Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Through the Looking-Glass and Alice's… (1865)

I don't think I got it, but I've read it now, at least. ( )

Wonderland and Looking Glass are both, of course, 5*****.

I give this Penguin edition (978-0-14-143976-1), for its editorial quality, a respectable 4****. It's not comparable to Martin Gardner's Annotated Alice or to the Norton Critical Edition, but at $10 the Penguin is a very reasonably priced reading edition with endnotes along with the text of Alice's Adventures Under Ground. ( )

Lovely enjoyable book. What a clever and full of life little girl is Alice. ( )

Lewis Carroll's classic childhood tales of nonsense and wonder are presented in the Penguin Classics edition with all of the original illustrations, the original manuscript which he presented to the actual Alice Liddell, the little girl he befriended. The narratives themselves are full of wit, satire and utter nonsense, all helpfull puncutated with abundant footnotes to explain the historical, literary and political references to the modern lay reader without a background in English history. In addition, the introduction provides a context to understand Carroll, Alice, the stories, Oxford life and the controversy surrounding Carroll and his penchant for befriending, beguiling and photographing in the nude and near nude prepubescent girls. All of this information provides another layer to the depth of the texts themselves, giving the cynical reader an impetus to find innuendo hiding in the nonsense. ( )

I love the Alice books, always have, always will. The surreal dreamlike sequences swimming with bizarre nonsense, written with a stylish blend of wit and wonder, coy criticisms of society and parade of parodies of childish things that somehow celebrate the nature of childhood, while mocking adults who just don't get it. While these books are written for children, they never assume that their audience is less than perfectly intelligent. The 'Alice' books teach us how to use our imaginations, and open our eyes to the absurdity of the everyday, while drawing out the stuff of dreams and affirming that this reality is, yes stranger than the adult world would like to perceive it.

The Penguin classics edition is good, because it respects the format of the original books, and includes Sir John Tenniel's classic illustrations. It also includes Lewis Carroll's original manuscript, 'Alice's Adventures Underground,' and his accompanying sketches. However, I could have done without much of the introduction - which is told in an annoyingly supercilious tone by an academic who clearly dislikes his subject. Half of the footnotes added to this edition are ridiculously unnecessary - they are common knowledge, things repeated from the introduction, or information that is provided for the reader later in the narrative. Occasionally, there was a footnote that provided something genuinely interesting or insightful, but most often they were annoying distractions to the flow of reading (this is a children's fantasy, after all, not non-fiction.) Every child should have the opportunity to experience Wonderland, though I would try to find an edition without all the cumbersome footnotes, especially for a young reader. ( )