Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

London: MacMillan and Co., 1872. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
An Early Edition in a Superb Multi-Colored Inlay Binding by Kelliegram

[KELLIEGRAM BINDING]. CARROLL, Lewis. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. With Forty-Two Illustrations by John Tenniel. Twenty-Ninth Thousand. London: MacMillan and Co., 1872.

Twenty-Ninth Thousand printing. Small quarto (7 x 4 5/8 inches; 178 x 117 mm.). [xii], [1]-192 pp. Wood engraved frontispiece with original tissue-guard, numerous wood-engraved text illustrations. A few very light marginal smudges, otherwise fine.

Bound ca. 1910 by Kelliegram of London, stamp-signed in gilt on rear turn-in. Full hunter green crushed levant morocco, the covers beautifully decorated with multi colored leather inlays depicting ten different Alice characters. The front cover with a large central inlay of the Mad Hatter, surrounded by Father William's Son, the Dodo, the Mock Turtle and the Duchess, all within a gilt-stamped frame. The rear cover similarly decorated with a large central inlay of the White Rabbit, surrounded by the Mouse, the Duck, the Eaglet and the Cheshire Cat, all within a gilt-stamped frame. Spine with five raised bands decoratively tooled and lettered in gilt in compartments, gilt ruled board edges and turn-ins, ochre silk liners and endleaves, all edges gilt. An amazing whimsical binding...

"Kelliegram bindings were one of many innovations of the English commercial binding firm of Kelly & Sons. The Kelly family had one of the longest connections in the history of the binding trade in London, having been founded in 1770 by John Kellie, as the name was then spelled. The binding firm was carried on by successive members of the family into the 1930s. William Henry Kelly significantly developed the company in the first half of the nineteenth century, followed by William Henry, Jr., Henry, and Hubert Kelly, who took control in 1892, taking the firm into the twentieth century...The development [during the 1880s] that came to be known as Kelliegram was one of the bindery's most notable, and the popularity continues today as demonstrated by the prices Kelliegram bindings command at auction and in the rare book trade.

An interesting note: The story of the first actual printing of Alice in Wonderland.

Encouraged by his friends, Reverend Charles Dodgson, otherwise known as Lewis Carroll, first had Alice published by Macmillan & Co. and printed by the Clarendon Press in June 1865, arranging to have a specially bound copy delivered to Alice Liddell, the famous Alice for whom the story was spun, the next month on July 4. However, not several weeks after that, John Tenniel, the illustrator, wrote to Dodgson complaining of his dissatisfaction with the printing of his illustrations. Macmillan examined one of the unbound copies of the book and agreed to fully reprint the book using a more commercial printer from London, Richard Clay. The condemned printing was then sold to David Appleton & Co., an overseas publishing house who wanted to distribute copies of the book in America. Only 1,952 copies were sold to them of the original 2,000 copy print run. The title-pages were redone with a New York imprint dated 1866, the sheets were machine-folded and put into cloth bindings with Appleton's name on the lower spine and the new title-page substituted on a stub for the earlier one. Meanwile, Macmillan completed its new edition in November 1865, but post-dated this printing 1866 in time for the holidays. As of this writing, twenty-two copies of the original 1865 Alice are located and known to have survived with their original title-pages plus one copy presented to Christ Church Library, currently lost, by the author.