Today I got two more book packages, one of which contained Frankie Morris’s ARTIST OF WONDERLAND, a book on the life and art of John Tenniel. It has already turned out to be a great find: one of the most exciting things, imo, is that Morris argues that many characters in Tenniel’s illustrations are simply children or adults in costumes instead of a “real” rabbit or a “real” Duchess with a really big head. One of the illustrations he uses to prove his point is that of the Lion and the Unicorn, with Alice holding the plumcake inbetween:

the Unicorn clearly has a human body and it’s easy to imagine it as a human / an actor wearing a mask (reminds me a bit of the Royal Ballet’s Tales of Beatrix Potter). A closer look at the Lion reveals there’s also a human body (with a little potbelly) under his skin — which is too big for the “actor” and thus baggy around the ankles.