By Lewis Carroll
Illustrated by Harry Rountree
Published by Collins Clear Type Press: London c1920 (undated)
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This handsome early 20th-century Collins Clear-Type Press edition brings together Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, presented with the charming and imaginative illustrations of Harry Rountree. Carroll's timeless tales follow young Alice as she tumbles into a world ruled by nonsense and logic turned on its head—meeting the White Rabbit, the Cheshire Cat, the Mad Hatter, and the Queen of Hearts—before stepping through the looking-glass into an equally fantastical mirror-realm populated by living chess pieces, talking flowers, Tweedledum and Tweedledee, and the unforgettable Jabberwock. Rountree's artwork, including vibrant colour plates and a lively suite of in-text illustrations, brings a warm, whimsical interpretation to Carroll's dreamlike adventures and captures the humour, absurdity, and rapid shifts of scale that define the narrative.
Produced around the 1920s and typical of Collins' gift-book formats, this edition reflects the era's renewed interest in richly illustrated children's classics. Rountree's style—playful, expressive, and rooted in the golden age of book illustration—makes this volume especially appealing to collectors who favour editions where the artwork forms part of the storytelling experience. The combination of both novels in a single volume, quality Clear-Type printing, and the presence of a colour frontis make it a desirable example for enthusiasts of Lewis Carroll, admirers of early 20th-century illustration, and collectors of classic children's literature.
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