Oak Knoll

First edition limited to 35 copies (although '40 copies' is stated on the limitation page), of which this is one of thirty regular copies. The book comes with a metallic paper inserted into a paper folder which is used to help read the poem.

In Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass, Alice climbs through a mirror into another world and finds many strange things: "There was a book lying near Alice on the table . . . she turned over the leaves to find some part that she could read, for its all in some language I dont know, she said to herself.

She puzzled over this for some time, but at last a bright thought struck her. Why, its a Looking-glass book, of course! And if I hold it up to a glass, the words will all go the right way again. This was the poem that Alice read:

*in reverse*
Jabberwocky 'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe

Esslemont has illustrated the poem with linocuts, creating unique images, ignoring Sir John Tenniels original drawings and Humpty Dumptys later explanation of the meaning of such words as "brillig", "toves" and "borogroves". However, they transpire to be quite similar to Humptys notions . . . .
The 26 linocuts are mostly color reduction linocuts - they are printed from the same block cut several times. Esslemont identifies the narrator in the poem with simple black and white illustrations.
The calligraphic text was drawn with a broad-nibbed pen on linoleum blocks that when printed render the letters in reverse, just as Alice found them.

It seems very pretty, she said when she had finished it, but its rather hard to understand! (You see she didnt like to confess, even to herself, that she couldnt make it out at all.) Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas only I dont exactly know what they are! However, somebody killed something: thats clear, at any rate.