The score(s) next to each publication’s review and the average rating is an interpretation of the reviews by Literature’s Pretty Long History.
Critics:
“The book is a model of elegant typography, and is profusely and richly illustrated.”
“Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll, with forty-two illustrations by John Tenniel, is a grotesquely attractive holiday volume just elegantly issued by Appleton & Co. of New York, and for sale here by Nichols & Noyes. It is weird, funny, impossible, and yet probable to the infantile mind, and will keep its happy possessor in a glow of pleasurable excitement for many and many an hour.”
“ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND, is a curious book, too much like Kingsley’s Water Babies, incomprehensible excepting to children.”
“The incidents in this marvellous narrative will be pronounced novel by the most, experienced juvenile reader of fairy tales, while there is something to tickle the risibilities as well as to give a new sensation to the feeling of the wonderful, in the adventures it recounts. Tenniel’s pictures are capital aids to the text. The volume is beautifully printed elegantly bound.”
“The story, which has enough of the wonderful in it to fill young readers with delight, is very gracefully told; the illustrations by TENNIEL are thoroughly characteristic, and, of course, exceedingly amusing, the typography is unexceptionable.”
Supplemental Notice(s)
“That solace for hen-pecked husbands, Mrs. Caudle’s Curlarn Lectures, of which a very handsome edition has just been issued, and a delightful book for the juveniles, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, illustrated by TENNIEL, should not be overlooked amid the more ambitious volumes of which the few we have named are but representatives.” — The New York Times (December 18, 1866)
“The story is very fanciful and grotesque, and full of curious child experience and imaginings…Little Alice leads the strange dance, and connects the impossible links of the tale in something like a harmonious whole. There are quaint and curious verses in the book, which will prove a little treasure as a holiday gift.”
“Among the illustrated works issued in anticipation of the holidays, we have received “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” by Lewis Carroll, a collection of amusing adventures for juvenile readers, published by D. Appleton & Co…”
“D. Appleton & Co. publish “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” by Lewis Carroll—a beautiful little volume, with forty-two illustrations by Tenniel. The story is prettily told, and children of eight to twelve years of age will prize it.”
“Mr. Tenniel is in many respects the most accomplished character draughtsman who is left to us. Like John Lewis, he seems to have learned very much from careful study of animals, at some early point of his career, in the way of subtle expression; and as Punch is in the hands of all adults, and “Alice’s Adventures” are the delight of all children (and parents), the illustrator of both those works needs little comment from us.”
Reprinted by The Express (October 13, 1866), The Sun (October 15, 1866), The Daily News (October 15, 1866), Dundee Advertiser (October 16, 1866), Manchester Courier (October 16, 1866), Sheffield Daily Telegraph (October 17, 1866), Cardiff And Merthyr Guardian (October 19, 1866), Illustrated Sporting News And Theatrical And Musical Review (October 20, 1866), Newcastle Chronicle (October 20, 1866), Wexford People (October 27, 1866), Gloucester Journal (October 27, 1866), and Tiverton Gazette (October 30, 1866)
“But our young friends may rest assured that the exquisite illustrations only do justice to the exquisitely wild, fantastic, impossible, yet most natural history of “Alice in Wonderland.””
“THIS very pretty and funny book ought to become a great favourite with children. It has this advantage, that it has no moral, and that it does not teach anything. It is, in fact, pure sugar throughout, and is without any of that bitter foundation of fact which some people imagine ought to be at the bottom of all children’s books. It is certainly nonsense from beginning to end, but it is just that nonsense which no one but a clever man could have written.”
“A capital children’s book of clever nonsense, without aim or object other than pure amusement, and unburdened by any moral whatsoever.”
“A well-told story is set off by Mr. Tenniel’s illustrations.”
““Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” with 42 illustrations by Tenniel, a beautiful and attractive book (Macmillan.)”
Reprinted by The Queenslander (March 3, 1866)
“It is quite a work of genius, and a literary study; for, if the reputed author be the true one…it effectually dispels the notion that first-rate mathematical talent and ability are inconsistent with genuine humour and imagination.”
“This is one of the most amusing story-books for young folk we have seen for many a long day; brimful of pleasant nonsense which it is impossible to read without a hearty laugh.”
“Few are more attractive to the eye than Alice’s Trip to Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll (Macmillan,) which has been beautifully illustrated by John Tenniel…It is one long dream of sheer nonsense; but they will not like it the worse for that.”
“His truthfulness, however, in the delineation of animal forms reminds us of Mr. Tenniel, who has illustrated a little work—Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, with extraordinary grace…The neatness of touch with which he is set living before us may be seen in a dozen other vignettes throughout the volume, the letterpress of which is by Mr. Lewis Carroll, and may best be described as an excellent piece of nonsense.”
“This delightful little book is a children’s feast and triumph of nonsense; it is nonsense with and music; never inhuman, never bonbons, flags, inelegant, never tedious.”
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