The Annotated Alice by Lewis Carroll

I’m currently reading Lewis Carrol’s Alice in Wonderland, and it is a treasure trove of plays with language. One of my favorite moments comes from the third chapter, in which Alice finds herself among a group of very political animals washed up on an island. Cold and wet, the Mouse tries to solve the problem by telling the group the driest thing he knows! So he begins to recite Havilland Chepmell’s Short Course of History. As dry as it is, it unfortunately doesn’t dryany of them off. The Mouse recites, “Stigand, the patriotic archbishop of Canterbury, found it advisable to go with Edgar. . .” Then a poor, confused Duck interrupts. Watch for the linguistic pun Carrol plays on!

“Found what?” said the Duck. “Found it,” the Mouse replied rather crossly: “of course you know what ‘it’ means.”

“I know what ‘it’ means well enough, when I find a thing,” said the Duck: “it’s generally a frog, or a worm. The question is, what did the archbishop find?”

Carroll is playing on a tricky linguistic phenomena . . . the “it” in this sentence serves no purpose grammatically. What did the archbishop find? Nothing, really. “It” is a filler word that we use in English to help us arrange sentences in unique ways, but it doesn’t add anything to the sentence. A simpler example might be “There was a farmer in the field.” Where is ‘there’? ‘There’ doesn’t give us any new information! You could say just as easily, “A farmer was in the field.”

It’s very fun to think about these plays on words. The English language is a beautiful world, but it’s one that is just as magical as the Wonderland Alice finds herself in, and one that we will be continually exploring!

The Annotated Alice by Lewis Carroll
Published by National Geographic Books on October 6, 2015
Genres: Fiction, Classics
Pages: 364
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Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland has been a favorite of mine, and a classic for years. But in taking a class devoted to studying the book, I was introduced to The 150th Anniversary Deluxe Edition, an incredible copy edited and annotated by Martin Gardner.

If you’ve never owned an annotated edition of a classic book, now might be the time to remedy that. Gardner’s edition of the book not only contains the original, memorable illustrations done by Carroll’s friend John Tenniel, but also full-color art pieces created by fans and lovers of the story.

But the true highlight of the book are Gardner’s annotations. Much like Carroll himself, Gardner leaves treasure troves of interesting facts and stories that can be found nowhere else. It is such a joy to read them, too, since Gardner often writes about whatever seems interesting, and does not judge on practicality. From stories about Carroll, to fascinating philosophical dilemmas, to the translation process of Carroll’s nonsense poem, Jabberwocky, every note is worth the read.

This edition leaves plenty of space in the margins, practically begging you to annotate along with Gardner as he explores the wonderful depths that Carroll’s literature has to offer. Inspiration is abundant in this book, and will leave you feeling excited to dig deep into whatever fascinating thing catches your eye.

The deluxe anniversary edition of The Annotated Alice includes:

• A rare, never-before-published portrait of Francis Jane Lutwidge, Lewis Carroll's mother
• Over 100 new or updated annotations, collected since the publication of Martin Gardner's Definitive Edition of The Annotated Alice in 1999
• More than 100 new illustrations, in vibrant color, by Salvador Dalí, Beatrix Potter, Ralph Steadman, and 42 other artists and illustrators, in addition to the original artwork by Sir John Tenniel
• A preface by Mark Burstein, president emeritus of the Lewis Carroll Society of North America, and all of Gardner's introductions to other editions
• A filmography of every Alice-related film by Carroll scholar David Schaefer

225 color and black-and-white illustrations