Alice in Wonderland

One of the items of my Postcrossing wishlist is "Alice in Wonderland cards". I am a big fan of Alice and her creator, and would especially recommend the Annotated Alice for new readers, because there are many notes that explain some of the weird and wonderful things, the symbolism, and the references to mathematics. I am less charmed by the Disney movie, which strangely combines Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, but I do like the new 2010 adaption by Tim Burton, especially because it calls itself an adaptation and does not take itself serious.
Now the original drawings of Alice (apart from those that Dodgson added to his own manuscript) were 42 wood engravings done by John Tenniel, and yesterday I received a postcard from Singapore with one of the illustrations and a little bit of text. I really love this card, which is quite small, 8 by 14 cm.

Card SG-53219, received 10-1-12

I think Tenniel's illustrations are sometimes quite coarse and childish, but they were checked and approved by Dodgson himself. Also, he had the pubisher destroy the first print run because he did not like the quality of the illustrations, which shows his commitment to his work.
However, Tenniel was not the only one to illustrate Alice, and as we had the version of someone else at home (a beautiful big book with glossy picture pages that stood out from the rough pages with the text) that is the version of Alice images that I grew up with and love the most. Arthur Rackham made 13 coloured illustrations for a new edition of Alice in 1907, and one of the first postcards I ever received was one of his images. Now this is one of the bigger cards I have received, and it is glossy like those illustrations in that book from long ago.

Card US-1059430, received 4-4-11

I know there is a very dramatic art noveau-esque quality to his images that not everyone will like (and I myself don't always like very much). As Charles Dodgson passed away in 1898, we do not know what his opinion of the illustrations was. But as Guillermo Del Toro has cited Rackham as one of the inspirations for his design of Pan's Labyrinth, I think we can all agree that Rackham's influence has been great indeed.