Annotated treasures.

So I've just come back from my monthly trip to my favourite bookstore and I found some pretty awesome books! They're called 'The Annotated Books'. These books basically hold the original stories of classic books such as fairytales, but they also add extra information. More than once you will find a little 1. in the middle of your text, which corresponds with an extra piece of text in which poems, sentences or customs that appear in the book are further explained. The books also give a lot of information about the author and why they wrote these stories. The pictures in the book are those from the original versions of several different releases and copies all over the world.

 

I bought two hardcovers, one of 'The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition' and an other of 'The Annotated Secret Garden'. These harcovers are really nicely decorated with shiny swirls and pictures. I won't be able to read them before my birthday in February, but I already skimmed some pages and here are two little reviews (I will do more detailed reviews after I have started to read these books ^^).

'The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition' has a very beautiful red cover with Alice on the front, although I personally like the cover of 'The Annotated Secret Garden' a little bit better. If you take away the paper cover you get a solid and old looking red cover with a picture of the White rabbit in gold. I thought this was super nice ^^. The pictures in the book are those of the original Alice in wonderland series. They are in black and white so sadly no lovely coloured pictures here. The book holds both 'Alice in wonderland' and 'Through the looking glass' as well as a 'suppressed chapter' from the through the looking glass series. There's a long introduction on Lewis Carol and why he wrote these books as well as a historical archive in the back on when Alice in wonderland appeared in the media. There are also some pictures of the original sketches from the Alice in wonderland drawings in the back.

'The Annotated Secret Garden' hold the Secret Garden as well as some lengthy information about it's writer and her religion. The cover is very nicely decorated with shiny green and beautiful coloured pictures. The pictures inside the book come from various different version of the Secret Garden and they are in lovely colours. I didn't have much time to look at the Secret Garden, but looking at the cover and the pictures might have already been enough reasons to buy it.

There are also other 'Annotated Books' like Sherlock Holmes and several fairytales such as Hans Christian Anderson and the Grimm brothers. You can find them on Ebay ^^.