Mark Burstein & Alice: a World of the Mind

Of course then there are the illustrated editions and these cross the paths of those who collect particular illustrators who have, among their many projects, illustrated an Alice along the way. There are also the fine printing versions. Some are done on hand-made papers and some are done in the exquisitely excessive binding style of the French. Some are created in hand-set letterpress and others in state-of-the-art four-color offset. So I think perhaps you see how this works. The book has been elevated to an icon and its printed text long ago sprung loose from the constraints of copyrights so that it is now a medium of expression, the lingua franca of the double-doused right-brainers.

There is a hint of what’s to come when you put “Alice in Wonderland” into the title field of Abebooks, the ordinarily robust and extremely fast database of books for sale on the web. It labors as if giving birth to an elephant. There are 7,557 matches. Of course there is also Through the Looking-Glass. That registers another 2,976 matches. Charles Dodgson connects 185 times and of course Lewis Carroll makes the Mad Hatter tipsy with 11,848. With certainty we can say that those who would like to start their collections today have sufficient kindling to satisfy any burning ambitions with respect to Alice. Copies are around.

What we then have is an icon that is collectible in any number of ways. And of course there is, for the ambitious, the possibility to collect in all the ways. That is, in a general way: what the Bursteins, father and son, have done. To borrow a phrase from Van Morrison, it’s a beautiful obsession—not to mention undoubtedly an exceptional investment.

For those who venture online and who share the love and interest in Alice; for those who fondly remember the story from their distant pasts; for those curmudgeons who need to connect with their better and kinder selves and those who need to consider Alice as a metaphor for all the good and bad that has happened, is happening and will happen, the electronic lights are always on. It is not necessary to wait for either the mail or the date to arrive. A Google search of “Lewis Carroll” finds 404,000 matches in one-fifth of a second and within this labyrinth of sites are many where you can share your opinions, impersonate a character or simply gaze.

So there you have it. A case where truth is stranger than fiction which is stranger than truth which is stranger than fiction... Oh well. And if you haven’t been there yet a legion of Carroll admirers await you.

The LCSNA web site is www.lewiscarroll.org. There you’ll find both a panoply of resources (teachers take note!!!) and things more time-sensitive than a twice-a-year publication can keep fresh.

Membership in the society is $20 a year and includes a subscription to the journal. Try it. You’ll soon learn that you’ve nibbled a right-hand portion of a mushroom.

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Mark Burstein & Alice: a World of the Mind

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Mark Burstein & Alice: a World of the Mind

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