Carroll, Lewis [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] | Presentation copy inscribed by the author

Property from the Workman Collection

Carroll, Lewis [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson]

Through the Looking Glass, and what Alice Found There. London: Macmillan, 1872

8vo. Inscribed on the half-title by the author, frontispiece with tissue guard and numerous illustrations after John Tenniel by the Dalziel Brothers, typographic chessboard on the frontispiece recto; a few stray spots. Original red pictorial cloth stamped in gilt, the Red-Queen and White-Queen medallions gilt on covers, blue-black endpapers, all edges gilt, by Burn & Co. with their ticket; endpapers split along the hinges, lower hinge tender. Housed in a red morocco slipcase with folding chemise. 

First edition, the Manney copy, first printing (with wade for wabe in the second line of "Jabber-wocky," page 21), published in December 1871. Sheets G and H each occur in two states, with or without the page-numbers 95 and 98; this copy has both page-numbers correctly printed.

Presentation copy inscribed by the author (“Mrs. Edgcombe | with kind regards | from the Author | Christmas. 1871.”). On 6 December 1871, Dodgson had "received the first complete copy of the Looking-glass," and two days later, on Friday, 8 December, he "Received from Macmillan three Looking-glasses in morocco, and a hundred in cloth." He inscribed a morocco copy for Alice Liddell, and inscribed the cloth copies as well, and sent them all off that day.

REFERENCE:

Dodgson Diaries (1953) 306-307; Lovett 13; Williams-Maden-Green-Crutch 84

PROVENANCE:

L. Dodgson's presentation to Mrs Edgcombe, as above — Richard Manney (bookplate to front pastedown; his sale, Sotheby’s New York, 11 October, 1991, lot 107)