Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, The Press of A. Colish (1983)

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, printed by The Press of A. Colish in 1983.

Scroll down for a collection of photos.

There is an informative conversation about this book in the George Macy Devotees group, but it is full of broken images. This feels, to me, like a topic better suited to the Fine Press Forum, so I have opted to start a new thread here. After I post this, I will create a link from the other conversation so that it is easy to find these photos in the future.

The text of the colophon:

Nine hundred and seventy-five copies of
ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND
have been printed for friends of
The Press of A. Colish
in a format designed by Bert Clarke.
The text has been composed
in English Monotype Fournier and
has been printed by letterpress
on Ragston text paper.
The binding was by
Publisher's Book Bindery.

MCMLXXXIII

This book remains a fantastic value. I paid around $100 USD for this specimen in fine, flawless condition—around the order of a mid-level new Folio Society standard edition book. It is also a perfect octavo reading size.

Tangential question, does anyone know of an attractive edition of Through the Looking-Glass that would make a nice companion volume? I am aware of many nice editions that also happen to be priced quite highly, but I am not sure I like the book so much to justify a big outlay. I have a recently-printed copy of the two-volume Alice set from Folio Society, which is actually quite nice on balance (even being printed by C&C Offset on Yu Long Pure paper), but not nearly the quality level of this effort from A. Colish, and I don't need two copies of Alice. So I will probably unload that set and look for a different copy of the sequel, if I can find one with some character that hasn't been priced to the moon.

I also want to recommend the secondhand bookseller, William Reese Company, which probably gets the reward for most thoughtfully well-packed secondhand book I have ever bought. The book was wrapped in paper, then plastic, then tissue, then bubble wrap, and then boxed. Each piece of tape inside featured a portion folded over to form a convenient pull-tab (see last photo!). It might sound a bit over the top, but you can tell that whoever handled the packing here took great pride in this relatively prosaic task.

Reese is an excellent dealer, very professional.

That paper looks nice. How does it feel? I would love to have that edition to replace my Easton Press edition.

>3 jveezer: I think the paper feels quite nice. It feels like a soft rag paper with nice texture, though lacking perhaps the character or rigidity of a handmade sheet. No complaints on my end. Fits the book perfectly.

My only wish is that the book had come with a slipcase. (I believe it was issued without a slipcase.) A minor shortcoming though.

>4 abysswalker:
I suspect that a slipcase would quickly ruin the fairly soft cloth of the binding, unless the book were also covered in a mylar jacket.

>5 kermaier: probably right. Maybe a looser slipcase would be okay. Best would be a padded coffin.

>5 kermaier: My copy was promptly dressed in a new DuraLar dust jacket. I didn't bother making a slipcase.

>7 kdweber:
Yep, on my to-do list as well.

>1 abysswalker: I wanted to say thank you for sharing this - I was looking for a beautiful copy of Alice, and this greatly exceeded my expectation in quality and value! This is a keeper. Also, it is criminally underpriced.