Alice's Adventures in Wonderland: Illustrated by June Lornie - Softcover

Carroll, Lewis

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1782010378 ISBN 13: 9781782010371

Publisher: Evertype, 2013

Synopsis

Lewis Carroll is the pen-name for Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, who was a lecturer of mathematics at Christ Church, Oxford. Dodgson started the telling of this tale on July 4, 1862 during a rowing boat tour on the Thames River at Oxford. Pastor Robinson Duckworth and three girls were members of the party: Alice Liddell, the ten-year old daughter of the dean of Christ Church, and her sisters Lorina, aged thirteen, and Edith, eight years of age. The poem at the beginning of the story states that the threesome urged Dodgson to tell them a story. And so he set out to present the first version of the tale, admittedly with some initial reluctance. Now and then, within the broader tale, reference is made to all five of the boat party; the story first appeared in print in 1865. ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR: As a child, June Lornie spent much of her life in hospital. She had to lay on her back, so she used a mirror to see what was going on around her -- and as a result, she always saw the world back to front. The nurses told her fairy stories like "Cinderella", "Snow White", and many more. Because she had a mirror, she was told a story, "Through the Looking-Glass", about a little girl who went through a mirror -- that little girl was called Alice. After this she was read "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and fell in love with the story. As the years went by June remained fascinated with Alice. Later in her career, June became director of the Liverpool Academy of Arts. Her illustrations for Alice started with a single work: "The Mad Tea-Party". This was soon joined by others, then, after she had had an exhibition of this first group and saw them all hanging on a wall together, she felt inspired to complete a full set of illustrations for the story, work which occupied her off and on for a further two years. After the "Cheshire Life" magazine did a two-page spread on her illustrations, June and her husband David joined the Daresbury Lewis Carroll Society. She has held many exhibitions displaying her illustrations for "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland", and plans to start illustrating "Through the Looking-Glass" as well.

About this title

Review

'It takes hubris to reinterpret artist John Tenniel's original vision of Alice's journey. Enter the so-called "Mad Hatter of Canadian Graphic Arts," engraver George Walker, who began the project as a student twenty years ago. Tender and dark at the same time, these extraordinary woodcuts reflect their maker's youthful energy. An introduction by Alberto Manguel says it best: "Glimpses, snapshots, details of larger scenes tell of Walker's reading, a reading that follows Alice's frantic pace, far from Victorian sobriety, from madness to greater madness." Both Alice's story and these remarkable illustrations communicate on many levels. Ages nine to twelve.' ForeWord Magazine 'Walker is an artist of many talents and media -- and many contradictions. A figurative artist, he is interested in illuminating abstractions cast up from his unconscious. Literate and articulate, he expresses complex thoughts and ideas in singular images. He published a book without text, letting the images carry the narrative. A generous nature can give way suddenly to a disquisition on social inequality that he also translates into the grammar of picture making. There is a startling muteness and directness to his pictures, yet they are intended to effect change, often in the immediate world around him, or in the viewer's perceptions of the world around them. The technical dimension of his artistic practice is privileged and apparent in the work, yet the art far exceeds material, method and process. His art is often grounded in the process of automatism, allowing for the unconscious to speak directly and spontaneously in images, even as his technique embraces the painstaking and precise nomenclature of wood engraving, block printing and bookbinding. The immediacy of his messages and their meanings are the product of careful rendering, circumspection and consideration.' -- Tom Smart Devil's Artisan The Porcupine's Quill has just released a wonderful new edition of Alice in Wonderland lavishly illustrated with wood engravings by George Walker and with a new introduction by Alberto Manguel. Following in the tradition of the Cheshire Cat Press edition published nearly 25 years ago by Bill Poole, George Walker and Joseph Brabant (one of the finest examples of a Canadian private press book), the story is as beautiful woven through the illustrations and design as it is through the magical words we are all familiar with. -- Richard, Bytown Bookshop Walker's edition of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (Cheshire Cat Press, 1988) announced forcefully his precocious talents as a printmaker and book artist. His enormously expressive woodcut illustrations paired with master letterpress publisher Bill Poole's sensitive handling of type, printing and binding, comprised one of the finest hand-printed volumes ever produced in Canada. Alice has just been issued in a trade edition paperback by Porcupine's Quill in Erin, Ont. -- Tom Smart "The great Canadian (graphic) novel", Telegraph-Journal 'The classic Alice in Wonderland is known by all, but the story is off the wall enough that one's interpretation may be different from another's. Alice Adventure's in Wonderland: Wood Engravings is George A. Walker's own take with woodcuts as he illustrates Carroll's famed story. Showing a unique skill in his interpretation, he captures a charm that's been lost with the decline of woodcuts, and makes for a unique journey. Alice's Adventure in Wonderland is a must for any fan of the story and unique art styles.' Midwest Book Review 'Fanciful and eccentric, [George A. Walker's] engravings cast Lewis Carroll's classic fantasy fiction in a darker more sinister hue that will appeal to the inner child of many mature readers.' --Robert Reid The Record

About the Author

Lewis Carroll
(1832 - 1898)
An English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer. His real name was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson.

About this edition

• Publisher: Evertype
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1782010378
• ISBN 13: 9781782010371
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 104
• Illustrator: Lornie June