[WHITEHEAD, Ellen, artist]. -- DODGSON, Charles Lutwidge (“Lewis Carroll”) (1832-1898). Alice’s Wonderland and Looking-Glass Friends. [1886].

Etching (318 x 318 mm) showing some 30 named Woodland characters, evenly toned and with spotting.

A RARE IMAGE that was used as a poster for the first theatrical production of Alice in December 1886. Falconer Madan described the poster (more accurately a theater “filmsey” or an image printed on very thin rice paper) at the Lewis Carroll exhibition at Bumpus in 1932, “Both Alice and Looking-Glass are drawn upon. Perhaps only two copies survived”. This etching appears to be a separately published item using the same image, probably issued as a print for the drawing room or nursery.

AN UNRECORDED AND POSSIBLY UNIQUE ITEM, not listed institutionally or previously at auction. The original drawing is now in the Morgan Library, gifted from Arthur Houghton Jr.’s important Lewis Carroll Collection. “Alice in Wonderland: A Dream Play, in two Acts” opened at the Prince of Wales Theatre two days before Christmas, 1886. Carroll saw it on 30 December for the first time. “The first act (‘Wonderland’) goes well, specially the Mad Tea Party,” he wrote in his diary. “…The second act was flat. The two queens… were very bad… and the ‘Walrus’, etc., had no definite finale. But, as a whole, the play seems a success.” The review in the January issue of Theatre agreed that the production was “a wonderful and surprising success”. The play ran for fifty performances, closing on 26 February 1887.