DODGSON, Charles Lutwidge: (Lewis Carroll). Rhyme? and Reason? (1883 - FIRST EDITION PRESENTATION COPY)

AUTHOR: DODGSON, Charles Lutwidge: (Lewis Carroll). 

TITLE: Rhyme? and Reason?

PUBLISHER: London: Macmillan & Co., 1883,

DESCRIPTION: FIRST EDITION PRESENTATION COPY. 1 vol.,illustrations by Arthur B. Frost and Henry Holiday, advert page at rear, inscribed by Dodgson on the half-title "Alice Raikes from the author, Dec 7/83", in purple ink. Bound in full green morocco, ribbed gilt decorated spine, covers ruled in gilt, all edges gilt, marbled pastedowns and endpapers, original cloth covers and spine bound in rear, by Bayntun.

CONDITION: IN AS NEW CONDITION.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: The Raikes family first appear in Dodgson's Diaries on 24 June 1871 when in London Dodgson met 'little Alice Raikes on the lawn, and called at the house to make acquaintance with Mr and Mrs Raikes' (p. 300). 'The idea [for Looking-Glass] came from a chance meeting with a distant cousin, Alice Theodora Raikes (1862-1945), on a visit to Dodgson's uncle Skeffington Lutwidge at Onslow Square, London. She lived next door and Dodgson invited her to "see something rather puzzling": the effect of holding an orange in the right hand as viewed in a tall mirror. In her solution to the puzzle, Alice Raikes suggested that if she was on the other side of the mirror, the orange would remain in her right hand and not be in the left hand, as shown by her reflection. Dodgson was impressed with her answer' (Edward Wakeling, Lewis Carroll: The Man and His Circle (2015), p. 81).