Description

A TANGLED TALE, INSCRIBED BY LEWIS CARROLL TO HIS COUSIN, THE BARTON CURRIE COPY

CARROLL, Lewis. A Tangled Tale. London: Macmillan, 1885. Octavo, original red cloth gilt, all edges gilt. Housed in half red morocco clamshell box.

First edition, inscribed by Carroll, “Margaret Wilcox from the Author, Jan. 27/86.” From the library of noted bibliophile Barton Currie.

“The Preface explains that each of the ten knots in the Tangled Tale embodies at least one mathematical problem or puzzle. Some are serious, some almost quibbles, but all amusing.” (Lewis Carroll Handbook 182). Taylor 452. This copy inscribed to Dodgson’s cousin Margaret Wilcox. While Carroll “was staying with his cousins, the Misses Wilcox in 1855, they entertained themselves one evening with a game which involved making up verses. Carroll’s contribution was a Stanza of Anglo-Saxon Poetry which begins: ’Twas brillig and the slithy toves / Did gyre and gimble in the wabe.’ Those lines are now familiar as the opening to ‘Jabberwocky,’ which was first published in Through the Looking Glass in 1872” (BBC). Small morocco bookplate of noted American editor and sufferer of “unrestrained bibliomania” Barton Currie, author of such book-collecting titles as Fishers of Books (Dickinson, 84).

Only very mild toning to spine. A fine copy with a distinguished provenance.