Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

Published October 18, 2022 • Updated October 18, 2022

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland illustrated by Helen Oxenbury, 1999.

This attractive pack devoted to Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland is illustrated by Helen Oxenbury, and was published in 1999 by Walker Books, London.

Helen Oxenbury is an English illustrator and writer of children's picture books, and has twice won the annual Kate Greenaway Medal, the British librarians' award for illustration. For the 50th anniversary of that Medal (1955–2005) her 1999 illustrated edition of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was named one of the top ten winning works. The book was also winner of the Kurt Maschler Award. Each of the 54 cards in this pack reproduces an illustration from her book. A miniature playing card on the top left corner indicates the suit and denomination, thereby leaving more room to reproduce the coloured images. The jokers depict Lewis Carroll sitting with a rabbit.

Helen Oxenbury has brought new magic into this classic story. See the box►

Above: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland illustrated by Helen Oxenbury, 1999.

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By Peter Burnett

United Kingdom • Member since July 27, 2022

I graduated in Russian and East European Studies from Birmingham University in 1969. It was as an undergraduate in Moscow in 1968 that I stumbled upon my first 3 packs of “unusual” playing cards which fired my curiosity and thence my life-long interest. I began researching and collecting cards in the early 1970s, since when I’ve acquired over 3,330 packs of non-standard cards, mainly from North America, UK and Western Europe, and of course from Russia and the former communist countries.

• Russian Playing Cards

Following my retirement from the Bodleian Library in Dec. 2007 I took up a new role as Head of Library Development at the International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications (INASP) to support library development in low-income countries. This work necessitated regular training visits to many sub-Saharan African countries and also further afield, to Vietnam, Nepal and Bangladesh – all of which provided rich opportunities to further expand my playing card collection.

Since 2019 I’ve been working part-time in the Bodleian Library where I’ve been cataloguing the bequest of the late Donald Welsh, founder of the English Playing Card Society.