ALICE THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS, [the suppressed] Third edition, 'Sixtieth Thousand', 1893

One of the greatest Carroll rarities:

Through the Looking Glass, third edition, the suppressed 'sixtieth thousand' issue, presentation copy from the author to the Mechanics' Institute with presentation ink-stamp to title, frontispiece and illustrations by John Tenniel, advertisements at end, some cracking along the front gutter, original pictorial cloth, gilt, lightly sunned spine, but overall a very good copy, 8vo, 1893.

⁂ Scarce. ONLY 4 COPIES are known to exist in the original red cloth: until as recently as 1990 Lovett noted that 'no copies of the 60th thousand in standard binding have been recorded' (p.21). Copies rebound for the Mechanics' Institute were known, but it is only in the last few years that Selwyn Goodacre has been able to trace 4 copies in the original red cloth, one of these now lost (Selwyn Goodacre, unpublished census). Williams, Madan, Green and Crutch 84b; Lovett 15a; **Selwyn H. Goodacre 'Lewis Carroll's Rejection of the 60th thousand of Through the Looking-Glass' in The Book Collector, Summer 1975, pp. 251-256 [citing only 2 rebound copies]. This is a totally unrecorded copy

According to Carroll the suppressed 60th thousand issue of Looking Glass was riddled with printing production faults. The illustrations were over-printed, the pages badly folded and it led to him threatening to terminate his contract with Macmillan. This had already been an issue for the first edition of the 1865 Alice, which was recalled after Tenniel complained about the quality of the printing. On receiving the first six copies of this issue, Carroll wrote a letter to Frederick Macmillan, stating that: "the book is worthless ... much as I should regret the having to sever a connection now lasted nearly 30 years, I shall feel myself absolutely compelled to do so, unless I can have some assurance that better care shall be taken, in future, to ensure that my books shall be of the best artistic quality attainable for the money" (Letters p.995).

Only 60 copies had gone out when Carroll intervened.He asked Macmillan to destroy the remainder of the edition, but the situation quickly escalated. Having lost faith in both Macmillan and his printer, Carroll stopped the working-off of Sylvie and Bruno Concluded and soon demanded, in a letter to Macmillan, that 'no more Wonderlands are to be printed, from the present electrotypes, till I give permission' (24 November 1893) -- with serious financial consequences for both as potential December sales of Carroll's new book were missed. Carroll's recall left Through the Looking-Glass out of print until 1897. He later changed his mind about destroying the edition and instead favoured rebinding and distributing it to charitable institutions, as had been done with the suppressed first edition of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

**Sold with a copy of Lewis Carroll's amusing original advertisement requesting copies of the 60th thousand to be returned to Messrs Macmillan, Christmas 1893; and an offprint of Selwyn Goodacre's original 1975 article 'Lewis Carroll's Rejection of the 60th thousand of Through the Looking-Glass', published in The Book Collector, Summer 1975,