Alice in Wonderland

Sotheby's auction rooms, in London, are in a large house, full of dark carpeted passages, like tunnels under the ground. One of these passages leads to the big gallery which, one day last week, was inhabited by a curious and excited crowd. The walls of the gallery were covered with brown burlap and old paintings. In front was an oak pulpit and the auctioneer.

The people who had come to bid were sitting around a long U-shaped table below the auctioneer's pulpit; behind them was a crowd of 300 spectators. The most important prospective bidders were four: B. D. Maggs, representing Maggs Brothers of London; W. Roberts, London bibliophile, representing Gabriel Wells, Manhattan book dealer; E. H. Bring, president of Quaritch's, London dealers in rarities, reputed to be representing the British Museum; and a squat man with a pince nez, Dr. Abraham Wolf Rosenbach, one of the members of the famed Rosenbach Co., Philadelphia dealers in rare books.

"Now, number 318," said the auctioneer.

"A hundred pounds," said Mr. Maggs, as if he had been voicing a contradiction.

Dr. Rosenbach raised him a hundred. Mr. Maggs jumped another hundred. After -L-1,000, Mr. Maggs tried to slow down the bidding, but Dr. Rosenbach went on raising him, -L-100 or more at a time. When Dr. Rosenbach bid -L-1,500, Mr. Maggs kept silent and the auctioneer announced that Dr. Rosenbach had bought a first edition copy of Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, inscribed by the author to his friend, Mrs. Dinah Maria Mulock Craik, author of John Halifax, Gentleman. Then the auctioneer raised his hand and lowered his voice.

"Number 319," he said. "Five thousand pounds," said one of the men at the table, in a voice that sounded as though he thought the matter was now settled for good and all. "Six thousand," said another. "Seven thousand," said the third.

It was very much like a game of leapfrog; each jump was -L-1,000. Mr. Dring would jump first, Mr. Maggs would outbid him, then Dr. Rosenbach would go over both of them. Dr. Rosenbach never outbid the proxy of the British Museum until his English competitor had done so. After -L-10,000, the price went up more slowly. "Ten thousand and a hundred," said Mr. Dring. "And a hundred," said Mr. Maggs. Dr. Rosenbach took off his glasses; "And a hundred," he whispered. For one round, each raised the other -L-10, as if they were all nearing the limit. The gallery sat back, talking and sighing. They wanted to see the Museum get it, not to have it leave England; but they began to see that there was no way to pass the bids of the collectors. Sure enough, at -L-12,500 Mr. Dring stopped and Mr. Roberts, looking out for his American client, picked up the bid. Mr. Maggs dropped out at -L-13,500. Mr. Roberts and Dr. Rosenbach went faster, like two puppies chasing each other around a tree. "Fifteen thousand,'' said Dr. Rosenbach. "Fifteen thousand, two hundred," said Mr. Roberts. "Four hundred," said Dr. Rosenbach. Then he took off his glasses and wiped them. There were no more bids.

"Goodness me," said the auctioneer, mopping his face with a handkerchief. He had just sold the original manuscript of Alice in Wonderland.

The people behind the table started to pick up their hats but they stopped when the auctioneer pounded his pulpit and began to say something. "Dr. Rosenbach wishes me to announce that he is prepared to sell the book to the nation at the price for which he just bought it. . . ." At this, a few people clapped. Then they went out of the gallery. One of the last to leave was a small old lady in a black dress. Her name was Mrs. Alice Pleasance Hargreaves.

Sixty-five years ago, when Alice Pleasance Liddell was 12 years old, she used often to talk to a friend of her father's called Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. He was an instructor in mathematics at Christ Church, one of the colleges of Oxford. Alice Liddell's father, a member of the team of Liddell and Scott, famed in all schools and colleges for their Greek Lexicon, was Dean of Christ Church. Mr. Dodgson too had done some writing. Some of it, mathematical treatises and such, he had published under his own name. Other and lighter works, such as he often composed, he signed, with a Latin transliteration of his first two names, Lewis Carroll. Alice Liddell and her two sisters were allowed to run across the Great Quadrangle to call on their father's friend. Sometimes, on the summer afternoons, he would take them rowing.

On one especially hot day, they left the boat in the sedges by the river and went to sit near a hayrick where it was shady. Alice, who was sometimes a little brash in her behavior, wanted someone to tell her a story. So Mr. Dodgson began it, while the sleepy children listened. "Alice," he said, "was getting very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank and having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading but it had no pictures or conversations in it, 'and what is the use of a book,' thought Alice, 'without pictures or conversations?' " Mr. Dodgson told them how Alice had followed the white rabbit down a hole in the ground and how she had fallen for a long way until she landed on a heap of sticks and dry leaves, how she had foolishly eaten a cake that said "EAT ME" on it.

From there the story went on through the afternoons of a long-ago summer. From time to time it included poems such as the one which was sung by the Mock Turtle, slowly and sadly:

Beneath the waters of the sea

Are lobsters thick as thick can be--

They love to dance with you and me,

My own, my gentle Salmon!

When the summer was over, Mr. Dodgson wrote down his story and gave it to Alice Liddell for a Christmas present. It was called Alice's Adventures Underground; there were about 40 pictures in it and a tremendous number of conversations. The meticulous manuscript which Mr. Dodgson gave to Alice was read by some of his friends as well as, doubtless, by hers. Eventually, he was persuaded to write out his story again for a publisher to print. This version was not exactly like the first one; it was called Alice in Wonderland, and it contained a great many incidents which had been omitted in the other, such as the mad tea-party, the caucus race, the Cheshire Cat's technique of vanishing, and the two resplendent lyrics which began " 'Will you walk a little faster?' said a whiting to a snail . . ." and " 'Tis the voice of a lobster; I heard him declare. . . ."

The mathematics professor who was its author, naturally signed Alice with the name he had used before, for his more casual writings: Lewis Carroll. His book was illustrated by Sir John Tenniel, famed Punch cartoonist. In the first edition, the illustrations were so blurred that purchasers were advised to return their copies in exchange for nice clean second editions. From the start, Alice in Wonderland was a huge success. Queen Victoria wrote to Charles Lutwidge Dodgson and asked him to send her some of his other books, whereupon, anxious to preserve the distinction between C. L. Dodgson and the frivolous Lewis Carroll, he sent her A Syllabus of Plane Algebraic Geometry, An Elementary Treatise on Determinants, and Euclid, Book V., Proved Algebraically. Years later, Lewis Carroll was prevailed upon to write about Alice again, this time Through the Lookingglass, in which Humpty Dumpty and the Jabberwock made their initial appearance. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson died in 1898.

Alice Pleasance Liddell, a little girl who may well be envied by all the children who have ever wanted to be told a story, took good care of the writing her friend had given her. When it was known, a short time ago, that she wanted to sell it, people wondered why. What kind of wonderland is this, they said, in which a little girl so fails to keep the "simple and loving heart of her childhood," that she will part with something that other persons find precious when it should be ten times more precious to her than to any one else? But Alice Liddell, like all the other people in the world, lives in a wonderland where summer afternoons remain remembered only, and where there are not always boats and lawns and lovely stories. Alice Liddell, married, grown old, the mother of two sons who died in the War, had very little money; she had to sell the book her friend had given her. Going away from Sotheby's auction rooms, she looked as startled as the other Alice might have looked on the Queen's Croquet Ground.

Dr. Abraham S. Wolf Rosenbach, who bought the manuscript, is probably the most energetic bibliophile now at large. In addition to paying as he did for the manuscript of Alice one of the highest prices that has ever been given for an author's manuscript, he distinguished himself two years ago by setting the price-record for all book-auctions of any kind: $106,000 for a Gutenberg Bible (TIME, March 1, 1926). Other collectors are afraid of him; they know that he and his brother A. Rosenbach, who together make up the Rosenbach Co., have unlimited resources as well as an insatiable desire for more books; they were not surprised to learn last week that having purchased Alice, Dr. Rosenbach proceeded to pay -L-10,500 for the diary kept by the Vicar of Stratford-on-Avon from 1629-81, and large prices for several other volumes. Whether he had an immediate purchaser in mind, or not, it was impossible to determine. A year ago people would have said that he was buying for Henry Edwards Huntington, rich California collector; last week Dr. Rosenbach was probably bidding for his own firm. After offering Alice to the British Museum, Dr. Rosenbach added -L-1,000 to the national fund for buying it from him.