Alice in a Land of Illustrators, or on Many Different Images of the Heroine of Lewis Carroll’s Dilogy

The article puts into an analysis the astonishing fact of an impressive number of artists from all over the world who executed illustrations to Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There in the view of surprisingly little information provided by Carroll in the dilogy text. The comparison of the graphic material, selected by the article’s author in consideration of its high artistic value, brings about an opportunity to follow different artistic approaches, strategies, techniques, modes, styles, manners and fashions. The time span of the discussed material covers 150 years, ranging from Carroll’s own illustrations to his manuscript of Alice’s Adventures Underground to original artworks created by various illustrators for the art show celebrating Alice’s 150th anniversary in 2015, which have been published in the exhibition catalogue. The author of the article suggests that the very lack of extensive description of Alice in the dilogy, actually allowed the illustrators, or even encouraged them, to introduce original Alice’s representations, according to their own preferences, and willingly reject John Tenniel’s canonical illustrations from the first 1865 edition.