June 15, 2024 The Mitr

Illustrations for Alice in Wonderland – Part 3 – Peter Newell

Peter Newell was a prolific American illustrator and author. The books with his illustrations for Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through The Looking Glass were published circa 1901. These are paintings rather than line drawings. The books were printed in black and white/grayscale so are the illustrations. But there must be a set of fully colour versions of these paintings. Some of them you can see here and there on the interwebs, but a complete collection I could not find. If you know of colour versions of these paintings please let me know.

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

Down she came upon a heap of dry leaves.

The poor little thing sat down and cried.

“Now I’m opening out like the largest telescope that ever was!”

The Rabbit started violently.

The Mouse gave a sudden leap out of the water.

The Caucus-Race.

The Dod solemnly presented the thimble.

“Mine is a long and a sad tale,” said the Mouse.

On various pretexts they all moved off.

“Why, Mary Ann, what are you doing here?”

“What’s that in the window?”

“Catch him, you by the hedge.”

The poor little Lizard Bill was in the middle being held up.

The Puppy jumped into the air.

The Caterpillar and Alice looked at each other.

Old Father William standing on his head.

Old Father William balancing an Eel on the end of his nose.

Old Father William turning a back somersault in at the door.

“Serpent!” screamed the Pigeon.

Then they both bowed low and their curls got entangled.

Singing a sort of lullaby.

Sp she set the little creature down.

This time it vanished quite slowly.

He dipped it into his cup of tea and looked at it again.

They lived at the bottom of a well.

Don’t go splashing paint over me.

“Off with her head!”

It would twist itself round and look up in her face.

“Don’t look at me like that.”

The Hedge-hog was engaged in a fight with another Hedge-hog.

“Tut, tut, child!” said the Duchess.

They began solemnly dancing round and round Alice.

“Will you walk a little faster,” said a Whitling to a Snail.

Alice began telling them her adventures.

“Come on!” cried the Gryphon.

June 11, 2024 The Mitr

Illustrations for Alice in Wonderland – Part 2 – John Tenniel

John Tenniel

John Tenniel’s illustrations are by far the most popular drawings for Alice. Over the years from their first publication in for Wonderland (1865) and Looking Glass (1871), these illustrations have had a life of their own.The original illustrations are line drawings, closely following Lewis Carroll’s illustrations in spirit and sometimes in framing also. Tenniel’s illustrations have had a very strong impact on all the later illustrations by other artists as well. His depictions of certain characters, at least for me, is intimately tied with the words of Lewis Carroll. I cannot imagine the story without reference to his illustrations.

Tenniel’s monogram of his stylised initials are part of all the illustrations.

Several later renditions of these were coloured or supplemented by full colour plates by other artists. We will make a separate post for these modified colour illustrations later. In this post we will see only the original illustrations as they appear in the 1865 edition a total of 42 including the front piece.

Over the years I have used several of these images in my presentation and work.

All images in public domain unless mentioned otherwise.

Front piece: the court of the king and queen of hearts.

The White rabbit.

Alice finds the little door.

Drink me! said the label on the bottle.

Alice becomes enlarged.

The white rabbit runs away.

Alice in pool of tears.

The mouse swims away.

The Dodo presents Alice a thimble.

The mouse’s long and sad tale.

Alice went on growing and growing till she filled the room.

Alice tries to snatch the rabbit from the window.

Alice kicks Bill the green lizard from the chimney.

Alice throws a stick to the giant puppy to fetch.

Alice meets the caterpillar.

Old Father William stands on his head.

Old Father William does a back-somersault.

Old Father William finishes the goose, with the bones and the beak.

Old Father William balances an eel on his nose.

The fish-footman delivers the invitation from the Queen to play croquet.

Alice meets Duchess and the crying baby.

The baby turns to a pig!

Alice meets the Cheshire cat.

Cheshire cat fades away. “ Well! I’ve often seen a cat without a grin,” thought Alice, “ but a grin without acat! It’s the most curious thing I ever saw in all my life.

At the mad tea party.

The Mad Hatter.

The Mad Hatter and the White Rabbit put the dormouse into the soup.

Colouring the white roses red.

Alice meets the queen and “Off with her head!” she commands.

Alice playing croquet with the flamingo and hedgehog.

“Off with his head” queen said for Cheshire cat. The executioner said, “..you couldn’t cut off a head unless there was a body to cut it off from..”

Alice and Duchess “Take care of the sense, and the sounds will take care of themselves.’ ””

Gryphon was lying fast asleep in the sun.

Alice hears the Mock turtle’s story.

So they began solemnly dancing round and round Alice.

The Lobster quadrille.

White Rabbit blew three blasts on the trumpet,White Rabbit blew three blasts on the trumpet,

White Rabbit blew three blasts on the trumpet, and reads the accusation of stealing the tarts.

Mad Hatter is the first witness. He comes with a tea cup in one hand and bread and butter in the other.

“Td rather finish my tea,” said the © Hatter, with an anxious look at the Queen, who was reading the list of singers.

“You may go,” said the King; and the Hatter hurriedly left the court, without — even waiting to put his shoes on.

The large Alice tips the jury box sending all jurors in a panic.

“Let the jury consider their verdict,” the King said, for about the twentieth time that day.
”No, no!’ said’ the, Queen. “Sentence first —verdict afterwards.”

“Who cares for you?” said Alice, (she had grown to her full size by this time.) “You’re nothing but a pack of cards!”

At this the whole pack rose up into the air, and came flying down upon her…

Gallery June 9, 2024June 11, 2024 The Mitr

Illustrations for Alice in Wonderland – Part 1 – Lewis Carroll

From the back advertisement of Carroll’s Eight or nine wise words about letter-writing (1890) illustration by John Tenniel.

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (C. L. Dodgson) first published in 1865 might be one of the better known books in the world. There are several editions of it, though the text content is more or less the same, the illustrations are varied. The most famous of Alice’s illustrations are by John Tenniel. Tenniel did the 42 illustrations in the first edition and these same illustrations are found in most later editions. This series of posts is an attempt to create a collection of various illustrations for Alice in Wonderland from middle of nineteenth century. For an in-depth analysis of Alice I highly recommend reading Martin Gardner‘s Annotated Alice, which has a lot of trivia and information about the books, the characters and the author.

Signature of Lewis Carroll from the facsimile handwritten draft.

All images in public domain unless mentioned otherwise.

In this post, we start with the hand-drawn manuscript from Carroll himself which was titled Alice’s Adventures Underground. Most of the illustrations that were done later follow these pen-drawn ones in content.

A treasured early manuscript version of one of the most famous and enduring children’s stories, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland c. 1864. Link Originally from the British Museum

Original cover of Alice’s Adventures under Ground

The facsimile version contains 40 illustrations. These illustrations were then refined by Tenniel in his woodcuts for the first edition of the book. These pen drawn crude illustrations are also templates for most of the other drawings for Alice’s books.