Lewis Carroll’s the Nursery Alice

The Nursery “Alice” (1890) is a shortened version of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) by Lewis Carroll – pseudonym of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832-1898) – adapted by the author himself for children “from nought to five.” It includes 20 of John Tenniel’s illustrations from the original book coloured, enlarged and, in some cases, revised. It was first published in 1890 by Macmillan, 25 years after the original Alice, and featured a new illustrated cover by E. Gertrude Thomson, who was a good friend of Dodgson. The work is not merely a shortened and simplified version, along the lines of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland retold in words of one syllable. It is written as though the story is being read aloud by someone who is also talking to the child listener, with many interpolations by the author, pointing out details in the pictures and asking questions, such as “Which would you have liked the best, do you think, to be a little tiny Alice, no larger than a kitten, or a great tall Alice, with your head always knocking against the ceiling?” There are also additions, such as an anecdote about a puppy called Dash, and an explanation of the word “foxglove.”