Alice in Wonderland Maps

For the endpapers of a three-volume work entitled Alice in a World of Wonderlands: The Translations of Lewis Carroll's Masterpiece, general editor Jon Lindseth commissioned a map showing locations of the 174 languages and dialects into which Alice's Adventures in Wonderland have been translated. This commission gave me an opportunity to work in black and white (pen and black wash on canvas); employ two of my favorite 19th century type styles, Bell and Victorian Gothic; and to create facismilies of Tenniel's great and iconic Alice illustrations. And then there was the sheer joy of listing exotic translated languages, including Limburgish, Macedonian, Old Norse, and Mongolian – down the rabbit hole in Mongolian! One translation stands alone in its own absurd and fittingly Carrollian category: Zumorigfenflit, described as a parody of an imaginary language, located in Uzbekistan. 



2015, the 150th anniverary of the publication of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, exploded with celebrations. Based upon his book, Lindseth curated an autumn exhibit at the beautiful Grolier Club in New York, featuring not only the translations, but the original of my black & white map, along with the three full-color regional maps I created for the show.