Is Alice In Wonderland Copyrighted

Henry Altemus published Alice in Wonderland andThrough the Looking Glass in separate volumes and combined books.Mistakes regarding editions and dates are commonplace. This sectionwill review all of the Altemus Alice's. For more detailed informationclick on the individual series links.
Of course, Altemus only published reprints of these titles. They wereprinted as combination books as well as single titles beginning in1895. These titles appeared in 27 different series as well beingpublished as non-series books. Within the series there are numerousformats and variants. I have seen one Alice in Wonderland book which Iam sure is part of a series but which one is not clear. This book isdiscussed at the end of this article.
A. The first Alice books published by Henry Altemus
In 1895 Altemus published the Carroll books for the first time. Twocombination books (Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass)were published in two different series. Within Series #167 Standard 12Mo. (http://henryaltemus.com/series/series167.htm)the book was printed in two different formats. One book has crushedlevant with a silver decorative pattern on a maroon cover (Other colorshave been seen). The other book has a wonderful pictorial cover insilver and inks. These books are 7.5 x 5.5 and probably Altemus' bestmade Alice books. My opinion notwithstanding, these two books should bethe most valuable of all Altemus Carroll's. They are very scarce andare the first Altemus combination books. The pictorial cover format isespecially unique.
The other early combination book was published in Series #120 TheLibrary of Standard Authors (http://henryaltemus.com/series/series120.htm).This book is identical, except for the cover, with the other 1895combination book from Series #167. As late as 1897 the Alice book fromthis series still had 1895 on the base of the title page. Severaldifferent color covers have been seen.

B. Series #202 Young People's Library Books
In 1895 the first Altemus Carroll's of the individual titles werepublished. The two books were part of Series #202 Young People'sLibrary Format 1. The 1895 edition has 1895 at the base of the titlepage. Books without this date are later editions. As the years went onthe Alice's were published in Formats 2-4 of the Young People'sLibrary. These latter books mostly had the copyright of the 1897edition on the title page and are frequently touted as the very rarefirst Altemus edition. The truth is that they are neither the firstAltemus edition nor are they rare.
Here is an example of the above. As you can see, the copyright of 1897is on the title page. Clearly though this is a 1900 or later bookbecause of the Henry Altemus Company imprint.

Each of the four different formats of the YoungPeople's Library was published during certain years. The formats caneasily be distinguished by their spines.
Thus any Alice/ Looking Glass book which is part of the Young People'sLibrary can instantly be dated within a range. Using the ads in theback of the book and looking at the dating rules here: http://henryaltemus.com/ypl/index.htmthe exact date can be determined.
The most frequently made error in describing Alice/ Looking Glass booksis when 2nd and 3rd Format books are definitively stated to be rareAltemus 1897 first editions. The bottom line however is that these booksare not the first Altemus editions, not rare, not published in 1897 andcertainly not valuable.
Remember (as noted above but reasonably emphasized and repeated) thatsince Altemus incorporated in 1900, any Format 2 or Format 3 book thathas Henry Altemus Company at the base of the title page is from 1900 orlater. Thus by definition no Henry Altemus Company book can be a 'first'Altemus edition.

Note that the covers of the Format 2 and 3 booksare very similar. Thus the cover may not help you distinguish an 1898Format 2 book from a 1920 Format 3 book. The spine and the ads must bestudied to date these books.

C. Other Alice's with copyrights of 1897but published much later.
There are several other Alice's that have the 1897 copyrights but werepublished much later. Frequently these books are advertised as being1897 Altemus first editions but clearly they are not.
Series 57: Boys and Girls' Classics (new). This series of fifteen bookswas published between 1908 and 1926. Confusion about these books existsbecause these volumes' interiors are identical to the Young People'sLibrary Format 2 books (including the title page that says YoungPeople's Library). Thus not only are the books misidentified as to datebut also as to series.
The covers are made from a number of different linen swatches. Someexamples are below. For all possible pictures seehttp://henryaltemus.com/series/series57.htm

Series #200. The Young Folks' Quarto Seriesand its successor Series #64. Children's Gift Seriesboth list the copyright as 1897. Series #200 was published in 1912 andSeries #64 was published between 1913 and 1920. The Alice/ LookingGlass books of both series are the same. They are large (8.5 x 6.5) andeach page has light blue decorative illustrations surrounding the text.See http://henryaltemus.com/series/series200.htmfor more details.

D. The Publisher's Series.
Altemus published numerous series which consisted of reprints ofliterature, poetry, essays, etc. What distinguished one series fromanother was the beautifully decorated covers. Some had fine woven silk,some had embossed designs in gilt while others had appliques ofbeautiful European paintings. Alice and Through the Looking Glass werepublished as part of a number of these series.
Generally the decorative cover changed each year for each series. Inaddition the basic cover pattern in some of the series might contain upto 40 plus different applique pictures or 16 different floral patternsand have a number of background colors.
For more on the publisher'sseries see: http://henryaltemus.com/publishers/index.htm
#48 Beauxarts Series (http://henryaltemus.com/series/series48.htm) Fish hunter gambling game.

#115 La Belle Fleur Series (http://henryaltemus.com/series/series115.htm)

#118 L'Art Nouveau Series (http://henryaltemus.com/series/series118.htm)

#130 Marqueterie Series (http://henryaltemus.com/series/series130.htm)

#143 Petit Trianon Series (http://henryaltemus.com/series/series143.htm)

#158 Riviere Series (http://henryaltemus.com/series/series158.htm)
The Riviere Series book is a combination book which includes Alice inWonderland and Through the Looking Glass.

#163 Sanspareil Series (http://henryaltemus.com/series/series163.htm)

#180 Vademecum Series (http://henryaltemus.com/series/series180.htm)

E. Other Miscellaneous Series
The Alice/ Looking Glass books were part of a number of other series.In this section I will briefly review these books.
Series #58 Boys and Girls Classics (Old).(http://henryaltemus.com/series/series58.htm)
This series of 40 books was published between 1899-1906. A similarformat was used for Series #59 Boys and Girls Own Library,a 39 volumeseries published in 1909-1910. (http://henryaltemus.com/series/series59.htm)

Series #87 Favorite Series for YoungPeople.This series of 19 books was published between 1900-1910. The Alice bookhas the copyright of 1896 while the Through the Looking Glass book hasan 1897 copyright.
The Format 2 books in this series have covers identical to thosefound in the Young Peoples Library (Series #202). The title pageshowever identify the series as the 'Favorite Series'. Pictured beloware the Format 1 books. (http://henryaltemus.com/series/series87.htm)

Series #82 Ever New Books for Young People.This sixteen volume series was published in 1915 and is quite scarce.The covers of the books are the same as those of Series #202 YoungPeople's Library except this series' books are slightly largeraccommodating the decorative pattern seen at the bottom of the cover. (http://henryaltemus.com/series/series82.htm)

Series #186 Wee Books for Wee Folks.These small (5.5 x 4.5) books are from one of the most popular Altemusseries. This series consisted of tales for toddlers. Books such asPeter Rabbit,Three Little Pigs and Little Black Sambo are seen here. The text isfound on one page with a nice color pictorial picture opposite thetext. Alice in Wonderland was first published in 1926. Through theLooking Glass was published in the same year. (http://henryaltemus.com/series/series186.htm)

Series #125 Little Men and Women Series.This series of 25 books was published between 1907 and 1925. The Alicebook is a combination book including Alice in Wonderland and Throughthe Looking Glass. During the course of this series the cover pictureof the Alice book never changed but the colors on the cover did. Seebelow. (http://henryaltemus.com/series/series125.htm)

F. Non Series BooksIn 1916 a large (11.25 x 8.5) Alice's Adventures in Wonderland book waspublished. This book with the applique picture on the cover is quitescarce. The earlier of this format's book had illustrated endpaperswhile the later books had plain endpapers.

Betus com pa mobile. Two combination books with both stories werepublished in 1915. These are also somewhat scarce and are shown below.