It is illustrated with 67 drawings by the writer's daughter, closely "after" the originals by John Tenniel.

Evidently Anna M. Richards was the mother, who gave them more of what they knew and loved.

With apology to Tenniel and Carroll ("We're not original, nor wise, nor witty"), they plead for mercy from the Critic.

According to Carolyn Sigler, Anna Matlack was already known as a poet and playwright before she married William Trost Richards in 1856, age 20 or 21.

A New Alice was "an expanded version of the stories she had invented for her young children, to whom the novel is dedicated, about their favorite storybook world."