Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. by CARROLL, Lewis - 1866

London: (Richard Clay for) Macmillan and Co.,, 1866. Illustrated by John Tenniel. Octavo (183 x 123 mm). Bound by Bayntun (Riviere) in recent red crushed morocco, title to spine and motifs to compartments gilt, multicoloured morocco onlay of Alice and the Dodo to front cover, turn-ins and edges gilt, pale purple silk doublures, original cloth bound in at rear. Frontispiece and 41 illustrations by John Tenniel. Odd spot of faint foxing to contents; an excellent copy, handsomely bound. First published edition, with the inverted "S" in the final line of the contents listing which is thought to be a feature of the earliest state of the edition. The publication of the first Alice book set a pattern for many of Dodgson's succeeding publications. The book was originally printed in Oxford at the Clarendon Press in June 1865. On 19 July 1865, Dodgson heard that the book's illustrator John Tenniel was dissatisfied with the quality of the printing, so decided to suppress the whole edition of 2,000 copies. He recalled the few pre-publication copies he had sent out to his friends and donated them to hospitals, where most perished. Only 23 of those original "1865 Alices" are now extant, mostly in institutional holdings, thus creating one of the most famous black tulips of book collecting. The book was entirely reset by Richard Clay for this authorized Macmillan edition which, although dated 1866, was in fact ready by November 1865, in time for the Christmas market. The unused Oxford sheets were sold to Appleton's for use in their New York edition, published the following summer. The Macmillan edition was published in an edition of 4,000 copies.