2026 is the National Year of Reading in the UK. As our contribution to the year, the volunteers of Sunninghill Library, and Claire Towers-Goodman, the library manager, have organized an exhibition of some of the illustrations from Alice in Wonderland. Today (1 April) Claire and her colleagues organized a Mad Hatter’s Tea Party, with a “real live” Alice (actually Chloe, on of the librarians) and craft activities for children. When Jan and I visited the library at 2pm it was full of children busily making White Rabbit pocket watches. Clifford, the Sunninghill Librarian, made two Mad Hatter hats of papier mâché.
Here are a few photos, followed by a brief history of Alice in Wonderland.
Note Clifford's hat.
The edition of Alice with dots on the cover is illustrated by the Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama.
The Mad Hatter's Tea.
This is the story of Alice (with thanks to Alysoun Saunders, former Macmillan archivist for her precise comments):
Alice in Wonderland: the Tenniel Illustrations
Alice in Wonderland is a tale that has been enjoyed for more than 160 years and is one of the most influential children’s books of all time. We all know what the fantastic characters created by Lewis Carroll look like because an artist who specialized in drawing cartoons for Punch magazine drew 42 illustrations for the story. But those first readers did not know that Alice wore a blue dress and blue and white stockings, for the original pictures were black and white.
To celebrate the National Year of Reading, we are exhibiting in colour a selection of the illustrations created by Sir John Tenniel (1820-1914) for Alice in Wonderland.
The author of Alice was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832-1898) whose pen name was Lewis Carroll. He taught mathematics at Christ Church College, Oxford and was friends with the Dean of Christ Church, Henry Liddell, and his three daughters: Lorina, Alice and Edith.
Carroll was a man of many talents. In addition to his two Alice novels, he wrote the nonsense poems, The Hunting of the Snark and The Jabberwock. He also invented the Wonderland Postage Stamp Case, and the nyctograph, a device for writing in the dark, and an early version of a game that became the modern Scrabble. But he is famous as the creator of Alice.
One sunny day on 4th July 1862, Carroll took the Liddell sisters on a boat ride on the Thames in Oxford and he told the story that was to become Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. The story enchanted Alice Liddell, who becomes Alice in the novel. She begged him to write the story down. The date became known as the “Golden Afternoon” and is celebrated every year in Oxford as “Alice’s Day”.
Carroll met Alexander Macmillan, the co-founder of the Macmillan & Co. publishing house in Oxford in 1863. Alexander immediately agreed to publish Alice. Carroll entrusted the illustrations of the story’s extraordinary characters to John Tenniel, whose illustrations for Aesop’s Fables he admired. Tenniel was an unusual artist in that he had been blinded in his right eye by his father in a fencing match. Author and illustrator did not get on: Carroll, who was keen on photography, then a new artform, gave Tenniel photographs of models he liked, but Tenniel refused to use them. Nevertheless, the poses and gestures of Tenniel’s drawings, like Carrol’s story, have enchanted children and adults alike.
Carroll paid for Tenniel’s illustrations to be engraved in woodblocks. Electrotypes, made from the woodblocks, were used for printing; as the electrotypes wore out, they were replaced by new ones made from the woodblocks. When Carroll died his estate passed the woodblocks to Macmillan to continue to use to make electros from and for the very odd special "pull". In 1984 Paul Trotman, the company secretary, rediscovered the woodblocks in the company archive. A limited edition of 250 copies with black and white prints was made from them by Rocket Press. The woodblocks are now in the British Library.
Indeed, Queen Victoria so enjoyed the book that she commanded that Carroll dedicate his next book to her. It is probable that the Queen did not enjoy that book, An Elementary Treatise on Determinants, quite as much!
In 1911 Tenniel commissioned Harry G. Theaker (1873-1954) to colour sixteen of the illustrations. In 1995 Michael Wace, Macmillan’s publisher of children’s books, commissioned DIz Wallis to complete the colouring. We have selected twenty-two illustrations, printed in a large format to show all the details, all but one in colour.
Alice got off to a bad start; Carroll rejected the first printing of 2,000 copies (known as the suppressed edition) in June 1865 because Tenniel was dissatisfied with the printing quality. A reprint in December 1865 sold out rapidly and by 1872 Alice was already published in French, German, Swedish, Italian; Finnish followed in 1906 and Esperanto in 1910. An edition in words of one syllable was issued in 1905. A stage adaptation premiered in 1915. By the 21st century Alice had been read in 175 languages, perhaps most popularly in Japan where 1,271 editions have appeared.
Carroll’s brilliant idea of a child’s adventures in a parallel fantastic world is the theme of many subsequent beloved children’s stories, many brought to life by the combined talents of the author and the illustrator such as:
J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan, a play 1904; a novel 1911 (illustrations by F. D. Bedford, 1864-1954 and Mabel Lucie Atwell, 1879-1964)
L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, 1900 (illustrations by W. W. Denslow, 1856-1915)
C. S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, 1950 (illustrations by Pauline Baynes, 1922-2008)
Madeleine L’Engle, A Wrinkle in Time, 1962 (illustrations by Ellen Raskin, 1928-1984)
Phillip Pullman, Northern Lights, 1995; The Subtle Knife, 1997; The Amber Spyglass, 2000
Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth, 1961 (illustrations by Jules Feiffer, 1929-2025)
Neil Gaiman, Coraline, 2002 (illustrations by David McKean)
L. D. Lapinski, The Strange Worlds Travel Agency, 2000 (cover illustrations by Natalie Smillie)
Christopher Edge, The Many Worlds of Albie Bright, 2016 (illustrations by Matt Saunders and Spike Gerrell)
Anna James, Pages & Co: Tilly and the Book Wanderers, 2018 (illustrations by Paola Escobar)
Jenny McLachlan, The Land of Roar, 2019; Dragon Riders of Roar, 2025 (illustrations by Alla Khatkevich)
