Books Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass (Modern Library Classics)
Books and Publications Average Rating:

Rating: - Excellent edition of an enduring classic
The Modern Library edition is a nice choice for the adult reader, featuring all the wonderful original illustrations (by British political cartoonist John Tenniel), a thoughtful forward by A.S. Byatt, and just enough notes and commentary to provide some additional historical and cultural context.

Lewis Carroll was an imaginitive genius and has created some of the most unforgettable and timeless characters with this work - the Mad Hatter, Tweedledee & Tweedledum, the hookah-smoking Caterpiller, the perpetually late White Rabbit - and the absurd situations Alice finds herself in are poignant and amusing at the same time.

However, one thing I did not realize coming back to these stories for the first time as an adult was just how largely character and situation-driven these stories are. Carroll moves rather disjointedly from one nonsensical scenario to the next, paying very little attention to a cohesive narrative thread. Indeed the world of Alice is best experienced as a whole, when the menagerie of characters can come to life, but these stories could just as easily be read out of order or taken out piece by piece. The creative work doesn't suffer a bit because of this, but readers should not come to these books expecting a novelistic experience.

These are creatures to love, lines to savor, and the most curious things to consider.

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Rating: - A Trip Down The Rabbit Hole All Grown Up
There is one thing that all potential customers must keep in mind when buying any Alice book: Do not purchase one that does not include the illustrations of John Tenniel! This edition includes all of them and the quality of the reproductions on the pages are excellent. Tenniel's illustrations help add to the childish excitement of Carroll's stories and will be especially invaluable to teenagers and adults, having just by nature of growing up lost some of the imaginative innocence, that ability to stretch reality, that we all possessed as kids.

Of course, the illustrations wouldn't mean jack if they didn't have a captivating story to work with. Carroll's amusing tale of nonsense is targeted as a kid's book, and that is always where many of our fondest memories of it will remain, but as a college student reading it I was amazed by its power to suspend reality and return me to a level of imagination that I had simply thought I lost somewhere along the way. The trip down the rabbit hole can be quite a different experience from a different point of view.

This particular edition also includes a good introduction and very helpful explanatory notes organized chapter by chapter. The introduction and notes offer insights to Carroll's life and his relations with the real life Alice and her family that, from a student viewpoint, reveal an interesting and more personal side of the Alice tales.