Salvador Dali’s illustrated version of Alice in Wonderland will give you nightmares (Photos)

BY: DANIEL KORN

The story of Alice and her descent into the loopy, maddening world of Wonderland has been a cultural touchstone for over a century. Both the original 1865 Lewis Carroll novel Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and the colourful animated Disney film based on the story have appealed to generations of rambunctious children, eccentric adults, and college dorm potheads. Even if you don’t fit into one of these characters, you’ve likely said the phrase “going down the rabbit hole” at least once in your life.

And for good reason! The hallucinogenic animation of the 1951 film one still holds up well today, with a dynamic soundtrack to match, and the stream-of-consciousness plotline and witty wordplay of the book are early examples of surrealism, predating the art movement by about 60 years. In fact, it’s such prime surrealism that Salvador Dali—not the leader of the movement, but certainly its most well known proprietor—gave the book a crack. In 1969, the New York publisher Maecenas Press-Random House released a copy that contained 12 illustrations by Dali—one for each chapter, plus a cover. The book sold out extremely quickly and has become one of the most desired Dali series for collectors, worth about $15,000. Luckily for us common folk, the pieces have been put online thanks to the William Bennett Gallery, and it provides a hypnotic, haunting vision perhaps more in line with the dark 1988 Jan Svankmajer adaptation of the book than the pop technicolour of the Disney version.