Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (with the original illustrations by John Tenniel). by CARROLL, Lewis - 1914

1914. Philip Lee Warner, 1914. 8vo., Finely rebound by Bayntun-Riviere in full red morocco, gilt decorated boards and spine in 6 compartments with 5 raised bands and further gilt decorations, gilt top edge, gilt turn-ins and marbled endpapers; frontispiece with tissue guard and 41 further line illustrations in the text; pp. xi, [i], 131, [vii]; light scratch to lower board, else fine. First Riccardi Press edition, limited to 1000 copies of which this copy is numbered 536. The Riccardi Press began to be used as the imprint for Medici Society publications in 1909, with the appearance of their first book, The Story of Griselda. Herbert P. Horne founded the press and designed the Riccardi typeface, and the press continued in use until 1933. While not strictly a private press, they were very near in heritage and example, with clear typefaces based on Doves type. Horne concentrated on publishing familiar classics by contemporary artists, with the aim to have the books “finely printed and issued at reasonable prices through the usual trade channels”. ((Ransom, p. 164-5). Tenniel's ‘grotesques’ were the reason why Lewis Carroll chose him as his illustrator for the Alice books. His style, with its dark, atmospheric compositions of exaggerated fantasy creatures carefully drawn in outline imposed animal heads on recognizable human bodies and vice versa, as well as combining beings and objects, and deformities in relation to the human body (e. g. when Alice drinks the potion and grows huge). These illustrations won him an international reputation and a continuing audience. He was knighted in 1893.