A demonstration in digital restoration
This demonstration rebuilds the 1866 Macmillan edition as a readable digital book. Compare restored text, the mouse-tail poem and clearly labelled illustration reconstructions. Explore a clean reading sample or the same passages with optional editorial commentary.
A poem shaped like a tail is part of the story. Its 51 lines are rebuilt as live text in the edition, keeping that distinctive form.
Source: scan page 57 (printed page 37). Approximate geometry and typeface, not a facsimile. These previews are images; see page 3 of either PDF for the text layout.
Headings, paragraphs and illustration placement come together in a new reading layout, preserving the selected author’s text.
Source: scan pages 21–22 (printed pages 1–2), shown in sequence. The excerpt ends “eyes ran close by her.” Page 22 includes additional context. Result: sample page 2, with an AI-reconstructed rabbit.
The tea party demonstrates optional AI-assisted reconstruction after Tenniel. Keeping the original artwork is always a separate choice.
Source: scan page 117. Result: illustration on sample page 4. Faces, linework and small details are interpreted. This is not original-image cleanup or an exact reproduction.
A contents page is more than a block of extracted text. Hierarchy, alignment and the original references are reconstructed together.
Source: scan page 19. Result: sample page 6. Historical page references are retained, including 67 for chapter VI; they do not navigate the newly paginated sample.
Read the samples
The selected author’s text on pages 2–6 is identical in both samples. The commented version places three editorial notes beside the relevant passages; the layout can differ while the author’s text stays the same. These are selected excerpts with their own pagination, not the complete book.
Behind the edition
The text workflow used a Wikisource transcription of the same scan, checked against OCR and source excerpts. Original wording is preserved in these selected passages; unresolved readings belong in the project’s issue record.
Sources: the 1866 scan on Wikimedia Commons and the transcription of that edition on Wikisource. The historical text and Tenniel illustrations are public domain in Canada. The new reconstructions and commentary are identified as modern contributions.
New illustrations are AI-assisted reconstructions after Tenniel. Faces, hatching and details are interpretations, not verified line-for-line reproductions. The mouse-tail poem retains its 51 lines as text in the edition, with approximate geometry and typeface. The website displays raster previews.
The three notes are new editorial material, not Carroll’s original footnotes. They are separated from the author’s text, dated, and include sources where factual references are used. Interpretations are labelled.
The reader’s edition contains 12 chapters and 149 PDF pages, with 42 reconstructed narrative illustrations and 13 new editorial notes. Of the 228 source scan pages retained in the original materials, 204 are represented and 24 have individually recorded exclusion reasons. Scan page counts and the new PDF pagination are different measures.
A scoped delivery includes the agreed PDF editions, editable Markdown with images and any required styles, a record of methods, unresolved questions and release contents. A commented edition also includes its source references. Complex typography may require the accompanying resources.
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