In which the Fryer library unearths five versions of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and transcribes a holograph of a note about a piano.

1. Alice in the Hayes Collection

2. In The George Sampson Collection (UQFL50, box 1, items 6a and 6b)

3. In one dear land

The artist and historian George Collingridge is believed to be one of the first Australian artists to adapt Alice.

Alice in one dear land follows Alice through the rabbit hole to Alice Springs, where she meets Australian counterparts to Wonderland characters, such as native bear, bower bird, lyre bird, and emu. Similarly, the text attempts to echo the nonsense and word play of the original; albeit with a distinctly Australian flavour (Alice will eat anything the native bear will choose, the native bear chews gum leaves). However, the most successful element is Collingridge's distinctive woodcuts as illustrations, which portray Alice in bush landscapes.

Fryer's edition is a handmade book with tipped in plates (including colour illustrations) believed to have been privately published in 1922.

4. Alitji in Dreamland

It is calculated that the Pitjantjatjara language version Alitjinya Ngura Tjukurmankuntjala is the forty-fourth translation of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. In Alitji in Dreamland the story unfolds in parallel text, English and Pitjantjatjara. A tired Alitji, sitting in the creek bed playing a story telling game with her sister, suddenly sees a white kangaroo…

Fryer holds two editions of this text: the first edition produced by the University of Adelaide (1975) and a second edition with colour illustrations by Donna Leslie (1992).

5. In a Wonderland, created by Charles Blackman

6. In looking-glass country

Now often combined with Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, the sequel, Through the Looking-Glass and what Alice found there was equally as popular when published in 1871; still being reprinted in 1877 by Macmillan. This "forty-fourth thousand" printing is the last to include the incorrect chess diagram, which Dodgson discovered and pressed his publisher to correct by reinstating the missing kings. (The incident is documented in Lewis Carroll and the house of Macmillan⁴.)

The edition contains fifty classic Tenniel illustrations and of course, Alice's memorable encounter with the White Queen, where she is encouraged to believe impossible things:

'I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. 'When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast'⁵.

Interested in Alice?

• The annotated Alice
• The Alice behind wonderland
• The diaries and letters of Lewis Carroll
• The place of Lewis Carroll in children's literature
• The Illustrators of Alice in Wonderland and Through the looking glass
• Alternative Alices: visions and revisions of Lewis Carroll's Alice books

References

1. Alice in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865).
2. Alice in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865).
3. Charles Blackman quoted in the 'Introduction' to his Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Nadine Amadio (1982) Reed, Wellington, p.7.
4. Cohen MN & Gandolfo A , eds, (1987) Lewis Carroll and the House of Macmillan, Cambridge, pp. 147-8.
5. The White Queen in Through the Looking-Glass and what Alice found there (1871).

The items in this collection aren't just united by their quirkiness; one of the authors, Jonathan Safran Foer, describes his work as "a book that remembers it has a body" -and that's just what these books are; each one experiments with the physical book-form in order to create a story that is narrated as much through the reader's interaction with the book itself as through the words on its pages.

While these works are fascinating, during my research I often found myself thinking, 'why?'. Why tell a story by cutting-up someone else's words, as in Foer's Tree of Codes? Why tell a story that can be shuffled and read in random order, like Marc Saporta's Composition No. 1?

It is tempting to just dismiss these texts as gimmicks or novelties. However, viewed as a collection, their purpose seems clear; together, these experimental works challenge our usual expectations of the written narrative, revealing just how ingrained and invisible the conventional book-form has become.

And, of course, each offers an innovative and often remarkable story that is intriguingly bound to the paper (or toilet paper) on which it is printed.

The collection includes 31 books spanning the 14th century to the present decade. Explore these unique works for yourself through the Fryer Library's new online exhibition, Unconventional Narration.

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Sarah Boothroyd is a writer with a weakness for quirky stories. She recently graduated from UQ with a Bachelor of Arts, and curated Unconventional Narration with the supervision and assistance of Dr Chris Tiffin at UQ.

Unconventional Narration, the latest Fryer Library online exhibition, is available to view online. It is best viewed with a Firefox, Chrome, or Safari Browser. (Previous online exhibitions are also available on our website.)