• Grade: k to 12

Lewis Carroll's beloved children's classic comes to life with over one hundred whimsical, eccentric and darkly humorous wood engravings, all created by the 'Mad Hatter' of Canadian graphic arts himself, the award-winning George A. Walker.

Lewis Carroll was born on the 27th of January, 1832, as Charles Lutwidge Dogson at Daresbury in Cheshire, England. Carroll is best known for his children's books Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, which quickly became international successes and to this day inspire films, art, and research. Other famous works of his are the poems `The Hunting of the Snark` and `Jabberwocky`. Carroll had a prodigious talent in mathematics, logics, word play and philosophy, and he spent most of his life teaching mathematics at Christ Church, Oxford. He died at the age of sixty-five on January 14th, 1898, in Surrey, England. Today there are societies around the world dedicated to the study of his life and appreciation of his writings.

Lewis Carroll's profile page

George A. Walker is an award-winning wood engraver, book artist and author whose courses in book arts and printmaking at OCAD University in Toronto, where he is Associate Professor, have been offered continuously since 1985. His artworks are held in collections ranging from the Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto, The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, and The Museum of Modern Art (MoMa), New York City and he has had over 15 solo exhibitions as well as been included in more than 100 group shows. Among many book projects-both trade and limited edition-Walker has illustrated 2 hand-printed books by internationally acclaimed author Neil Gaiman. Walker also illustrated the first Canadian edition of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass, both published by the Cheshire Cat Press. The Cheshire Cat Press is a partnership between Andy Malcolm and George Walker which continues to publish limited edition books featuring the writing of Lewis Carroll.

George Walker was elected to the Royal Canadian Academy of Art in 2002 for his contribution to the cultural area of Book Arts. He is also a member of the Arts and Letters Club of Toronto where he was featured in a solo exhibition of his books and printmaking in the spring of 2019. Walker's latest book-length project presents the iconic life of Hollywood silent-film star Mary Pickford in a suite of 87 wood engravings.

George A. Walker's profile page

• Short-listed, ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year

The Porcupine's Quill has just released a wonderful new edition of Alice in Wonderland lavishly illustrated with wood engravings by George Walker and with a new introduction by Alberto Manguel. Following in the tradition of the Cheshire Cat Press edition published nearly 25 years ago by Bill Poole, George Walker and Joseph Brabant (one of the finest examples of a Canadian private press book), the story is as beautiful woven through the illustrations and design as it is through the magical words we are all familiar with.

Richard, Bytown Bookshop

'Walker is an artist of many talents and media -- and many contradictions. A figurative artist, he is interested in illuminating abstractions cast up from his unconscious. Literate and articulate, he expresses complex thoughts and ideas in singular images. He published a book without text, letting the images carry the narrative. A generous nature can give way suddenly to a disquisition on social inequality that he also translates into the grammar of picture making. There is a startling muteness and directness to his pictures, yet they are intended to effect change, often in the immediate world around him, or in the viewer's perceptions of the world around them. The technical dimension of his artistic practice is privileged and apparent in the work, yet the art far exceeds material, method and process. His art is often grounded in the process of automatism, allowing for the unconscious to speak directly and spontaneously in images, even as his technique embraces the painstaking and precise nomenclature of wood engraving, block printing and bookbinding. The immediacy of his messages and their meanings are the product of careful rendering, circumspection and consideration.'

Devil's Artisan

Walker's edition of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (Cheshire Cat Press, 1988) announced forcefully his precocious talents as a printmaker and book artist. His enormously expressive woodcut illustrations paired with master letterpress publisher Bill Poole's sensitive handling of type, printing and binding, comprised one of the finest hand-printed volumes ever produced in Canada. Alice has just been issued in a trade edition paperback by Porcupine's Quill in Erin, Ont.

"The great Canadian (graphic) novel", Telegraph-Journal

'It takes hubris to reinterpret artist John Tenniel's original vision of Alice's journey. Enter the so-called ''Mad Hatter of Canadian Graphic Arts,'' engraver George Walker, who began the project as a student twenty years ago. Tender and dark at the same time, these extraordinary woodcuts reflect their maker's youthful energy. An introduction by Alberto Manguel says it best: ''Glimpses, snapshots, details of larger scenes tell of Walker's reading, a reading that follows Alice's frantic pace, far from Victorian sobriety, from madness to greater madness.'' Both Alice's story and these remarkable illustrations communicate on many levels. Ages nine to twelve.'

ForeWord Magazine

'The classic Alice in Wonderland is known by all, but the story is off the wall enough that one's interpretation may be different from another's. Alice Adventure's in Wonderland: Wood Engravings is George A. Walker's own take with woodcuts as he illustrates Carroll's famed story. Showing a unique skill in his interpretation, he captures a charm that's been lost with the decline of woodcuts, and makes for a unique journey. Alice's Adventure in Wonderland is a must for any fan of the story and unique art styles.'

Midwest Book Review

'Fanciful and eccentric, [George A. Walker's] engravings cast Lewis Carroll's classic fantasy fiction in a darker more sinister hue that will appeal to the inner child of many mature readers.'

The Record

Wonderful

by KittyPride