A rare first edition of Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass was expected to fetch up to £20,000 at an auction today.
The novel, inscribed by the Oxford don to family friend Frederica Adeline Bremer in Christmas 1871, goes under the hammer in what Sotheby's claim is the most important sale of children's books for more than 20 years.
The copy is accompanied by a photograph of two young girls dressed in white, believed to be Catherina and Frederica Bremer photographed by the author during a visit to the family.
It also comes with a short poem, which Carroll - real name Charles Lutwidge Dodgson - is thought to have penned on the back on an envelope during the visit.
One hundred years after his death, 30 of the author's titles will be offered in the London sale, which features fantasy, fairy tales and animal stories dating back to the 17th Century.
A first edition, second issue of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, which belonged to the son of Alice Liddell, who inspired the book, is expected to fetch up to £16,000.
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