I officially published my book today! 🤩 With justifiable pride, I present to you: Alice’s Adventures Under Water – a sequel to “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” and “Through the Looking-Glass and what Alice found there”, in which I’ve tried to mimic Lewis Carroll’s style as best as possible.
I always thought that, with all my knowledge of the ‘Alice in Wonderland’ books, I should be able to write a new book in the series that does justice to the originals. I finally felt it was time to give it a try.
Sequels to the ‘Alice’ books have been published before, but I must admit that I was often a bit disappointed in them, as I always felt something was missing. Either the writing style did not feel very Carrollian, or the story contained little to no poetry, or the puns and jokes were not up to standard, or there were no hidden references, or other characteristic Carrollian elements were missing. It may be arrogant, but I thought that, even though English is not my native language, with all my background knowledge I surely could do better?
So here it is: another ‘Alice’ story in which she encounters silly characters in silly situations, this time in an under-water world. I’ve put in jokes, puns, and poetry, as well as more or less obscure references to well known people, politics, poems and songs, and mathematics. I also tried to incorporate into my story other specific elements that one can find in Carroll’s ‘Alice’ stories, like his particular use of punctuation, exactly 12 chapters, the covert return of the Hatter and the March Hare, and more. And as all good books must have pictures, it contains exactly 42 illustrations in the style of John Tenniel, skilfully drawn by the talented Robert Louis Black!
Even though it was a laborious process, I am really very proud of the end result. That is quite scary to say, considering I did almost everything myself. The biggest help I received was from my proofreader, who helped elevate the text. I did the layout of the book’s interior entirely myself. I also came up with the cover design myself (layout, text, choice of illustrations, decorative lines, color, background texture), and then the printer made a professional printable version of it. Self-publishing the story really makes it feel like *my* book, much more than it would have if I had published it though another company!
The book is now available for purchase. You can order it directly from me, but you can also find it at Amazon and other online bookstores, or order a copy from your local bookseller.
Related Posts
