SALVADOR DALI'S RARE 'ALICE IN WONDERLAND' ILLUSTRATIONS REISSUED BY PRESS

Salvador Dalí, with his incredibly artistic mind, knew no limits to creativity. His creativity is evidenced by everything, from Dalí's illustrated cookbook to his logo design for Chupa Chups.

What better pairing would it be for the avant-garde master of Surrealism than to create illustrations for the fantasy land created by Lewis Carroll in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. However, a visionary editor at Random House spotted the talent and commissioned Dalí to illustrate a limited edition of the classic back in 1969.

Dalí and his creativity created one heliogravure for each of the twelve chapters of the book. A heliogravure is a form of printing from an engraving, for those of us who didn't know. He even drew a four-colour etching as the frontispiece. 

However, his artwork was not available for all to have. Only 2,700 of the edition were printed and signed by the artist. Because the copies of the work are becoming rarer, the prices have seen a massive increase. But it is not over yet, as Princeton University Press recently reissued an affordable copy of Dalí's illustrations. 

Those with a keen eye will immediately pick out some of Dalí's signature imagery woven into the drawings. The girl jumping rope in the frontispiece is seen in several of his illustrations, alongside several other noticeable characters. It also comes from his Landscape with Girl Skipping Rope and the iconic melting clock from The Persistence of Memory. Some pieces also find a home at the centre of The Mad Hatter's tea party.

The incredible example of cultural cross-pollination is enhanced with essays by mathematician and Dalí collaborators, Thomas Banchoff and Mark Burstein, president of the Lewis Carroll Society of North America.