Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There.
Fifty-Seventh Thousand.
London: Macmillan and Co., 1887 Stock Code: 108874
Presentation copy to the child actress who appeared in the first professional stage performance of "Alice"
Third edition, presentation copy to the child actress who appeared in the first professional stage performance of "Alice". Inscribed on the front free endpaper: "Presented to Georgina Martin by Lewis Carroll as a memento of her having taken part in the DreamPlay 'Alice in Wonderland' written by H. Savile Clarke and first produced Christmas, 1886." Following a few amateur stage versions of Alice, Dodgson was convinced that his story had theatrical possibilities and he tried unsuccessfully to engage Arthur Sullivan to write some songs for a musical production in 1877. "Ten years passed, and Charles was still looking for an appropriate way of mounting Alice in the West End. Then, on August 28, 1886, he heard from Henry Savile Clarke, playwright, drama critic, and newspaper editor, requesting permission to make an operetta of the Alice books" (Cohen, p. 435). After agreeing to a few of Dodgson's conditions (including insisting that Clarke not give any publicity to his real name), permission was granted and Alice in Wonderland, "A Musical Dream Play, in Two Acts, for Children and Others," opened on 23 December 1886 at the Prince of Wales Theatre. Dodgson's 12-year-old friend Phoebe Carlo was cast in the lead role of Alice, and the play was both a theatrical and critical success. Georgina Martin (b. 1876) and Edith Martin (b. 1880) were the two youngest children of David Martin (b. 1839), a domestic servant and groom, and his wife, Laura (b. 1842), of 15 Castle Street East, Marylebone, London. Dodgson presented both children with copies of Alice for performing in the Alice in Wonderland play (Diaries, Vol. 8, note 629).Laid-in: Christmas Greetings from a Fairy to a Child. London: Macmillan, 1884. Small broadsheet (129 x 89 mm), printed on one side only. Williams-Madan-Green-Crutch 162. -- An Easter Greeting to Every child who Loves "Alice." Oxford, 1876. 3 pp. 16o (131 x 94 mm). Later edition. See Williams-Madan-Green-Crutch 116
Description
Octavo. Original red cloth, title to spine in gilt, triple gilt rules to covers, gilt roundels with "Alice" motifs to covers, black coated endpapers, edges gilt. Housed in a custom red quarter morocco and buff cloth solander box.
Illustrations
Frontispiece with tissue-guard and 49 illustrations by John Tenniel.
Condition
Spine rolled, some minor bubbling to cloth, covers lightly finger-marked, shallow nick to head of rear panel, hinges split, fore edge of front free endpaper nicked, text block shaken.
Bibliography
Cohen, Lewis Carroll: A Biography, 1995; Williams-Madan-Green-Crutch 84b.
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