Beschreibung:

DODGSON, Charles Lutwidge ("Lewis Carroll"). Aventures d'Alice au Pays des Merveilles . Londres: Macmillan, 1869. 8 o (182 x 125 mm). With 42 illustrations by John Tenniel. Original French blue cloth, gilt-stamped, spine gilt-lettered, g.e., Burn & Co. binder's ticket at inside rear cover (small stain on rear cover, tiny stain near foot of spine, extremities a trifle rubbed). THE FIRST FRENCH EDITION, and the second foreign-language edition of Alice (preceded by the German translation earlier the same year), translated by Henri Bu. WITH THE EXCEEDINGLY RARE FORM OF INSCRIPTION BY DODGSON USING BOTH HIS PSEUDONYM AND HIS REAL NAME on the half-title in his customary purple ink: "'Lewis Carroll,' alias Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, Christmas, 1871" (the same inscription, and done at the same time, as the one on Through the Looking-Glass , see lot 8). Dodgson always endeavoured to keep his two identities separate, both to protect his privacy and to prevent his serious mathematical works from being linked with his books for children. In 1890 he even had printed The Stranger Circular , a leaflet sent to discourage people from addressing letters concerning his Lewis Carroll books to the Rev. C.L. Dodgson. This accounts for the great rarity of inscriptions by him using both of his names (his standard forms being "from the Author" or "from C.L. Dodgson," the use of "Lewis Carroll" even by itself being very unusual). Here, and in lot 8, we have the added humorous touch of the author pretending that his real name is the "alias" of his pseudonym. See Edward Guiliano, "C.L. Dodgson (alias 'Lewis Carroll')" in: An Exhibition from the Jon A. Lindseth Collection of C.L. Dodgson and Lewis Carroll , New York: The Grolier Club, 1998, pp. 17-19; and see Morton N. Cohen, Lewis Carroll a Biography , New York, 1995, pp. 297-298. Williams-Madan-Green-Crutch 73.