# Is "The Nursery Alice" by Lewis Carroll a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of The Nursery Alice by Lewis Carroll (Macmillan and Co., 1890) is identified by: Contains twenty color-enlarged versions of Tenniel's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland illustrations, redrawn, enlarged, and colored under Tenniel's supervision, with the text abridged and rewritten by Carroll for younger readers. Carroll rejected the entire original 1889 impression of 10,000 copies as 'far too bright and gaudy' and withheld its sale in Britain; roughly 4,000 of the suppressed 1889 sheets were instead exported for sale in America (unpriced title page, dated 1889, Macmillan London imprint), while Macmillan issued a corrected second impression, dated 1890 on the title page, for the British market.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- Contains twenty color-enlarged versions of Tenniel's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland illustrations, redrawn, enlarged, and colored under Tenniel's supervision, with the text abridged and rewritten by Carroll for younger readers
- The published first edition -- the corrected second impression, dated 1890 on the title page -- carries a stated price on the title page and shows Alice with her back to the reader in the illustration on page 34
- Complete first-edition copies also retain a separate addendum slip at the rear announcing the forthcoming publication of Sylvie and Bruno, a slip that is frequently missing
- Publisher imprint reads Macmillan and Co.
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Lewis Carroll |
| Publisher | Macmillan and Co. |
| Year | 1890 |
| True first | British edition |
| Format | Children's / illustrated |
| Key point | Contains twenty color-enlarged versions of Tenniel's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland illustrations, redrawn, enlarged, and colored under… |
| Book-club edition exists? | — |

## Points of issue
Contains twenty color-enlarged versions of Tenniel's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland illustrations, redrawn, enlarged, and colored under Tenniel's supervision, with the text abridged and rewritten by Carroll for younger readers. The published first edition -- the corrected second impression, dated 1890 on the title page -- carries a stated price on the title page and shows Alice with her back to the reader in the illustration on page 34. Complete first-edition copies also retain a separate addendum slip at the rear announcing the forthcoming publication of Sylvie and Bruno, a slip that is frequently missing.

## Is this the true first?
Carroll rejected the entire original 1889 impression of 10,000 copies as 'far too bright and gaudy' and withheld its sale in Britain; roughly 4,000 of the suppressed 1889 sheets were instead exported for sale in America (unpriced title page, dated 1889, Macmillan London imprint), while Macmillan issued a corrected second impression, dated 1890 on the title page, for the British market. It is this March 1890 impression that is collected as the first published edition.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
The rejected 1889 sheets were later worked off as an unpriced 'People's Edition,' and a fourth issue followed in 1897 with an amended, cheaper price label; these later, cheaper issues are not the corrected 1890 first published edition.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *The Nursery Alice* by Lewis Carroll a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/the-nursery-alice
CC BY 4.0. Part of the Canonical First-Edition Points of Issue dataset (https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/api/first-edition-titles.json). Last reviewed 2026-07-04.