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The Annotated Old English Alice: Hloþwig Ceorl, Æðelgyðe Ellendæda on Wundorlande
200 pages, Paperback
Published August 15, 2025
About the author
Lewis Carroll
6,343 books8,573 followersThe Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, better known by the pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican clergyman and photographer.
His most famous writings are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass as well as the poems "The Hunting of the Snark" and "Jabberwocky", all considered to be within the genre of literary nonsense.
Oxford scholar, Church of England Deacon, University Lecturer in Mathematics and Logic, academic author of learned theses, gifted pioneer of portrait photography, colourful writer of imaginative genius and yet a shy and pedantic man, Lewis Carroll stands pre-eminent in the pantheon of inventive literary geniuses.
He also has works published under his real name.
His most famous writings are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass as well as the poems "The Hunting of the Snark" and "Jabberwocky", all considered to be within the genre of literary nonsense.
Oxford scholar, Church of England Deacon, University Lecturer in Mathematics and Logic, academic author of learned theses, gifted pioneer of portrait photography, colourful writer of imaginative genius and yet a shy and pedantic man, Lewis Carroll stands pre-eminent in the pantheon of inventive literary geniuses.
He also has works published under his real name.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
June 7, 2026
The Annotated Old English Alice is a delightful and surprisingly entertaining journey into Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland through the lens of Old English. While I certainly cannot claim to understand the text itself, I had an enormous amount of fun exploring this unusual and ambitious translation.
One of the highlights of the book is Peter Baker’s extensive annotation and commentary. He does a remarkable job explaining the many challenges involved in translating Alice into Old English. It is not simply a matter of finding equivalent words for characters, objects, and places; the real challenge lies in recreating Carroll’s puns, jokes, parodied poems, and linguistic playfulness in a language separated from modern English by more than a thousand years. The annotations make these decisions fascinating to follow and provide valuable insight into both Carroll’s writing and Old English literature.
Even when I found myself unable to make sense of the translation, the explanations were engaging enough to keep me turning the pages. There is something wonderfully amusing about seeing Wonderland transformed into the world of the Anglo Saxons while still trying to preserve the spirit of Carroll’s imagination.
For fans of Lewis Carroll, language, translation, or Old English, this is a unique and rewarding book. Even if you cannot read Old English, the annotations alone make it a delightful exploration of how far Wonderland can travel across time and language.
One of the highlights of the book is Peter Baker’s extensive annotation and commentary. He does a remarkable job explaining the many challenges involved in translating Alice into Old English. It is not simply a matter of finding equivalent words for characters, objects, and places; the real challenge lies in recreating Carroll’s puns, jokes, parodied poems, and linguistic playfulness in a language separated from modern English by more than a thousand years. The annotations make these decisions fascinating to follow and provide valuable insight into both Carroll’s writing and Old English literature.
Even when I found myself unable to make sense of the translation, the explanations were engaging enough to keep me turning the pages. There is something wonderfully amusing about seeing Wonderland transformed into the world of the Anglo Saxons while still trying to preserve the spirit of Carroll’s imagination.
For fans of Lewis Carroll, language, translation, or Old English, this is a unique and rewarding book. Even if you cannot read Old English, the annotations alone make it a delightful exploration of how far Wonderland can travel across time and language.
Displaying 1 of 1 review