I'm incredibly happy I managed to already have this beautiful french edition in my collection, just after making a post about it! This edition is illustrated by André Pécoud and the text was translated by Henriette Rouillard. In this post I don't only want to show the magnificent illustrations but also comment all of them; as this artist offers some interesting visions of Wonderland and the Looking Glass world, as I haven't seen them before. First I'd like to mention that finding the correct publishing date is really difficult. So far I've found 1935, 1938, 1939 and some more dates in the '50s. So I guess the illustrations must have been created in the mid-'30s. When I first saw this edition on a collector's Instagram I wasn't really sure how I felt about the style of the artist. His portrayal of Alice was really different from anything I've seen and I couldn't say if that was a good thing or not. After doing some research I really started to get what Pécoud was going for and I think it's such a high-quality edition and print, perfectly representing the 1930's, it's fashion and visions. The cover of this edition has an amazing silver print and I love how Queen Alice is floating in the clouds. Pécoud's pictures all set Wonderland in a very bright, vibrant summer setting; a big contrast to the abstract and darker pictures that would be created in the next decade. Putting this edition in a historical context, it's pretty clear that whatever year these illustrations were actually created in, it was a turbulent time in the world with the Nazis already being the leader of their "new Germany". Seeing the colors, the light-heartedness and the youthful energy in the movement and poses of the characters, I can see the distance the artist created between fantasy and the real world.
Please see all the pictures and comments after the jump break!
...burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge.
These are the second and third b/w illustration of the Wonderland section of the book. I was immediately hooked on these minimal illustrations when I saw the crazy jump Alice took after the rabbit! This is also already showing us Alice's fashion; with her wearing what might be boots or shoes with socks? I think her two buns over the ears are amazingly cute and really represent how I imagine a young French mademoiselle of that time!
After a time she heard a little pattering of feet in the distance, and she hastily dried her eyes to see what was coming. It was the White Rabbit returning, splendidly dressed, with a pair of white kid gloves in one hand and a large fan in the other.
This is really interesting to me: the first illustration of the "Pool of Tears" chapter is Alice being all grown tall with the white rabbit passing by - we know that part of the story - but instead of being inside the hall of doors, Alice is outside! In the back, it looks like what could either be the pool of tears, or just a regular pond? As my French is not good enough, I'm not sure if this particular translation is making a change to that part of the story (which I doubt) or if this is a free interpretation of Pécoud? Or could it be that it happened by mistake?
There was no "One two, three, and away," but they began running when they liked, and left off when they liked, so that it was not easy to know when the race was over.
I loved this color illustrations the first moment I saw it! I'm very impressed by the illustrator's choice to actually let the animals all look completely realistic and in case you can't really see it - the little pink thing above the turkey next to the brown bird and the chicken - it's tiny tiny Alice! Really beautiful. I was also fascinated that the Caucus Race in this edition is basically called "The American Race". After doing some research I found out that it's what the French call a two-people race, where one participant is taking rounds and then swaps with his teammate who then continues the race.
Still she went on growing, and, as a last resource, she put one arm out of the window, and one foot up the chimney, and said to herself, "Now I can do no more, whatever happens. What will become of me?"
Again, I wanted to show the illustration for the Rabbit's House chapter (which here is basically called "Little Lizard Bill, the messenger of the White Rabbit") because I'm really into the choice of showing all animals in their real life form instead of letting them dress up in human clothes, well, except the rabbit himself. I think presenting the stories with images that you know from your own life makes it so much more fantastical for the audience, when suddenly regular flowers and regular birds, caterpillars etc start to speak. When you open a book and you can see in the design of the creatures that they wear their madness on their sleeves, the nonsense of the story becomes predictable. It does work for most Alice editions, but to see it done otherwise was surprisingly amazing to me.
She stretched herself up on tiptoe, and peeped over the edge of the mushroom, and her eyes immediately met those of a large blue caterpillar, that was sitting on the top with its arms folded, quietly smoking a long hookah, and taking not the smallest notice of her or of anything else.
There are lots of unusual moments illustrated by Pécoud, that do make me wonder why he chose those particular ones, but in some cases, like this one from the Caterpillar chapter, he decides to basically illustrate the very same moment twice. I love Alice's puffy pink summer dress when she's trying to take a peek above the mushroom. I'd like to add that in this translation, the caterpillar is female, as the French word "chenille" is female; so Rouillard made Alice address; what is usually a "him" in people's minds and in other language translations; as "Madame".
"Come, my head's free at last!" said Alice in a tone of delight, which changed into alarm in another moment, when she found that her shoulders were nowhere to be found: all she could see when she looked down, was an immense length of neck, which seemed to rise like a stalk out of a sea of green leaves that lay far below her.
Really like the perspective on this moment of the story. This is the only illustration he did of the transformations of that chapter; there's no Alice with her head on her feet. Together with the illustration I posted of the "Pool of Tears" chapter, this is basically the only picture where Pécoud is showing Alice in the weird transformations her body is going through. The drawing of her at the Queen's court is very different, as she is simply bigger than the rest of the creatures. So this adds to the "realism" Pécoud chose for the stories.
...the cook took the cauldron of soup off the fire, and at once set to work throwing everything within her reach at the Duchess and the baby—the fire-irons came first; then followed a shower of saucepans, plates, and dishes.
This picture is one of the very good examples of Pécoud's style. Usually, the kitchen of the Duchess is a dark, foggy place; but in this edition, the kitchen seems to be directly connected to the outside, with the sun shining and a clear blue sky outside, making the kitchen look like a bright big place. The fashion of the Duchess is really interesting, as illustrators usually go for a very historical wardrobe; but instead, Pécoud goes for a flower print dress, heavy curls and facial features that are not particularly ugly but grumpy and angular.
"In that direction," the Cat said, waving its right paw round, "lives a Hatter: and in that direction," waving the other paw, "lives a March Hare. Visit either you like: they're both mad."
A real surprise - Pécoud did not concentrate on one of the most popular characters of Wonderland, the Cheshire Cat. It's only seen in the corner of the Kitchen, and on the tree of this illustration, looking like a perfectly normal sized cat.
The table was a large one, but the three were all crowded together at one corner of it: "No room! No room!" they cried out when they saw Alice coming. "There's plentyof room!" said Alice indignantly, and she sat down in a large arm-chair at one end of the table.
The Mad Hatter's tea party is one of my favorite illustrations. Again - in Pécoud's Wonderland it's summer. And what a summer it is! You can feel the warm breeze gently touching the grass, the difference in temperature of the shadowy seats where the March Hare and Mad Hatter are sitting, and the big chair being hit directly by sunlight, where Alice sits. The dimension of Alice compared to the Hare and Hatter is a really nice detail that adds to the daintiness of her. And look at that huge house of the march hare in the back! It already looks like a good walk away and still - it's tremendous! The path that seems to be directly next to the meadow also implies Alice actually might have walked just past them. This is really interesting as it adds to the same idea of Pécoud I mentioned (and will continue to mention in the rest of this blog entry) that he stays away from the original scenarios in the book where Alice is actually in the woods and comes across all these characters, in order to create a very open, vast and warm Wonderland.
A large rose-tree stood near the entrance of the garden: the roses growing on it were white, but there were three gardeners at it, busily painting them red.
I'm not necessarily a fan of the colorful clothes of the cards, but they fit perfectly into Pécoud's Wonderland. The landscape is beautiful and one can only appreciate the endless meadow and the castle on the mountain - reminding me of the yearnings of romanticism, the glorification of nature, where pictures make you want to enter their world.
Alice thought she had never seen such a curious croquet-ground in her life: it was all ridges and furrows; the croquet-balls were live hedgehogs, and the mallets live flamingoes, and the soldiers had to double themselves up and stand on their hands and feet, to make the arches.
Another very different take on the garden of the Queen of Hearts. The illustrator is setting this part of the story in the middle of the countryside without any hint of royal architecture, which I haven't seen in an Alice book before. It seems Alice's dream is more centered on nature, which might explain why she is already outside at the beginning of the "Pool of Tears" chapter. Pécoud's Alice drives my imagination to believe, that his version of the heroine, is a young girl from the city, managing to escape her reality of the metropolis; meaning her dream of Wonderland is representing her longing for the "real"world, or rather the primal world, how it has been before humans built large cities. This again is very reminiscent of romanticism - though Pécoud's style is much too modern and minimalistic to make a direct connection to that movement - but it does remind me of a time, where Industrial Revolution was something artist wanted to react to, with elevating the meaning of nature; escaping urbanization and industrialism. In a way, that very idea, originally coming from the 18th century, grew and flourished again in Europe during the 1930s, ultimately even leading to the mania of the Third Reich. And that it when Pécoud created these illustrations.
"Come, let's try the first figure!" said the Mock Turtle to the Gryphon. "We can do it without lobsters, you know. Which shall sing?"
The Mock Turtle and Gryphon are seemingly enjoying themselves on a beautiful beach; also unlike ideas other illustrators had about the Mock Turtle, with it's melancholic, always-weeping attitude. Pécoud again perfectly emphasizes the height differences between the creatures and little Alice. In Rouillard's translation, the double negative the Gryphon is using is ignored; like in: "He hasn't got no sorrow, you know?"
The King and Queen of Hearts were seated on their throne when they arrived, with a great crowd assembled about them—all sorts of little birds and beasts, as well as the whole pack of cards: the Knave was standing before them, in chains, with a soldier on each side to guard him; and near the King was the White Rabbit, with a trumpet in one hand, and a scroll of parchment in the other.
The Queen of Hearts, though seemingly on the edge with her husband, is very fashionable and en vogue with her edgy short bob cut, that we know so well from that era in fashion. I must mention how nicely the b/w illustrations flow around the text, which is very amazing considering how much money and effort the book printing business took back in the day.
"Here!" cried Alice, quite forgetting in the flurry of the moment how large she had grown in the last few minutes, and she jumped up in such a hurry that she tipped over the jury-box with the edge of her skirt, upsetting all the jurymen on to the heads of the crowd below, and there they lay sprawling about, reminding her very much of a globe of gold-fish she had accidentally upset the week before.
What a curious decision to place the illustration of the very last moment of the story - cards falling down on Alice and turning into leaves - as the chapter illustration; even before the court scene on the page on the right. The color illustration is magnificent, especially with all the different animals that are not usually seen in Alice books (the Elephant already appeared in the Pool of Tears!); though I don't know if they are part of the translation. Pécoud seemingly refrained from showing exactly how the animals could have fallen out of the witness stand. In Tenniel's illustrations, we saw that Alice was throwing the whole stand over because her body was growing tall exactly where the box has been; nothing of that is to be seen in Pécoud depiction.
And now - the Looking Glass!
But the black kitten had been finished with earlier in the afternoon, and so, while Alice was sitting curled up in a corner of the great armchair, half talking to herself and half asleep, the kitten had been having a grand game of romps with the ball of worsted Alice had been trying to wind up, and had been rolling it up and down till it had all come undone again; and there it was, spread over the hearth-rug, all knots and tangles, with the kitten running after its own tail in the middle.
The first color illustration is really interesting to me because, on one hand, it's far off from the usual atmosphere other illustrators create for the opening scene of the Looking Glass; usually going for a cozy living room slightly jammed with furniture and a wide range of trinkets; on the other hand, he still manages to convey the sense of well-being and domestic security. This illustration is another great example of the dimensions he's creating for the different characters; Alice being snuggled in the corner of the big armchair; which is likely to be normal-sized for a grown up.
"They don't keep this room so tidy as the other," Alice thought to herself, as she noticed several of the chessmen down in the hearth among the cinders: but in another moment, with a little "Oh!" of surprise, she was down on her hands and knees watching them.
Interestingly enough, Pécoud did not illustrate Alice going through the mirror. This adds to my statement that Pécoud is one of the few illustrators who did have an interesting choice of moments to put in pictures. Instead, he was going for two b/w illustrations of the chess pieces who are coming to life behind the looking glass. I do have to say that this was a slight disappointment when I got the book as I think it would've been interesting to see Pécoud's depiction of that moment, as it's very against his naturalistic approach to the elements of the story.
"O Tiger-lily," said Alice, addressing herself to one that was waving gracefully about in the wind, "I wish you could talk!" "We can talk," said the Tiger-lily: "when there's anybody worth talking to."
And just when I brought up the "naturalistic approach" again - the talking flowers seem to be actual, common flowers, in the sense that they grow normally on the ground; nothing like the usual depictions where they grow high from the ground with long stalks (whether that's how they actually grow in real life or not) and have faces or heads.
"Nearly there!" the Queen repeated. "Why, we passed it ten minutes ago! Faster!"
A beautiful color illustration for the "Faster! Faster!" moment of the Red Queen and Alice. I love his decision to go for a tree-lined road, though it does (for the first time) go against the "wild nature" he created for Wonderland. But in the following illustrations, there will be further comments on how the Looking Glass landscape (for whatever reason) seems to be more influenced by the "human touch". Nevertheless, Pécoud is presenting Carroll's mirror world in the very same summer setting as Wonderland. It works beautifully though it must be a curious experience for the French reader, as the book is not only obviously set in Winter (in the real world that is) but also the general mood of the story is more melancholic and, to me, seems rather grey-ish compared to vibrant yellows and reds I imagine in Wonderland. I really, really like the design of the Queens in Looking Glass. I can't put my finger on what fashion era Pécoud was going for with them - a mix of medieval and arte nouveau? I'm particularly hooked on the long pigtails he gave to both of the Queens; similar to Alice's unique hairdo, I think it puts an interesting vibe to the characters.
In another moment she felt the carriage rise straight up into the air, and in her fright she caught at the thing nearest to her hand, which happened to be the Goat's beard.
There is no further illustration for the train sequence of the story but this one. And I'm very pleased to see the "jumping train" when it crosses the next brook. This must be the first time I'm seeing this scene being illustrated in a non-English or German edition. The only German edition that features this moment is the book I introduced before, illustrated by Frans Haacken. I would have been very curious though to see Pécoud's imagination of the other train passengers since his Wonderland animals were all almost a hundred percent close to their real-life counterparts.
Just then a Fawn came wandering by: it looked at Alice with its large gentle eyes, but didn't seem at all frightened.
The depiction of Alice and the fawn is breathtaking! Pécoud's wood looks magnificent and I think the composition of the illustration is beautiful, really emphasizing the vulnerability of the two in that moment. I really like that the illustrator decided to stay very clean with every color illustration and keeping the elements rather lucid. It's very common for "children's" books to have all sorts of kitsch details like little rabbits, birds, gnomes lurking somewhere in the picture and it's refreshing to see the opposite.
"Contrariwise," continued Tweedledee, "if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be: but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic."
One of the very elements that I don't like at all - Tweedledum and Tweedledee; here translated as "Hat-White" and "White-Hat" which could refer to a wordplay in French that I don't get. Their clothes remind me of beachwear of the 1930s, but they have a weird clown-esque feeling to them that I don't think work very well for the characters.
Alice was beginning to say, when suddenly the needles turned into oars in her hands, and she found they were in a little boat, gliding along between banks: so there was nothing for it but to do her best.
I love how hidden and intimate the moment between the White Queen as a sheep is because of the reeds. You can also just feel the weather and hear the sounds of that moment; really amazing work.
"It's very provoking," Humpty Dumpty said after a long silence, looking away from Alice as he spoke, "to be called an egg——very!"
Humpty Dumpty; in this translation basically called something like"Big Hunchback"; is looking very pleasant and likable. His huge bow is cute and it's very interesting to see that the rest of his body is very dainty and feminine. I love the architecture of the wall that Pécoud came up with; including a fountain that seems to provide some fresh air in the heat of the summer air for Alice.
"You don't know how to manage Looking-glass cakes," the Unicorn remarked. "Hand it round first, and cut it afterwards."
My second favorite color illustration of the Looking Glass part of the book! I love how Alice actually sits far off the group; who sit under the tree; the White King, the Lion and the Unicorn. She is sitting by the brook and she is trying to cut the cake. The composition of this is really beautiful.
"The great art of riding," the Knight suddenly began in a loud voice, waving his right arm as he spoke, "is to keep——" Here the sentence ended as suddenly as it had begun, as the Knight fell heavily on the top of his head exactly in the path where Alice was walking.
Another example of Pécoud's very unique take on the story. On the left, a beautiful color illustration of the moment when the White Knight (who isn't so "white" after all; compared to the White Queen) falling, or rather flying off his horse. In the distance of the meadow, you can see some houses or what could be a countryside home or barn. In Pécoud's fantasy there always seems to be civilization in the distance and background of the scene. On the right, Alice is helping the White Knight getting out of a river. At first, I did not understand how the illustrator could've gotten the idea of that scenario but checking the original text, it must have been the "deep ditch" mentioned in the chapter.
"What do you mean by 'If you really are a Queen'? What right have you to call yourself so? You can't be a Queen, you know, till you've passed the proper examination. And the sooner we begin it, the better."
Alice with the Red and White Queen - my favorite illustration of this edition! The decision to make both Queens look identical is something I find very interesting. Though Carroll assigned very different personalities to both of them, Pécoud's vision does work for me. The minimalistic composition of the picture is perfect! Compared to other illustrations of the Queens, these look very young and not all like unpleasant encounters. I love the voluminous depiction of Alice's dress!
"And as for you," she went on, turning fiercely upon the Red Queen, whom she considered as the cause of all the mischief——but the Queen was no longer at her side——she had suddenly dwindled down to the size of a little doll, and was now on the table, merrily running round and round after her own shawl, which was trailing behind her.
The beautiful chapter illustrations of the final moments in the book. The picture of the cat on the right looks like a still life with the arrangement of the food and fabric. I also like when these two chapters are next to each other, and lots of illustrators have used that design choice to create two identical pictures, replacing the Red Queen with the black kitten.
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