童話テキスト > 不思議の国のアリス

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland 不思議の国のアリス

Court of Justice

Lewis Carroll

Preface to the Eighty-sixth Thousand Edition of the 6/- Edition of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Enquiries have been so often addressed to me, as to whether any answer to the Hatter's riddle can be imagined, that I may as well put on record here what seems to be a fairly appropriate answer, viz.  “Because it can produce a few notes, though they are very flat; and it is never put with the wrong end in front!”  This, however, is merely an after-thought: the Riddle, as originally invented, had no answer at all.

For this eighty-sixth thousand, fresh electrotypes have been taken from the wood-blocks (which, never having been used for printing from, are in as good condition as when first cut in 1865), and the whole book has been set up afresh with new type.  If the artistic qualities of this re-issue fall short, in any particular, of those possessed by the original issue, it will not be for want of painstaking on the part of author, publisher or printer.

I take this opportunity of announcing that the Nursery “Alice,” hitherto priced at four shillings, net, is now to be had on the same terms as the ordinary shilling picture-books—although I feel sure that it is, in every quality (except the text itself, on which I am not qualified to pronounce), greatly superior to them.  Four shillings was a perfectly reasonable price to charge, considering the very heavy initial outlay I had incurred: still, as the Public have practically said “We will not give more than a shilling for a picture-book, however artistically got-up”, I am content to reckon my outlay on the book as so much dead loss, and, rather than let the little ones, for whom it was written, go without it, I am selling it at a price which is, to me, much the same thing as giving it away.

Christmas, 1896.

All in the golden afternoon
  Full leisurely we glide;
For both our oars, with little skill,
  By little arms are plied,
While little hands make vain pretence
  Our wanderings to guide.

Ah, cruel Three!  In such an hour,
  Beneath such dreamy weather,
To beg a take of breath too weak
  To stir the tiniest feather!
Yet what can one poor voice avail
  Against three tongues together?

Imperious Prima flashes forth
  Her edict “to begin it”:
In gentler tones Secunda hopes
  “There will be nonsense in it.”
While Tertia interrupts the tale
  Not more than once a minute:

Anon, to sudden silence won,
  In fancy they pursue
The dream-child moving through a land
  Of wonders wild and new,
In friendly chat with bird or beast —
  And half believe it true.

And ever, as the story drained
  The wells of fancy dry,
And faintly strove that weary one
  To put the subject by,
“The rest next time —”  “It is next time!”
  The happy voices cry.

Thus grew the tale of Wonderland:
  Thus slowly, one by one,
Its quaint events were hammered out —
  And now the tale is done,
And home we steer, a merry crew,
  Beneath the setting sun.

Alice!  A childish story take,
  And with a gentle hand
Lay it were Childhood's dreams are twined
  In Memory's mystic band,
Like pilgrim's withered wreath of flowers
  Plucked in a far-off land.

last-modified: 2009-07-20

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There / Lewis Carroll ; Edited with an Introduction and Notes by Hugh Haughton. - The Centenary Edition. - England : Penguin Books Ltd, 1998. - 356. ; 19.6cm. - (Penguin Classics). - ISBN 0-14-143976-9

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland / Lewis Carroll ; With the Original Illustrations by John Tenniel. - First Edition. - Tokyo : Kodansha International, 1988. - 188p. ; 15cm. - (Kodansha English Library ; 40-1). - ISBN 4-7700-2223-9

12. アリスの証拠 Index 1. 兎穴を下りて

Top