Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865)

Not another version of Alice in Wonderland? Well ok, I already have four versions and this makes one more. But, really couldn't help myself when I found this version, illustrated by Robert Ingpen, for sale in a second hand bookshop near where I live. The illustrations here really make the book become much more alive to me. Ingpen, himself, pays tribute to the original illustrator of Alice....John Tenniel and one can see the influencers there ...though I must confess, I like the Ingpen version much more. (One of the versions I have on my shelves has the complete Tenniel illustrations....but they were done over 150 years ago and he only had black and white to work with). He (Ingpen) has just the right touch for this book.......whimsical, slightly soft-focus, realism with a touch of the cartoonish about it. I just love his work. He seems to have mainly worked in pencil and watercolour with this volume but it's never been quite clear to me what medium he is working in. He's certainly used gouache on p 83....and some, such as the drawing of Alice on p21 are clearly done just in graphite pencil.
Ingpen, comments that he was inspired as a child by the illustrations in the original and my impression is that the work in this book is a labour of love not just a contract to produce illustrations for a kid's book.
No point here going into details about the story of Alice. They are too well known ....though, I suspect that a lot of children (like me) found the book more or less impenetrable and really written for adults with its "in" jokes, puzzles, and mathematical conundrums. One thing that I found out from this version was that there have been more than 200 editions of Alice published over the years....so, maybe I'm excused for having just 5 of them in my collection.
I assume that the text is true to the original but short of cross-checking line by line I just have to take that at face value. But Ingpen has added a massive amount of Illustrations. I did a brief sampling/count of illustrations (counting a double page spread as two illustrations and it averaged out that about 80% of the pages have an illustration......many of them full page or double page. So it kinds of emphasises Alice's question: "What is the use of a book without pictures or conversations?" In this case...the illustrations massively contribute to the tale.
Happy to award five stars to this book. I really like it. ( )

I will never understand who determines a classic! This story is nothing but garbage. A dream. Maybe if I was younger, say 10, then this story might have been funny or interesting. ( )

3.5 stars.
Curiouser and Curiouser how I so greatly enjoy this book every time I read it.
Carroll has created a whimsical book with mini-stories in a book with the length being quite short.
Wonderland has been created so amazing, and I always laugh every time with certain scenes, especially the tea party parts.
This is a classic that will entertain for generations to come! ( )

I knew this book since I was a kid but it’s only now that I had a chance to read it. At first, the adventures looked bizarre. The story only made sense to me when I read the last chapter. It’s amazing how people made various interpretations about this book. I wonder what would have been my reaction as a kid if I read this back then. ( )

5.5. A book about random nonsensical creativity. I get it but i'm not really interested. As a writer and imaginative person i already experience this and this book doesn't strike my interest. Not in the character or story or the nonsensical creative thing ( )