The Annotated Alice

The Annotated Alice is a work by Martin Gardner incorporating the text of Lewis Carroll's major tales: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass as well as the original illustrations by John Tenniel. It has extensive annotations explaining the contemporary references (including the Victorian poems that Carroll parodies), mathematical concepts, word play, and Victorian traditions (such as the snap-dragons) featured in the two books.

The original book was first published in 1960. It has been reprinted several times and translated into French, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, German and Hebrew.

In 1990, a sequel, More Annotated Alice, was published. This sequel does not contain the original side notes, and Tenniel's illustrations are replaced by those of Peter Newell. It also contains the "suppressed" chapter "The Wasp in a Wig", which Carroll omitted from the text of Through the Looking-Glass on Tenniel's recommendation.

In 1999, The Definitive Edition was published. It combines the notes from both works and features Tenniel's illustrations in improved quality.

Gardner also compiled a companion volume, The Annotated Snark, dedicated to Carroll's classic nonsense poem The Hunting of the Snark.

In 2015, The Annotated Alice: 150th Anniversary Deluxe Edition was published, combining the previous works of Gardner and expanded by Mark Burnstein, president emeritus of the Lewis Carroll Society of North America. It includes features such as more than 100 new or updated annotations, over 100 new illustrations by Salvador Dali, Beatrix Potter, Ralph Steadman, and 42 other artists and illustrators (in addition to original art by Sir John Tenniel), and a filmography of every Alice-related film by Carroll scholar David Schaefer.

Editions

• The Annotated Alice: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll, Illustrated by John Tenniel by Martin Gardner (1960), New York, Bramhall House ISBN 0-517-02962-6
• More Annotated Alice by Martin Gardner (1990) ISBN 0-394-58571-2
• The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition by Martin Gardner (1998/1999) ISBN 0-393-04847-0
• The Annotated Alice: 150th Anniversary Deluxe Edition by Martin Gardner and Mark Burstein (2015) ISBN 978-0-393-24543-1

See also

• Martin Gardner bibliography
• Michael Grosvenor Myer: Some omissions from Martin Gardner's "The Annotated Alice"; Notes and Queries (OUP), August 1983

External links

• Description on the publisher's website
• Review in The New Statesman, 25 December 2000, by Will Self