202pp plus publisher’s advertisements bound in at rear. One colour plate illustration by Gordon Robinson, with seven full page line drawings and numerous further in text by the same artist. In publisher’s original blue cloth-covered boards, illustrated front and spine with two colour printing (covers a little soiled, worn, rubbed and indented at edges, worn on spine joints and tips, stained on verso). Front paste down toned, front free endpaper absent, with webbing showing. Title page a little soiled, a couple of chips at edges and one short closed tear, mirrored on next page. Contents page has flat crease. Subsequent pages have faint, scattered spotting, signs of fingers and a few curled and creased corners. Shaken, with webbing visible between rear endpapers. This is, frankly, a shabby copy of this well-loved children’s tale. It is however remarkable for the illustrations by Gordon Robinson. Robinson is one of a very small number of artists to have produced two completely different sets of illustrations for Alice in Wonderland, one for the US publishers Samuel Gabriel Sons & Company, in 1911, and one for the British market, a few years later, published first by Charles M Kelly in 1916, with three colour plates called for and then by The Epworth Press in 1919(ish), with six colour plates. The publication history of Robinson’s UK editions is unclear. Several versions exist, none properly documented (Lovett, one of Dodgson’s bibliographers, seems to confuse the British illustrations with the American set, not noting any of the UK books). This particular copy is of the scarce Kelly run of 1916. This edition calls for three colour plates by Robinson, but only one is present. A reasonable collection filler while awaiting a better copy of this very scarce edition of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
