Artist Arthur Rackham (1867–1939) Featured In Alice’s Wonderland

Arthur Rackham (1867–1939)

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In 1907, the copyright for Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland expired and there was a mad rush by publishers to deliver new editions, most of them unremarkable and blatant in their slavish adherence to Tenniel’s illustrations. One notable exception was Arthur Rackham’s version. Rackham was already renowned for his book illustrations for Rip Van Winkle by Washington Irving and Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens by J. M. Barrie when the publishing house Heinemann commissioned him to illustrate Alice in Wonderland. His drawings, with their sinuous lines and muted, somber colors, were very different from Tenniel’s. Rackham’s Wonderland is ominous and foreboding, full of frightening trees with knotty trunks and twisty branches, and creatures with sharp beaks and claws.

For more on Arthur Rackham, see the pages below from Alice’s Wonderland: A Visual Journey through Lewis Carroll’s Mad, Mad World