When John Tenniel was illustrating Through The Looking Glass he wrote to Lewis Carroll that 'A Wasp In A Wig is altogether beyond the appliances of art' and that 'if you want to shorten the book... There is your opportunity'. Carroll duly cut out the episode, which was thought to have been completely lost. But proofs of the excised passage turned up at Sotheby's and eventually came into the hands of the Lewis Carroll Society of North America, who prepared a private edition of this book for their members.