The Annotated Old English Alice: Hloþwig Ceorl, Æðelgyðe Ellendæda on Wundorlande Paperback – August 15, 2025

This new edition of Peter S. Baker's Old English translation of Lewis Carroll's classic Alice's Adventures in Wonderland incorporates numerous revisions for style and idiom, corrects errors, and adds several aids for students of Old English, the earliest recorded stage of the English language (about A.D. 700-1100). These aids include a glossary of common words, marginal glosses of rarer words, explanatory footnotes, and a brief introduction to the Old English language with a guide to pronunciation and tables summarizing its inflectional system. The translation not only renders the work in an ancient variety of English, but also transports the story and its characters, to the extent possible, back to pre-Conquest England. So, for example, flamingos become swans, a hookah becomes a drinking horn, and "The Mad Tea-Party" of Chapter VII becomes Se Woda Gebeorscipe "The Mad Beer-Party." In addition, Carroll's celebrated poems, including "How Doth the Little Crocodile" and "Father William," have been rendered in the meter and idiom of Beowulf. The annotations and other aids in this volume make it an ideal vehicle for learning the Old English language. Read more