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A Present from Lewis Carroll to his sister-in-law

Sometimes an item is of greater value in whole than any of its’ parts. This I bought from an Italian bookseller on EBay in 2007, really sold as an autograph of Lewis Carroll.

To celebrate the 126^th Exhibition of the Royal Academy  in London the book is a “coffee table book” for Victorians and Dodgson presented this copy to his sister-in-law Mary Collingwood with much affection and calling himself her brother.

Lewis Carroll's Library - The Epping Hunt

From Lewis Carroll’s extensive library, this is his personal copy of Thomas Hood’s “ The Epping Hunt” illustrated with six very charming engravings on wood after Cruikshank. According to the pencilled note in Dodgson’s hand on the inside rear cover he acquired the book from W.Hutt’s catalogue, 1890 priced 15/-. A later booksellers’catalogue snipping is pasted to the inside front cover priced at 12/- stating “ Lewis Carroll’s copy”. The book is included in the published works on the library and is a first edition 1829, Charles Tilt, London. The Bristol bookseller who sold me the book in September 2009 had acquired it from the widow of an avid book collector of many subjects.

One of Twenty Blue Cloth Copies

This book is one of twenty specially bound copies of The Hunting of the Snark printed in 1876 by Macmillan for Dodgson to give away to friends. The dark blue cloth variant is usuallyinscribed by the author and a census of known copies has I gather been recently compiled . This copy is unusual in not being inscribed ( and therefore unspoilt!)

In September 2006 I searched ABE the book search engine, as I frequently did in those days and saw this book for sale as a first edition in very good condition. I was a little worried by the description – the cloth was blue and not beige as the first 10,000 copies were. Either the book had been coloured or dyed, or the bookseller was colour blind or….it was one of the special twenty copies. It took a few days to arrive from New Zealand ( the Snark being popular among the Maouri), a few seconds to unwrap and ….a moment of glory when one is forgiven for many previous extravagancies. I paid the going rate for a first edition of the 1876 Snark. A green cloth variant, uninscribed, in poorer condition than this fine copy, sold at auction in 2005 for a shade under £2000.

1866 Alice

My copy of the 1866 Alice purchased in 2006 after a sale in conversation with the late Dominic Winter. The book had not quite reached its’ reserve in the bidding and I bought it after the auction.

One of 4,000 of the second edition and probably one of the earlier 2,000 with pale blue endpapers. The other markers of a true 1866 Alice are present – 30 on pg.30 is preserved without a draw;  inverted S on the list of contents page ( In Chapter 12, Alice’s Evidence); mistake of pagination “ Pig and Pepper” pg. 76 should be 67, also on list of contents page. The book is taller than the later editions of this 6/- Alice. There has been some professional restoration with the original cloth re-backed. There is a contemporary cloth and slipcase.

Jabberwocky - Vansittart Pamphlet

Twas Brillig indeed to be the successful bidder for this copy of Vansittart's fine translation of Lewis Carroll's famous poem, tipped onto the front endpaper of a 10th thousand of Looking Glass. The book also had the ownership signature of William Warner, a contemporary of Dodgson at Christ Church, in the college purple ink.

An Early Lewis Carroll Puzzle

In The Monthly Packet of 1881 appeared, in Charlotte Yong’s periodical, a new puzzle devised by Mr Lewis Carroll, called Mischmasch. On the last page of Vol.1 (third series) appeared the seven rules. I bought a bound volume in 2005 for £10 on Ebay. This would I suspect keep a lot of people perfectly happy. However in 2006, the late Peter Howard of Serendipity Books in Berkeley California had an original for sale, a snip really at $1500, which needed a little TLC along part of the hinge and was restored for me by an archivist in York. It was printed in 1882 by the Oxford University Press, and not reprinted in this form. The word game apparently kept lots of Victorian folk very happy in the days before the internet and i-pads and Big Brother.