Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, first edition, 1866 [with] 13 autograph notes to F.S. Ellis

CARROLL, LEWIS [CHARLES LUTWIDGE DODGSON]

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Macmillan and Co., 1866

8vo, second [first published] edition, wood-engraved illustrations after John Tenniel, original pictorial cloth gilt, pale blue endpapers (binder's label on lower fixed endpaper), gilt edges, some spotting, some leaves frayed, some repairs to fraying or tears, rebacked preserving original spine, extremities rubbed, upper hinge split, bookplate

[with, loosely inserted:] THIRTEEN AUTOGRAPH LETTERS BY THE AUTHOR, in the third person, to [Frederick Startridge] Ellis, requesting numerous books from the bookseller’s catalogues, deciding against a purchase (“he finds it a much dearer book than he fancied”), offering books for sale (“…he would like… an offer… He wants the value in money, not books…” and “Mr… Dodgson would be glad to know what Mr Ellis could allow him, in cash, for a 1st edition of Paradise Lost”) with additional requests (“Mr Dodgson… would thank Mr Ellis to lay it aside for him, as he is coming to London shortly”), written in black or purple ink, 14 pages, mostly 8vo, Christ Church Oxford, numerous creases and occasional tears, each with spike hole, some folds, occasional browning, some leaves affected by damp

The firm of booksellers at 29 New Bond Street could trace its origins to 1728 and, in the middle of the nineteenth century, was the business of Frederick Startridge Ellis (1830-1901). F.S. Ellis was a friend and publisher of Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Morris. He also counted Swinburne, Burne-Jones and Ruskin among his other friends. He edited many of the Kelmscott Press books (and proof-read the Kelmscott Chaucer). Ellis retired in 1885 which caused Quaritch to write "You and I are really the first (if not the only) bibliophiles in England... Your name and mine will go down together in the annals of bookselling... Your success has been due to your tact, excellent diplomacy, and above all to your commercial genius; furthermore you were gifted with an eye for beauty..." Some of the stock of Ellis' business was sold by Sotheby's on his retirement but the main business passed to his nephew, Gilbert Ellis (1858-1902). It is this Mr Ellis who is pictured in Henry M. Paget's celebrated print of 'A Book-Sale at Sotheby's Auction-Room' (printed in the Graphic in 1888). The firm became Ellis and Elvey and, eventually, "The Old Book Shop". It closed in the mid 1940s and part of the firm’s archive is in the collection of The University of California, Los Angeles.

The choice of Dodgson’s books is eclectic with titles including Mathematical Magic, Hogarth on Drawing, Poets’ Wit and Humour and works by Philip Sidney, Laurence Sterne and John Keats, etc. In his letter offering Paradise Lost, Dodgson provides a drawing of the title-page.

LITERATURE:

Williams, Madan, Green and Crutch 46

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