 42 drawings for the 1866 (1865) Alice and 50 more drawings for
the Looking Glass in 1872. Various editions with the classic Tenniel illustrations litter the
landscape. A recent search on Biblio.com produced 4824 matches for Alice books and 1637
contained John Tenniel illustrations. There are people who will only own Alice in Wonderland
with Tenniel's illustrations because his were the originals. Certainly, some of Tenniel's
character depictions were not much changed by his successors--the Mock-Turtle and
The Gryphon, plus the Duchess, Tweedledum and Tweedledee come to mind.
The next most popular edition of Alice in Wonderland is probably the one
illustrated by Arthur Rackham (1907). I particularly like Rackham's illustrations for
"Alice and the Pack of Cards", "Baby Pig", and "Gryphon and the Mock-Turtle". Also in
1907 came editions illustrated by Bessie Pease Gutmann (one of the very few artists
who did radically change the look of the Gryphon); and Charles Robinson, who depicted
Alice in much the same way as all little girls in his illustrations, with round face
and pageboy haircut. In 1908, there appeared a stunning edition with 92 colour illustrations
(11 full-page) by Harry Rountree. Two of my favourites are the Pool of Tears where a
mouse jumps twice its height out of the water upon spotting Alice, and the scene where
Alice outgrows the house she's in. Rountree has great fun populating this picture with
many different little animals drawn in his unique style.
In 1910, Mabel Lucie Attwell produced 12 colour plates and many b/w drawings
for an edition of Alice that appeals especially to smaller children. Again, I like the
Pool of Tears and The Mock-Turtle's Story illustrations. Gwynedd M. Hudson's
version of Alice in 1922 deserves considerable merit with its sweet frontispiece of
Alice and her cat Dinah plus many other colour and black-and-white illustrations.
Some other illustrators who have produced remarkable versions of Alice are:
. Peter Newell (1901)
. Maria L. Kirk (1904)
. A.E. Jackson (1914)
. Willy Pogany (1929)
. Salvador Dali (1969) ("far-out" doesn't begin to describe these illus.)
. Barry Moser (1982)
. Ralph Steadman (1986)
. Lisbeth Zwerger (1998)
plus 2 Canadian contenders:
. George Walker (1988) (the first all-Canadian-made Alice)
. Iassen Ghiuselev (2003) (Bulgarian artist; Simply Read Books, Vancouver, publisher)
There are at least a hundred more artists who have tried their hand at interpreting
Lewis Carroll's crazy mixed-up kid, Alice, and all of her acquaintances. Should you want
to buy just one book, make it Alice in all its wonderful versions.
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Terry Stillman is the owner of Stillman Books, a converted bricks-and-mortar store that
now exists only in the ethereal vapours of the World Wide Web--in other words, an
online bookstore which you can find at www.stillmanbooks.com. Mr. Stillman has
specialized in collectible children's books for more than forty years.
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