Sending readers to Wonderland since 1865
Begin at the Beginning: Lewis Carroll & Alexander Macmillan ‘I began dealing with your house with full confidence in it in every way – and that confidence is undiminished.’ Lewis Carroll writes to Alexander Macmillan in April 1871
In 2015, Macmillan is thrilled still to be publishing the Alice in Wonderland novels and to be the trusted publisher of his works.
‘Macmillan was instrumental in turning Alice into a literary and cultural phenomenon and it is through the artists we commissioned that Alice’s iconic look – her blue dress, blonde hair and “Alice band”– was established in the public mind. We are delighted to be able to put the heart back into the “The Macmillan Alice” for 2015 and beyond.’ Anthony Forbes Watson, Managing Director, Pan Macmillan
Lewis Carroll’s classic novel Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland celebrates its 150th anniversary in 2015. Macmillan is proud to be the original publishing house of this famous story; one that captured the hearts of both children and adults, and is now firmly established in the cultural fabric of countries throughout the world.
The 150th Anniversary of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland will see the publication of a range of collectable heritage editions, as well as new and reimagined works in the Macmillan Alice in Wonderland range.
Charles L. Dodgson first met Alexander Macmillan on 19 October 1863. Macmillan loved Alice and agreed to publish it, with Dodgson choosing to write it under the name of Lewis Carroll. In the following thirty-five years, Macmillan published nine different editions – revised English editions as well as French, German and Italian translations. Carroll regularly visited Alexander at his home, Knapdale, in Tooting and also entertained Alexander at Christ Church College, Oxford. Theirs was a relationship of friendship based on mutual respect.
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Creating the Alice in Wonderland Story
Creating the iconic alice look
‘If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense.’
‘You would have to be half mad to dream me up.’
Lewis Carroll was a natural storyteller, regularly inventing new tales to entertain his friends. Wonderland stories were told to many eager listeners – Carroll knew that for the best stories to work, the child must be at the centre of the story and in safe surroundings, and it is from here that the child’s imagination can be led to marvellous and wonderful places. Originally created in 1865, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was inspired by Alice Liddell – the daughter of the Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, the college at which Carroll was a lecturer.
It is not only Carroll’s story that remains a perennial favourite. His stories were brought to life by John Tenniel, first as black-and-white plates and then with coloured versions of these original drawings.
Curious Alice, the iconic White Rabbit, the formidable Queen of Hearts and the Mad Hatter are amongst the best-loved literary creations across generations, and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is now widely acknowledged as one of the most influential children’s books of all time.
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John Tenniel
Carroll’s creative outlets included photography as well as poetry, while his occupation saw him write many works on algebra, geometry and logic. Were it not for Alice Liddell, and the famous river outing taken with the Liddell family on 4 July 1862, these may have been his only published works. But at the end of that particular day, when Alice asked for her story to be written down, Carroll agreed. It took him two and a half years to complete.
Tenniel was already well known as a major cartoonist for the political magazine Punch, and Carroll admired the animals in an edition of Aesop’s Fables that Tenniel had illustrated. He approached Tenniel to ask him about Alice – and Tenniel agreed to take on the project. Today, it is impossible to imagine Carroll’s Alice without Tenniel’s illustrations alongside.
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Although Tenniel’s artwork produced the original Alice image, when his eyesight began to fail, he gave approval to Macmillan in 1911 to ask Harry G. Theaker to complete sixteen new colour plates, and it is Theaker’s colourings that established the iconic image of Alice that we know today, with her bright blonde hair, her blue dress and her Alice band (which first appeared in the illustrations in Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There).
Macmillan owns the copyright in many of these colour illustrations and it is a Tenniel/Theaker image that is presented on the new ‘Macmillan Alice 150 Years’ anniversary logo.
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The design and reproduction quality of the Macmillan publishing is unrivalled thanks to exclusive access to the original coloured artwork.
Harry G. Theaker
Over the years, illustrators John Macfarlane and Diz Wallis also worked with Macmillan to further the recognized imagery for Alice’s adventures. In 1927, Macfarlane created new colour-plate illustrations for the first Macmillan Children’s Edition, based on the original Tenniel engravings using the Theaker style. Much later, in the 1990s, colourist Diz Wallis completed the remainder of the Tenniel black-and-white images in the style of Harry G. Theaker.
printing from original artwork At the time Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was first published, the most usual way of printing books was by letterpress. It was a very time-consuming process. The letters were selected individually then assembled into lines, which were then transferred to a ‘type galley’. The letters were back to front so that once the ink was applied and the paper laid on the press, the printed text would appear the right way round. If the text was accompanied by images, the letterpress blocks and images (either ‘woodblocks’ or ‘electrotypes’) would be locked together to create the finished plate or ‘form’ from which the page could be printed. Printing Tenniel’s images also involved careful preparation. First the drawings, done on paper, had to be carved into ‘woodblocks’ by wood engravers. Tenniel’s woodblocks were created by the Brothers Dalziel, who were among the most skilled engravers at that time. Their name appears on many of the images in Alice. The printer would then use the woodblock to create an ‘electrotype’, made of metal, which was used on the printing press (metal being more robust than wood). The above image is an early electrotype from the Macmillan archive, which was used to print Alice. Like the letterpress, woodblocks and electrotypes had back-tofront images, which would appear the right way round on the printed page. Many of the electros for printing the images remain in the Macmillan archive, which is full of treasured content that will be used as unique supplementary material in the anniversary editions and new publishing throughout 2015.
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alice’s adventures: 150 years down the rabbit hole ‘Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.’
To celebrate Alice’s landmark anniversary, Macmillan is publishing a number of gorgeous special gift editions to highlight the heritage of Alice. A beautiful hardback gift edition, The Complete Alice, publishes on 4 July 2015, comprising both Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, alongside archive material. With a new foreword by Philip Pullman, this new edition has stunning design and illustrations by Tenniel, coloured by Theaker and Wallis. Published in delightful small hardback format, with golden sprayed edges, a new edition of the Little Folks’ Alice is available from 26 February 2015. This gorgeous edition was originally published in 1907. It is a shorter version of the original Alice story and has not been available to buy for many years. First published by Macmillan in 1890, The Nursery Alice was the very first colour edition of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, adapted especially for younger readers. Lewis Carroll rewrote and simplified his original story, while John Tenniel redrew and coloured twenty of his iconic illustrations. The result is a delightfully interactive experience, prompting young readers to engage as much with the pictures as with the story itself. Also available are collectable Macmillan Classics Editions of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, with colour plates, alongside new paperback editions with black-and-white illustrations.
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alice for young readers ‘When I used to read fairy tales, I fancied that kind of thing never happened and now here I am in the middle of one!’ Alice’s adventures are much loved by all ages – and in 2015, Macmillan Children’s Books will publish a range of titles for young book lovers, taking all the favourite moments from the classic story and introducing them to a new generation, some of who might be meeting Alice and the White Rabbit for the very first time. Our new picture-book version, Alice in Wonderland: Down the Rabbit Hole, also has an enchanting audio book, read by Downton Abbey’s Joanne Froggatt. Meanwhile our baby and toddler imprint, Campbell, is celebrating Alice in its very popular Busy series format, with plenty of tabs to pull to make Wonderland come to life.
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curiouser & curiouser: the world of alice ‘In a wonderland they lie, dreaming as the days go by.’
Macmillan has two titles publishing in the anniversary year for those wanting more information about Charles L. Dodgson, his life as Lewis Carroll and his work. Lewis Carroll’s immortal Wonderland and delightful nonsense verses have enchanted generations of children and adults alike. His wit and imagination, wisdom, sense of absurdity and fun fill his books and shine just as brightly from the many letters he wrote. Publishing to celebrate the 150th Anniversary of the Alice stories, The Selected Letters of Lewis Carroll: Anniversary Edition is a wonderful addition to the Macmillan Alice collection, and a must-have for the Alice enthusiast. Morton N. Cohen’s definitive biography of Lewis Carroll will also be published in hardback, telling both the story of his life and the inspiration for one of literature’s best-loved stories. Celebrating the language and fun in Alice, a perfect small gift for family and friends is What Would Alice Do?: Alice’s Guide to Life, which features some of the most inspired and humorous quotes from the pages of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass.
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celebrating Alice 150 ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is a delightful book for children . . . or, for the matter of that, for grown-up people, provided they have wisdom or sympathy enough to enjoy a piece of downright hearty drollery and fanciful humour . . .’ London Review, 3 December 1865
Alice’s 150th anniversary will see a strategic, targeted and celebratory communications plan – from quality marketing materials to Alice events at festivals, and high profile PR.
adventures in a digital wonderland ‘Birds of a feather flock together.’ Alice in Wonderland is a beloved national treasure and during the anniversary year Macmillan will be embarking on a multi-platform strategy to engage all her fans, whatever their age – one that will continue to delight and inspire readers in all our publishing. Our website www.aliceinwonderland150.com and established Facebook page, www.facebook.com/aliceinwonderlandofficialbook, will host all things relating to the birthday and will feature previously unseen exclusive material from the Macmillan archive, as well as new material.
There are celebrations throughout 2015 and particularly on Alice Day on Saturday 4 July 2015. • Activity packs will be made available for libraries, schools and bookshops, overflowing with ideas and free materials to help make the most of any Alice occasion. • Look out for the brand-new White Rabbit costume available for events. • Bespoke Alice events for children and adults at major literary festivals. • Mad Hatter tea-parties at major conferences. • Major BBC TV Alice 150 anniversary documentary with Martha Kearney. • Blanket media coverage guaranteed for the anniversary publications. • Macmillan will be celebrating Alice with a wide group of partners, including The Story Museum, Seven Stories, The Reading Agency, World Book Day, Whittard, Renaissance Learning and designer Sophie Allport.
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alice today & tomorrow ‘It’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.’
Countless new products have bolstered the Alice brand, from stationery to clothing, from themed afternoon teas to Alice cocktails, from animated and live action box-office masterpieces to theatre adaptations and musicals. Fans have chosen the classic blue Alice dress for fancy-dress costumes, hosted themed parties, including birthdays and weddings, and purchased and gifted an endless variety of special Alice collectables. New minds have reimagined Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland for many years, and now Macmillan offers this special collection of books to bring Alice into the imagination of old and new generations, to be reimagined by all for years to come. Alice’s story has been truly cemented as classic in the hearts of us all. Macmillan is thrilled to be the original publisher of Carroll’s magical story, and celebrating the 150th anniversary will further ignite the already vast affection and love we all have for the girl in the blue dress and her curious friends.
Contact Macmillan Children’s Books For queries regarding The Macmillan Alice, please contact Marketing & Publicity – Alyx Price at alyx.price@macmillan.com Sales – Sarah Clarke at sarah.clarke@macmillan.co.uk International Rights – Michele Young at michele.young@macmillan.com Export – Naomi Shields at naomi.shields@macmillan.com
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