<P>... I am bound to say that the' wasp' chapter doesn't interest me in the least, and I can't see my way to a picture . If you want to shorten the book, I can't help thinking--with all submission--that there is your opportunity . </P> <P> For many years no one had any idea what this missing section was or whether it had survived . In 1974, a document purporting to be the galley proofs of the missing section was sold at Sotheby's; the catalogue description read, in part, that "The proofs were bought at the sale of the author's...personal effects...Oxford, 1898 ...". The bid was won by John Fleming, a Manhattan book dealer . He paid the equivalent of $4,000 . The contents were subsequently published in Martin Gardner's The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition, and is also available as a hardback book The Wasp in a Wig: A Suppressed Episode...</P> <P> The rediscovered section describes Alice's encounter with a wasp wearing a yellow wig, and includes a full previously unpublished poem . If included in the book, it would have followed, or been included at the end of, Chapter 8--the chapter featuring the encounter with the White Knight . The discovery is generally accepted as genuine, but the proofs have yet to receive any physical examination to establish age and authenticity . </P> <P> The book has been adapted several times, in combination with Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and as a stand - alone film or television special . </P>

Through the looking-glass and what alice found there