ALICE COLLECTORS: Natalia Bragaru

part 1/2 

@kidsbookexplorer 

www.kidsbookexplorer.com

 Based in Australia and born in Moldova, Natalia Bragaru is a passionate explorer of illustrated literature who turns each book into a window of wonder. A finance professional by training, she transformed her analytical precision into a refined curatorial eye through her blog KidsBookExplorer, an acclaimed space where more than 150,000 visitors have discovered her thoughtful reviews and visual journeys. 

Her collection began around 2012, when her five-year-old son played the White Rabbit in a children’s theatre adaptation of Alice in Wonderland. Searching for the perfect illustrated edition for their reading sessions, Natalia fell down the rabbit hole herself, from Helen Oxenbury to Maggie Taylor, from Robert Ingpen to surrealist artists like Švankmajer and Silberman. Today, she owns over 100 editions of Alice, 70 original artworks mainly by Australian and Russian illustrators, and a few rare Snarks that add a touch of mystery to her shelves. 

 Here we show part of her collection displayed on bookshelves and in thematic arrangements, often grouped by country, as well as her brilliant sculpture inside a book, a piece that evokes Robert Ingpen’s Magic Bookcase. Her interviews with artists such as Gavin L. O’Keefe have been published in Knight Letter, the journal of the Lewis Carroll Society of North America. 

Natalia represents the Savvy Reader type of collector: one who integrates Alice into a broader constellation of art and children’s literature. Her Wonderland is not only a personal collection but also a space of learning, inspiration, and dialogue where stories continue to expand the imagination of all who enter. 

In addition to her curatorial work, Natalia has served as a Judge for the 2024 and 2025 Book of the Year Awards by the Children’s Book Council of Australia, in the categories of Picture Books and New Illustrator. These awards, among the most prestigious and long-standing in Australia, have been held annually since 1946, reflecting her deep engagement with the world of contemporary illustration and storytelling.

 

 

 

 

 

ALICE COLLECTORS: The Alice in Wonderland Princess

 @thealiceinwonderlandprincess

 A living fairytale unfolds in her world. Performer and part-time solicitor for the British Parliament, she moves between two realities: one ruled by legal codes and another guided by imagination. She does not simply love Alice in Wonderland. She becomes Alice. Through photos, videos and performances, she steps into her alter ego and creates immersive scenes where fantasy and memory intertwine. Her journey began when she was only three years old, listening to her father read the story aloud. Those moments became her first steps into Wonderland. 

Today, her house, affectionately named Lyndhurst after the town where the real Alice is buried, has turned into a luminous Wonderland museum. Every room glows with pastel colors, teapots, dolls, dresses, mirrors and jewelry that echo the magic of Disney’s 1951 film and the nostalgic charm of vintage treasures. Collecting, for her, is an act of love and remembrance. Each new piece keeps her father’s imagination alive and every shelf holds part of their shared story. 

She calls Alice her alter ego, a reflection of curiosity, courage and boundless imagination. And every single day, she wears something that embodies Alice, a ribbon, a charm, a dress, as if the story itself were stitched into her daily life. Her aesthetic is theatrical and enchanting, filled with carefully staged photos, costumes and videos that captivate thousands of followers. She not only embodies Alice but also transforms into other beloved Disney princesses such as Rapunzel, Aurora, Belle, Ariel, Cinderella and Snow White, creating a living gallery of fairytale identities. 

As a performer, she has brought Alice to life in beautiful estate gardens, in Disneyland, in London, Switzerland and France, enchanting audiences wherever she appears. Beyond collecting, she performs across different worlds of fantasy, blending Disney heritage, performance art and a deeply personal devotion to storytelling. What she dreams of now is to keep expanding this magical universe through new connections, friendships and ever more wonder. For her, Wonderland is not just a story. It is home.

ALICE COLLECTORS: Kristina, the time traveler of wonderlands

@alicesadventurescollection 

 Kristina’s collection is a living bridge between centuries, a library of dreams where antique editions meet contemporary creations. Originally from Lithuania and now based in the USA, she began collecting around 2019, drawn by a childhood fascination with Alice’s courage to be curious and different. Curious, careful and disciplined, she maintains coherence in the creation of her posts like a true cataloguer. 

Her shelves trace an atlas of illustrators, mapping Alice’s global journey through time, style and imagination. Rare old books share space with signed editions and artistic interpretations from all over the world. What matters most to her is not the style, but the artist, especially those she doesn’t yet have. 

She participates in collector groups with an intense exchange of references and information with people from every continent, cultivating deep friendships through this shared curiosity. Her aesthetic is calm and elegant, with books, figures and props photographed with care, creating intimate scenes where every spine and cover tells part of her adventure through wonderlands. 

She treasures the friendships made through collecting, companions who share her devotion to Carroll’s imagination. Her dream item is the edition illustrated by Japanese artist Hiroko Hanna ( @hannalice2023 )

For Kristina, collecting is not about possession but connection. Each book is a mirror reflecting creativity, memory and the timeless joy of following the White Rabbit.

 

ALICE COLLECTORS: Yonatan Hyman - A Collection as an Atlas of Imagination

 @collecting_alice / collectingalice.com 

 If you have ever held a vintage edition of Alice in Wonderland with no artist credited and felt that peculiar mix of beauty and mystery, you will feel at home in Yonatan Hyman’s universe. He is the mind behind Collecting Alice, a project that unfolds between Instagram and his website like a quiet archive of visual memory, gathering twentieth-century editions with a focus on illustration history. His passion began around 1995, when he first read Carroll’s Alice in English and fell in love with its wit, absurdity and dry humor. 

What started as curiosity slowly transformed into a meticulous archival practice. From his home in Israel, his shelves now hold Hebrew translations, political parodies, ornate Art Nouveau and Art Deco editions, early color printings and obscure illustrated versions from across the globe. Among his most treasured pieces are editions given to him by his late father, early Punch magazine prints featuring Tenniel’s work, Gwynedd Hudson’s books, and a first printing illustrated by Willy Pogany. 

Among the images he shares, some stand out for their unexpected intimacy, like the wooden chairs he had made while traveling in Malawi, East Africa, around 1996: objects that quietly mark his collecting life. Yonatan’s taste gravitates toward richly designed vintage editions. He is attentive to texture and print quality, to the weight of thick paper, the charm of embossed covers and the quiet dignity of early printing techniques. His captions mix gentle irony, historical insight and tender nostalgia. 

When he posts an anonymous illustration, he often writes: “Ah, the good old days when you could publish a book packed with beautiful art without bothering to name the artist.” His posts invite viewers to look closely, compare visual details and trace the evolution of graphic design across decades. 

Explore more at collectingalice.com, where each edition becomes a small piece of a larger cartography of imagination, mapping the many visual lives of Alice through the eyes of a devoted collector.

 

                      

ALICE COLLECTORS: David, the wanderer of illustrated Wonderlands

 @wonderlandillustrated 

 

Collector, traveler, and researcher, David transforms his Instagram collection into a visual journey through the infinite metamorphoses of Alice. With more than 200 books from around the world and over a thousand posts, his collection celebrates illustration as a living art of transformation, where each edition becomes a portal and each artist a new mirror through which Wonderland reflects itself. He moves between shelves and landscapes with the same curiosity that guided Alice. 

His feed is a dynamic collage of wonder, where books, travels, and encounters are woven into a patchwork of imagination. He photographs Alicedelic places around the world, his images often slightly tilted, escaping the orthogonal order of the ordinary, as if reality itself were leaning toward dream. David also creates short videos on the visual afterlives of Carroll’s stories. Along the way, he meets illustrators such as Oleg Lipchenko, Miraphora Mina, and Eduardo Lima, as well as other collectors who share his passion for the many faces of Wonderland. 

In his own words, “I love the story, the characters, the world, the escapism. I also love how each illustrator and artist can explore the story in their own unique way and how they are so different. It’s exciting to see a new take on the story and rediscover the vintage and classic illustrations and how they inspire future artists.” 

Among the treasures in his library are editions by Robert Ingpen, Chris Riddell, Helen Oxenbury, Christian Birmingham, and David Delamare, as well as a rare French edition illustrated by Daniel Dupuy. His dream book is the Japanese edition by @hannalice2023, whose delicate imagery and subtle surrealism captured his imagination. 

For David, Alice is both memory and metamorphosis, a story that keeps reinventing itself through the hands and eyes of those who dare to imagine. 

 

ALICE COLLECTORS: Caterina in Wonderland

 @cateaparty 

“Alice is part of me,” she says. “I feel a lot like her. It contains many things that I love.” 

Caterina turns her collection into a poetic ritual. In her photos, dolls, books and scenes of tea and forest blend daily gestures with dreamlike reverie. An Italian interior designer, she began collecting in 2003 and now shares her Wonderland through more than 150 posts to more than 2000 followers on Instagram. 

A careful cosplayer, she often dresses as Alice and performs within her own photos, creating her personal Wonderland where fiction and life intertwine. Her collection is eclectic, mixing books, dolls, costumes, makeup, miniatures and themed objects, with a special affection for Disney interpretations. 

Her feed is a cabinet of imagination where books, teacups, mirrors and memorabilia appear like still-life scenes of wonder. Each image is composed with the precision of a set designer and the sensibility of a storyteller, evoking the spirit of the Mad Tea Party and the intimacy of secret diaries. She collects modern and vintage editions, organizing her shelves by color, turning them into chromatic landscapes of fantasy.

 For Caterina, collecting Alice is also about belonging to a community of Mad Hatters and kindred spirits, a place where riddles, trades and discoveries are constantly shared. “I hope to bring a little magic to the people who follow me ✨,” she writes, and her photographs do exactly that, transforming collecting into a tender form of self-portrait and a celebration of curiosity, beauty and the art of keeping enchantment alive. 

The last image, a dreamy illustration that she uses as her Instagram avatar: perfectly condenses her world of wonder: intimate, playful and luminously Alicean.

 

ALICE COLLECTORS: Jules and the Art of Becoming Who You Are

 @ fortheloveofalice_ 

 

Among the new generation of Carrollian collectors, Jules shines with rare harmony between passion and creation. Her collection began in 2009, inspired by the Disney film, and soon expanded into a lifelong devotion to all things Alice. What started as a childhood fascination became an artistic vocation, and she is now illustrating her own Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, reimagined through the dreamlike landscapes of Los Angeles, where she lives. 

Her shelves combine vintage and modern editions, catalogued with care and often arranged by color, turning her library into a chromatic landscape of wonder. Among her treasures is a rare edition illustrated by A. E. Jackson, alongside other vintage gems such as the elusive edition by John R. Neill, which links her love for Alice to her passion for Oz. 

As an artist, Jules values editions that reveal both beauty and intention: unique covers not repeated inside, illustrations that flow through the story, and characters whose style expresses imagination and individuality. 

For Jules, Alice became a language of self-discovery. As a trans woman, dressing as Alice was part of her journey toward authenticity, a step toward inhabiting her own truth. Her collection reflects that unfolding, a luminous archive where identity and imagination continue to grow together. Among the photos of her collection, one image stands apart: the puppy from Wonderland, the only illustration by Jules herself.

 

ALICE COLLECTORS: Gavin O’Keefe

@ groonster

 

 

 

 Gavin L. O’Keefe embodies a dual role in the world of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland: he is both a passionate collector and one of the most distinctive illustrators of Carroll’s classic. As a collector, O’Keefe began his journey in 1986, long before the internet shaped today’s collecting networks. His tastes gravitate toward gothic, surreal and disturbing editions, inspired early on by illustrators such as Mervyn Peake, John Tenniel, and Ralph Steadman. 

His collection spans modern and artistic editions, translations, rare books, and works by contemporary artists. Among his most treasured items is the Inky Parrot Press edition of Alice illustrated by Willy Pogany, while his dream acquisition remains Trevor Brown’s Alice. For him, Alice symbolizes resilience and the courage to face adversity, a figure of personal and universal growth. As an illustrator, O’Keefe’s engagement with Wonderland has unfolded in three distinct phases:

 • The GO Alice (Carroll Foundation, 1990), with intricate pen-and-ink drawings infused with Celtic, surreal, and historical intertexts, creating a Wonderland of dark humor and mystery. 

 • The Alice Books (Ramble House, 2010), combining new illustrations for both Wonderland and Looking-Glass, with more open compositions and a streamlined, three-dimensional aesthetic. 

• A forthcoming full-color edition, exploring emotional expressiveness and visual richness, weaving together references from Cold War science and politics to sixteenth- and nineteenth-century imagery. 

For O’Keefe, Alice’s world transcends anachronism, existing across multiple dimensions of time. 

 

ALICE COLLECTORS: Linzi, the Chromatic Librarian of Wonderland

 @myaliceinwonderlandbooks 

 

Among all the Wonderland wanderers, Linzi shines for the quiet harmony of her chromatic shelves. Her collection, gathered since 2015 when she was studying Children’s Literature at university, turns the simple act of arranging books into a rainbow ritual where color replaces chronology and emotion outweighs rarity. 

For Linzi, collecting is not a financial investment but an act of resonance. Each spine and shade mirrors a fragment of her own becoming. “Alice is me but not me,” she says, “I identify with her on many levels.” She admits she gets “a little bit bored of Tenniel as I prefer other interpretations,” and her library reflects that curiosity. It now holds over 700 copies of Alice from around the world, each one revealing new ways of seeing and being Alice, with different faces, voices, and interpretations that celebrate diversity and transformation.

 With more than a hundred posts devoted to Alice, her profile unfolds as a luminous archive where colorful spines create chromatic textures within the settings of her photographs, forming a visual game that connects one post to another like a great puzzle. The materiality of covers and shelves becomes central; they are the nests where each collection dreams, breathes, and multiplies its wonder.

 

ALICE COLLECTORS: Nurdamla

@okitabinadineydi 

 

 

 Based in Türkiye, Nurdamla is a medical doctor who began her Alice journey in 2016. Since then, she has built a lively digital presence on Instagram, where she shares her growing collection with nearly three thousand followers. Her posts reveal both a sense of aesthetic care and a personal connection to Wonderland, turning books and objects into moments of storytelling. Her collection gathers modern and artistic editions, international translations, illustrated works, and decorative memorabilia. 

She is especially drawn to the diversity of illustration styles, from Tenniel’s Victorian imagery to surrealist, gothic, and kawaii visions, showing her openness to both historical continuity and imaginative reinvention. Among her most cherished treasures is Robert Sabuda’s intricate pop-up edition, while her dream remains to find rare Russian or Chinese adaptations. For Nurdamla, Alice has always been meaningful because she is a girl on an adventure without a prince, a heroine who embodies independence and imagination. 

Now, her collection also carries an intergenerational value: she hopes her daughter will one day inherit not only the books but also the love for the story itself. In this way, her shelves are more than objects of admiration; they are a legacy of wonder and adventure shared across generations. In the typology of collectors, Nurdamla can be seen more as an Affective Collector, someone guided not only by rarity or historical prestige but by the emotional resonance of each item, weaving Alice into the fabric of memory, family, and community. Yet her practice is not limited to this category; it also reflects an eye for artistic experimentation and alicedelic curiosity, qualities that keep her collection in constant metamorphosis.

 Pictures 1-5: home | Pictures 6-10: 

AI animation inspired by Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland: A Pop-up Adaptation (Hardcover, Little Simon, 2003), written by Lewis Carroll and illustrated by Robert Sabuda. All rights remain with the original author and illustrator. This video is a non-profit homage.

 

ALICE COLLECTORS: Wellcome Danuta

@danutarf 

Among the many who follow the White Rabbit, Danuta Radomska-Filipek from Poland stands out as a passionate guardian of Wonderland. 

Her journey began in 1958 when she received her very first Alice book as a young girl. Over the decades her fascination grew into a remarkable collection that includes rare Polish editions, international translations exchanged with fellow enthusiasts, and beautifully illustrated volumes that turn her shelves into a paper art gallery. 

She also treasures unique objects such as a porcelain Alice figurine, a chess set, and keepsakes from Alice’s Shop in Oxford. Danuta is not only a collector but also a researcher and writer. She has produced academic and independent works on Alice and shares her reflections on her website Lawendowy Kapelusz, where she documents her collection and explores the countless ways Carroll’s creation continues to inspire literature, illustration, and cultural imagination. 

Her sources range from scholarly works to museum and exhibition catalogs, revealing her dedication to both preserving and interpreting the Wonderland legacy. For Danuta, Alice is more than a character on the page. She is a lifelong companion who continues to surprise, inspire, and connect her with kindred spirits around the world. As Danuta herself says, “I did not choose Alice, Alice chose me, and she continues to surprise me every single day.”

 

ALICE COLLECTORS: Marta @neverenoughalicebooks

 

  

 

  

Living in UK, with roots in Poland, Marta has built one of the most magical libraries dedicated to the universe of Lewis Carroll, with more than a thousand different editions of Alice. 📚📚📚

 Her Instagram and website are true portals: each book is photographed like a work of art, and many covers come alive through creative animations, as if Wonderland itself were unfolding from the pages. Her collection began during the pandemic as a creative solution for times of crisis, and it has blossomed like an enchanted garden 🌵🌵🌵. 

Today it brings together modern and contemporary illustrated books, international translations, limited editions, art books, and memorabilia. Her taste is eclectic: from Victorian Tenniel to surrealism and psychedelia, passing through gothic, kawaii, steampunk, feminist, manga, collage, and digital arts. 

Marta makes her research available to fellow collectors through a meticulous catalog on her website, where every item is carefully documented, forming a living archive. She also takes part in collector groups, sharing discoveries, trading editions, and collaborating on research, strengthening the global Carrollian community. 

She is also an artist: she has reimagined Carrollian characters to gift fellow collectors, creating a graphic and hypnotic style that combines intricate, repetitive geometric patterns with symbolic and narrative figures, uniting the abstract and the figurative, the decorative and the literary. Look at her works at @OrankiArt. 

Alongside Alice, she also collects treasures inspired by the Mexican Day of the Dead and editions of Gabriel García Márquez’s 'One Hundred Years of Solitude', expanding her Wonderland into new worlds of myth, memory, and magic. In her hands, books are not just objects to be stored, they are living wonders, each one a doorway to infinite realms, where curiosity never ends and Wonderland keeps on multiplying. 

✨ Congratulations, Marta, for your dedication not only to acquiring such wonders but also to generously sharing them with the world. ✨

 

ALICE COLLECTORS: Claire and Her Everyday Wonderland: @alicecollectoruk

 Every morning, Claire turns her collection into a ritual of alicedelic curation. With more than 200k followers across different platforms, she has transformed her English home into a wonderland where Disney pieces prevail but mingle with a wide range of books, Japanese treasures and European antiques. Everything glows with a cinematic light, even though captured on her i-phone. Her unboxings are acts of discovery. Each object makes its debut in carefully staged scenes, shelves become dreamlike displays and order itself turns into a form of play. 

 Claire is also a crafter. She hand-painted a White Rabbit dolls house with miniature furniture and created an Alice junk journal from the original texts and illustrations. Her spaces extend the magic of Wonderland: a collection room safe from her three cats, a summerhouse inspired by Mary Blair’s White Rabbit cottage with tea, succulents and an outdoor library, and a dining room prepared for whimsical teas with mismatched crockery. 

Even her biscuit box, painted with the White Rabbit and filled with handmade clay cookies, tells its own story. For Claire, collecting is not only about objects but about weaving passion, imagination and enchanted living into everyday life.

 

ALICE COLLECTORS: Meet Jenn Thorson ✨ @jenn_thorson_author

 

Writer, collector, and dreamer from the U.S., Jenn has created her very own Wonderland at home. Every corner is themed: books, dolls, original artworks, and reinterpretations of Alice fill her shelves and rooms. Everyday objects turn fantastical, blending into dioramas and mashups where Alice meets wizards, monsters, Doctor Strange, Oz, and other heroes. She organizes her treasures mostly by color palette, with older pieces downstairs and newer Disney or Gothic Alice items upstairs. Her fascination began with Carroll’s original books, especially Through the Looking-Glass, along with the 1970s Fiona Fullerton film and Tim Burton’s Alice. She fell in love with the Wonderland aesthetic and extended it to her entire house.

 Jenn also explores creative expressions beyond collecting: she makes cosplay costumes and creates decoupage art inspired by movies, adding even more layers of imagination to her world. Online, she shares her passion on Instagram and through a richly illustrated Facebook profile, where she posts about her collection and connects with collector communities. She also gives updates on her creative projects, including The Curious Case of Mary Ann, a whimsical mystery novel about the White Rabbit’s housemaid, which gained a continuation with The Trouble with Tweedle, the second book in the series. 

For her, collecting means pure joy and the everyday feeling of living inside Wonderland. Among her most special pieces are paintings by an artist friend, including the White Rabbit dressed as a Whovian Time Lord and her cat Alice portrayed as an adventurer in blue. She still dreams of adding American McGee figures to her world. 

 🌟 And what is Alice to her? “It’s a wonderful blend of imagination and magic, escapism and satire. It explains the mad things that go on in life but also adds a sense of whimsy to it. I love the wor
dplay and imagery of it, and the sense of a world within our world. There’s a line from the song Cheshire Kitten that, in reference to Wonderland, says ‘if you can find it in your dreams, you can find it in your day job.’ And that’s sort of how I feel about it.

 

ALICE COLLECTORS: Joel Birenbaum @joelbirenbaum

 

Joel Birenbaum first encountered Alice in Wonderland in the 1960s, when he discovered 'The Annotated Alice' by Martin Gardner. That reading sparked a deep fascination. His actual journey as a collector began later, but a milestone came when he acquired the 1969 limited edition of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland illustrated and signed by Salvador Dalí. From that point on, he was drawn to extraordinary artistic interpretations of Carroll’s tale. 

His collection has grown to include rare and modern editions, first editions, translations, and limited runs, but also ephemera, memorabilia, toys, dolls, art, and unusual objects. Among his most treasured pieces is a Cheshire Cat sculpture by Graham Piggott, modeled with Joel’s own face. Another highlight is a series of twenty-seven watercolor paintings by Dominic 

Murphy, fifteen of which now line the staircase of his Carroll library, transforming it into a living gallery. But Joel is not only a collector. In the 1980s, he founded the Alice in Wonderland Collectors Network, which began as a simple exchange of lists sent through the mail. With the arrival of the internet, it became one of the largest collector communities in the world. Today, the Facebook group he administers brings together more than 13,000 members, from beginners to specialists, all united by their passion for Carroll’s creations. His taste in Alice illustrations is wide-ranging, but he is especially drawn to images that explore the dark side of Wonderland or present visions radically different from Tenniel’s. 

For him, the value of an item is not just in rarity, but in the joy it brings and the connections it fosters with fellow collectors. Over the years, Joel has written for the Knight Letter, contributed to catalogs, co-curated shows, and helped bring to life the Alice 150 celebrations in New York City in 2015. Alice continues to spark his curiosity, and he still delights in finding new creations inspired by Wonderland. For Joel, collecting is about imagination, friendships, and keeping Carroll’s world alive across generations.

ALICE COLLECTORS: SANDOR AND MARK BURSTEIN

 

 This is one of the most fascinating Carrollian gardens I know. Begun by Sandor Burstein, it now flourishes in the hands of his son, Mark, who has transformed it into a true temple dedicated to the metamorphoses of Alice. Mark has served as president of the Lewis Carroll Society of North America and as editor of its Knight Letter magazine for decades. He has edited or contributed to nearly thirty books on Carroll, including The Annotated Alice: 150th Anniversary Deluxe Edition (W. W. Norton, 2015), created by Martin Gardner and expanded with Mark as editor and art director; Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland illustrated by Salvador Dalí (Princeton University Press, 2015); and Alice in Comicland (IDW Publishing, 2014), among other reference works for readers, artists, and collectors. 

He has also taken part in exhibitions in the United States and abroad, always expanding the dialogue between Carroll and the arts. Currently, he is part of @trilogiaventuras , an immersive exhibition in Brazil celebrating Alice in cinema and the arts. His collection brings together first editions, rare translations, Carroll’s letters and photographs, as well as contemporary artworks created especially for it. He consistently seeks what moves away from the “cute” and toward the strange, the surreal, and the eccentric. We have been friends since 2009, and he was one of the founders of the Lewis Carroll Society of Brazil. 

The images show his collection in his former home in California, when it was kept in a white tower. They were taken by him during my 2015 visit for the 150th anniversary of Alice. Today, the collection is housed in the “Alice Room,” photograph by Wernher Krutein. For more, visit his site: markmywords.ws, read the book: GUILIANO, Edward. Lewis Carroll: Collections and Collectors. (University of Virginia Press; Lewis Carroll Society of North America, 2024) or his Wikipedia entry: Mark Burstein (editor). 

 

ALICE COLLECTORS: Petal Blossom ( @petals_petals1 / @madam.ziva / @petal_madamziva / @petalbum )

 video: Adriana Peliano / Soundtrack: @pbpaulobeto 

 From Australia, Petal Blossom is a true fairy of Wonderland, always accompanied by her cats Madame Ziva and Mrs Chunky, another fairies with elegance and mystery. Together they weave a life of books, fabrics, and dreams. Once a Para-Legal, Petal dedicates herself to rare and limited editions of Alice, as well as to the art of quilting, creating an enchanted universe around her collection. 

On Instagram, she gathers more than two thousand followers with posts that feel like visual rituals. Each book is staged with fresh flowers, small sculptures, and imaginative settings, photographed in luminous compositions and angles that reveal the hidden beauty of covers, pages, and illustrations. Her collection grows with colorful, numbered, and signed editions, always chosen with a sensitive eye and the wisdom of a true collector. Among her treasures is the number 8 copy of a limited signed edition by Irene Bogo, a birthday gift from @semperluxus and Juan Carlos Solis of @Summaeditorial. The number 8 has become her talisman, guiding her search for new books marked with this magical number. 

Beyond collecting books, Petal creates quilts, bags, cushions, and wall hangings she calls Diversional Therapy. Each piece is one of a kind, born from her exclusive patterns and crafted with Alice fabrics she has collected for years, many now rare and out of print. Hand embroidery, buttons, lace, ribbons, and tassels transform each piece into a poetic fabric artwork. They arrive with notes and little gifts, always connected to the story of the person who receives them. Mine, for instance, carries details from the Alice collages I created in my books, becoming a dialogue between our creations. 

Even after facing serious health challenges, Petal continues to sew dreams and nurture her collection. With more than fifty Alice-inspired fabric artworks alongside her growing library, she spreads beauty and hope, showing that collecting is also about inventing worlds, creating bonds, and sharing joy. See the credits of quilts in the comments.

 

ALICE COLLECTORS: Semper Lux 1

Case 42: Sicilian Jam Crosses Dreams, Becomes a Piece on the Alicedelic Board Confidential Report Nexialist Boreau 

 Suspect: Whimsy Mimsy 

Context: Dream game involving Semper Lux (semperluxus) 

 During a nocturnal incursion, Whimsy Mimsy drifted across the shifting thresholds of deep sleep and entered the dream-kitchen of Semper Lux. There, an unusual game unfolded around a jar of orange jam, suspiciously identical to the one Alice once found empty while falling down the Rabbit Hole. 

 Hypothesis: This was not theft but a playful displacement, an alicedelic move turning the jam into a game piece traveling between worlds and impossible collections. The match remains open, awaiting Semper Lux’s countermove. After this dream fragment, I show some Alices from Semper Lux’s collection, each of them reaching for the jam jar in the Rabbit Hole: 

 

 

1. A. H. Watson (1939) 

 

2. Barry Moser (1982) 

 

3. Iassen Ghiuselev (2000)

 

4. Blanche Macmanus (1899)

 5. Laura Barrett (2015) 

 

6. Maria Kirk (1904) 

 

7. Peter Wevers (1989)  

 

 

 

8. Tove Jansson (1966) 

 

 

9. W. H. Walker (1907) 

 

 I am continuing my research on Alice collectors who share their collections online. If you are interested, please get in touch or feel free to forward this to friends who might be. You can also suggest items for Whimsy Mimsy’s imaginary collection. Generative Art: Adriana Peliano Soundtrack: music by @pbpaulobeto

ALICE COLLECTORS: Kim Naboshek

 

We are continuing the research for my article "From Dusty Bookshops to Digital Shelves: The Evolution of Alice Collecting in the Internet Age". If you would like to participate, or know Alice collectors who shares their collection online, please message me so I can send the questionnaire link. 

Meanwhile, our mascot Whimsy Mimsy fell in love with Kim Naboshek’s doll collection and decided to expand his own imaginary cabinet. The first image was created by me, imagining Whimsy Mimsy’s doll collection. The other photos show Kim Naboshek’s real collection. To learn more, see Knight Letter Volume III Issue 13, Fall 2024. 

According to Kim: "An Alice doll first entered my life about 35 years ago. Since then, many others have arrived to keep her company, finding a haven in my Alice room at a steady pace. There are now over a hundred of them in this fairly small space, surrounded by more than 600 Alice books, toys, ephemera, and works of art. The “Alice” dolls far outnumber the other Wonderland and Looking-Glass characters, but scattered among them are White Rabbits, March Hares, Tweedles, Hatters, Cheshire Cats, and more. They are well beyond tea party numbers. When I’m asleep, they must be having a fabulous banquet. Sometimes I feel they’re watching over me, reminding me that this room is my Wonderland, safe and apart from a much scarier outside world. They tell me Wonderland can be whatever I choose, an adventure or simply a respite from adulthood. And in quiet moments, they whisper: “Find your inner child.”) 

 

Meet Whimsy Mimsy, our alicedelic mascot and keeper of imaginary Alice treasures!

Meet Whimsy Mimsy, our alicedelic mascot and keeper of imaginary Alice treasures! 

This is part of a campaign for the research project "From Dusty Bookshops to Digital Shelves: The Evolution of Alice Collecting in the Internet Age", which will become my article in the forthcoming book Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, A Companion, edited by @justinehouyaux and @frankendodo Kohlt. I am inviting Alice collectors from around the world to take part in this project by answering a questionnaire. 

In celebration, Whimsy Mimsy has just unwrapped a mysterious gift in his Wonderland library. Inside lies the beginning of an imaginary alicedelic collection that we are about to invent together. Create the very first item for Whimsy Mimsy’s imaginary alicedelic collection and write it below. You’ll receive a personalized virtual postcard from our mascot!