Knight Letter No. 68

KDight Letter

THE LEWIS CARROLL SOCIETY OF NORTH AMERICA

NUMBER 68 SPRING 2002

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Everything's Coming Up Roses

Our annual Fall gathering took place in and around
Pasadena, host of the Tournament of Roses Parade and the
Rose Bowl Game, which, combined with the strains of
"Painting the Roses Red" from the Disney film, cast a rosy
glow over our October 27th meeting.

As the Disney powers-that-be were making only
perfunctory gestures regarding the 50th anniversary of the
release of their A W film (a few doodads are to be had), due
to the concurrent foofaraw over the 100th anniversary of
Walt's birth, it fell upon the LCSNA, and in particular Daniel
Singer, playwright1, collector, and ex-Disney Imagineer, to
garner some festivities around this significant milestone.

On Friday, the Maxine Schaefer Children's
Outreach Fund Reading took place, appropriately, at the Walt
Disney Elementary School in Burbank. About 60 kids in
two Fifth grade classes were each given a hardback A W and
treated to an animated (ahem) reading of the Mad Tea Party
scene by Patt Griffin and New York actor Andrew Sellon,
here on his first foray into California. The Q&A session
was quite lively, and proved once again how in today's society
the book and the Disney movie are often confused.

The first part of our Saturday gathering was at the
"historic" Tarn o'Shanter Inn, a Tudor cottage with Scottish
decor, including a portrait of a young Bonnie Prince Charlie,
who presided over our dining room. The Inn has been the
scene of many a luncheon (some actually involving food)
by Disney and his animators over the eighty years it's been
in existence, but most notably in the thirties and forties.

We began with a seminar on the making of the film.
Charles Solomon, author, critic and historian of animation;
Dan Singer; and Kathryn Beaumont-Levine, who portrayed
Alice in the film, were participants. Charles' British
counterpart Brian Sibley was supposed to have joined us,
but was prevented from traveling at the last minute, so
selections from his afterword to the edition of AW

illustrated with David Hall's 1939 concept drawings for the
film were read instead.2 In brief:

Walt Disney (1901-1966) might have seen one
of the early Alice movies3 in Kansas City, but he certainly
had read the books as a child. In The American Weekly (1946)
he said "No story in English literature has intrigued me more
than AW. It fascinated me the first time I read it as a
schoolboy, and as soon as I possibly could, after I started
making animated cartoons, I acquired the film rights to do
it" — something of an odd comment for a work in the public
domain. However, he did acquire the film rights to the
Tenniel drawings in 1931.

The success of the '33 Paramount film put a dam-
per on his enthusiasm for a spell. Disney did not abandon
the idea, however. In the early forties, he had thought of a
live-action Alice in a cartoon world, in line with his early
"Alice comedies" ( 1 924-1 927) 4 and had hoped to get child
star Gloria Jean for the role. In 1944, the studio provided
some artwork for the three-record AW album starring Ginger
Rogers.

At long last, after many false starts and turnarounds,
50,000 man-hours, three million dollars, and 700,000
drawings, Alice in Wonderland premiered in London on
July 26, 1951, a gala event attended by Disney and Miss
Beaumont in her Alice costume.

Dan Singer then entertained us with his personal
reminiscences of his lifetime involvement with the film,
including the illustrations he did when he was eight. His
box of goodies included the Laserdisc, which has a ton of

1 Did you know that Dan was a co-founder of the Reduced Shake-
speare Company and co-author of the enormously successful The
Compleat Works of Wllm Shkspr (abridged)*?

2Methuen, 1986 and Simon & Schuster, 1987; containing more than
a hundred of Hall's remarkable paintings and drawings, this must be
counted not as an oddity (the works having languished forgotten for
four decades), but one of the most remarkable suites of illustrations
to the books ever made. It's also criminal that Disney chose to use
the "cartoony" look of the finished film rather than these stunning,
provocative, imaginative and, above all, artistic images.

3 Hepworth's 1903, Edison's 1910, or the Nonpareil's 1915

4 There were 56 titles, such as "Alice's Wonderland", a.k.a. "Alice in
Slumberland", 1 926, featuring Virginia Davis. On October 16, 1998,
both Disney "Alices" (Davis and Beaumont) attended the Disney
Legends Ceremony.

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splendid ancillary material5 regrettably not to be found
anywhere else, including DVD releases. He took us through
the development of an animated film, from the idea through
the storyboard (another Disney invention6), the story
conferences (transcripts of whose raw language and creative
fires are on file in the archives), and quotes from Walt on
maintaining Carroll's "screwball logic" and some rather
unflattering words for Alice fans.7 Some of Disney's false
starts were mentioned, including Aldous Huxley's brief
involvement,8 and Walt's attempt to duplicate the technique
of mixing live action and animation such as the
aforementioned "Alice comedies" and The Song of the
South (1946).

Charles Solomon gave us a fascinating talk on the
context of the film. In the 1940s Disney was nearly broke.
His great work was thought to be behind him, his pictures
were losing money, and the war had evaporated the European
market. Peter Pan (1953), Wind in the Willows (1949) and
Cinderella (1950)
were all in various (and
expensive) stages of
production.

The Disney
studios were known
for the free rein of the
imagination granted to
the animating directors
and for their artistic
integrity (required
studies included art,
anatomy, and move-
ment). The "flat" style
of competitors such as
UPA {Gerald McBoing

Boing, etc.) was far Kathryn Beaumont

less expensive than Disney's rounded forms and dimensional
movement, continuing a Renaissance tradition. Walt was
quite personally involved with the films, and would often

5 Disney's "Exclusive Archives Collection Laser Disc Box" (6139
CS) contains an astonishing amount of supplemental materials: the
complete One Hour in Wonderland TV special from Dec. 25, 1950,
Disney's first foray into television, which features Kathryn as
"hostess"; a 1951 promotional film. Operation Wonderland,
presented as originally broadcast on Ford Star Review on June 1 4th,
1 95 1 : a lengthy excerpt from The Fred Waring Show of March 1 8,
1 95 1 . which is both a charming example of early live television and a
chance to see Kathryn perform the "Alice" songs live. There's also
a one-hour BBC radio dramatization based on the film; snippets from
the animators' live-action reference film; and an audio recording of
"Brahms' Lullaby" from August 26. 1 947, which is labeled "Kathryn
Beaumont Test". Also included are song demos, among them "Beyond
the Laughing Sky," which was written for Alice but which appeared
— with new lyrics — as "The Second Star to the Right" in Peter
Pan.

6 Most probably invented by an assistant of Ub Iwerks.

7 The full quote can be found in "Aldous in Wonderland". KL 49, p. 6.

8 ibid

walk the corridors at night, rescuing drawings from
wastebaskets. "Animation must show a caricature of move-
ment - essence by exaggeration."

Alice opened to bad reviews and in the midst of
controversy — Disney was accused of deliberately keeping
Lou Bunin from using the Technicolor® process in his AW
(1950), which featured a live Alice moving through painted
sets and pixilated puppets.9

Dan spoke again on the nature of animation (12-
24 drawings per second), how characters were created
(model sheets of their construction and movements), and
how timing and body motions were suggested by the
"reference films" Kathryn made. He mentioned that this
technique had been unsuccessfully attempted by Bela Lugosi
in portraying the Chernabog monster for the "Night on Bald
Mountain" sequence in Fantasia.

The lovely Kathryn Beaumont (now Mrs. Allan
Levine) spoke next. Miss Beaumont10 had been our honored

guest once before, at
the West Coast
Chapter meeting of
our Society in June,
1983. As an eleven-
year-old girl, London-
born and Wales-
reared", contracted to
MGM and living in
Los Angeles, she
came to the attention
of Mr. Disney, as she
charmingly called
him, as a talented
actress12 whose accent
was English without
and Dan Singer being "too British for

American theater-goers". During the filming, she said she
felt very much a part of the team, and was in the unusual
position of both being the "action figure" for the reference
films and the vocal and singing talent.

These reference films, done in costume and
without sets (although a frame house or teacup might be
constructed) helped the animators with their timing and
figure work. She shared with us many still photographs, as
well as stories such as her attempts to remain upright in the
teacup in the "Pool of Tears" sequence while stagehands
pitched and rolled the platform. This "rotoscope" technique
was used in other films - for instance, the movements of
the hippos, alligators, and ostriches in Fantasia were first

9 Bunin's "Ansco" film processing has faded severely. The film is
available on video.

10 A fine "tribute page" to Ms. Beaumont can be found at www.don
brockway.com/kb.htm.

" Bangor, North Wales, where her father, Ken Beaumont, was a
musician with the BBC Variety Orchestra. He was also the voice of
a "Card Painter" in the film.

12 In the 1948 Esther Williams vehicle On an Island With You.

danced by stars of Diaghilev's Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo!

Another tale involved animator Marc Davis, one
of the many directors of the picture (each with a different
scene) accompanying her to costume fittings to ensure that
the fabric would move in the correct way.

Her voice work was done always live (that is, with
all the actors on the same soundstage) and she reminisced
about working with Jerry Colonna, Sterling Holloway and
Ed Wynn. She also took a promotional tour in 1951, which
coincided with her summer vacation, on the Queen Mary
from New York to England, a nice reflection of Alice
Hargreaves' crossing in 1932.13 Miss Beaumont, of course,
then played "Wendy" in Disney's Peter Pan (1953), and her
ability to retain her young vocal persona has led to work
throughout the years in several Alice attractions in Disney
parks, the Parade of Lights, video games and so on. For most
of the intervening years she has been a teacher in elementary
school.

It was a great thrill to be in the room with Kathryn,
and it was easy to see why Mr. Disney chose her. Occa-
sionally during her talk, particularly when she became
excited, her hands would flutter and her voice would go up
and suddenly we were inside the movie with Alice herself!

Dan then shared some more stories of the animators
(all male) and the inkers, painters, and "in-betweeners" (all
female) at the studio in those years. The Disney studios
made all their own paints, and many colors and tints are
recognizably theirs and theirs alone. All the other studios
went to a store called "Cartoon Colors" and so have much
the same palette.

After lunch, we moseyed over to the Disney
Studios in Burbank. Generally closed on Saturdays, they
were kind enough to open just for us. We strolled along the
paths, admiring the topiaries in the shape of cartoon
characters, the names of the streets (e.g. Dopey Drive), and
the huge Main Animation building, whose roof seemed to
be held aloft by that platoon of adjectival dwarves associated
with Miss White. Permitted a few precious minutes in the
main archives, we drooled over the treasures on display. We
then walked by the giant multiplane camera (used in the
opening Oxford sequence of the movie) and into a small
theater. A sparkling new print was shown, with gorgeous,
pristine colors and sound, where many nuances were visible
- a great treat for those who only knew the film from its
video release.

After the film, Charles and Dan had an informal
talk about the film. The forties were a great period of
experimentation for Disney (Salvador Dali was briefly hired
there). Admiration was expressed for the bizarre irreality

13 When Mrs. Hargreaves crossed the pond in 1932, it was on the
Berengaria, pride of the Cunard line. (Re)named after Richard the
Lionhearted's queen, it had caught fire in New York harbor in 1 938
and was sold for scrap. Cunard introduced the Queen Mary in 1 936,
where it was the fleet's flagship until 1 967, when it was sold to Long
Beach CA as a tourist attraction.

of the final "March of the Cards" sequence. Mary Blair, one
of the few women artists permitted to work at the Studio,
had used a particular shade of blue in her paintings which
became the hue of Alice's dress.

They also went into the problems of the film - why
it lost money and was really never popular as a movie (the
video releases in '81 and subsequently more than made up
for the $3 million fortune lavished on it in its day). First
was the fact that it was a series of mini-scenes, not
particularly related, rather than a coherent whole; in fact, a
vaudeville review rather than a story. There was also a certain
distancing from the secondary characters, all of whom were
rather annoying. Alice herself suffered from the inherent
problems in animating a "pretty girl" - comic characters
can be exaggerated, distorted, and strike comic poses, which
is not the case with a "human". Then there were the songs -
insipid in the main, dismally treacly at worst ("Very Good
Advice") -which pretty much served unintentionally to bring
the movie to a screeching halt whenever they occurred. A
movie "aimed at all ages" satisfies none. Let's not mention
the title slide, which credits the story to "Lewis Carrol".

A sidebar was noted to the sixties culture's adoption
of this film as part of a psychedelic animated trio (the others
being Fantasia and Yellow Submarine) for stoners. The
Disney film also has most lamentably superceded the
original text in much of our society. Analogously, who
remembers the original horrifically macabre Grimm
versions of Snow White and Cinderella?

However, it certainly must be granted a limited
success on its own terms. The voice characterizations are
superb, the animation sparkles, it is somewhat faithful to
the "spirit" of the book, and it is really quite entertaining in
spots. Some scenes, such as the Caterpillar's, are about as
good as cartoons get, which is very good indeed.

The question-and-answer period brought out such
tidbits as the unreleased sequence of Stan Freberg voicing
the Jabberwock.

That evening, the ever-amazing Dan Singer hosted
us in his new arts-and-crafts digs. On display were his
collections of Carrolliana and Disneyana. The front yard,
set up for a tea party, was dominated by an enormous tree
with a metal Disney Cheshire Cat perched high in its limbs
and a little door at ground level. An entire studio in the back
was given over to paraphernalia from the film and its many
merchandising efforts. Inside, Carrollians mixed in with
civilians - friends of Dan, often in show business - and were
served drinks by a Barmouse and munched on the various
"EatMe"s.

The next day, Sunday, some members went to an
exhibition of orginal art and booksigning for DeLoss
McGraw's new illustrated Alice at the Skidmore
Contemporary Art Gallery in Malibu.

As we bade farewell to "beautiful downtown
Burbank" and environs, we were left with a lovely bouquet
of rosy memories.

s^~

The White Stone

Kate Lyon

Charles Dodgson died of bronchitis on 14 January
1 898. On May 1 0 and 1 1 of that year, at the Holywell Music
Room, Oxford, most of his most precious possessions were
auctioned. Professor Frederick York Powell, who had been
a colleague at Christ Church, was so upset by the auction,
writes Hudson, that he was moved to write a poem about the
event. The final verse is reproduced below.
'Better by far the Northman's pyre,
That burnt in one sky-soaring fire
The man with all he held most dear.
'He that hath ears, now let him hear. '

Professor Powell's words, if he had but known it,
already contained some truth. Many of Charles Dodgson's
private papers were destroyed, some burned, almost
immediately after his death. In following years, volumes of
his Diaries were misplaced. In the fire died all but a shadow
of the extraordinary writer and philosopher known as
Charles Dodgson, but from the ashes rose the beginnings
of a myth that has endured for over 100 years - the myth of
Lewis Carroll.

Fortunately that myth is now being challenged and
as the shadow cast by its colossal form begins to waver, the
first slivers of light are being cast upon the man so long
obscured by this artefact. Yet very much more needs to be
done, beginning with a close re-examination of the surviving
evidence of his life. Of this evidence, one of the most abiding
is Dodgson's 'white stone' ritual - his habit of marking those
special days in his life with a white stone.

This paper, therefore, is an attempt to explain what
is significant about the White Stone as metaphor and to
examine and bring together some of the strands of
Dodgson's life that influenced his decision to adopt this
symbol as his own. In doing this, it is hoped that further
light will be shed on this complex and often elusive figure.

THE WHITE STONE IN THE LANDSCAPE

In 1765, Charles Dodgson's great grandfather, the
Reverend Dodgson of Elsdon, welcomed an appointment
to a living as Bishop of Ossory, in Ireland. He held this
position until 1775, when he was appointed to the Bishopric
of Elphin and Ossory passed to William Newcome.

Elphin has an ancient history. Ono, one of the
Druidic lords of Roscommon, presented to St Padraic
(Patrick) his fortress Imlech-Ono, and Padraic established
a bishopric there, on a pre-Christian site. In 1841, as a result
of the earlier Church Temporalities Act of 1832, the
Bishopric of Elphin became part of Kilmore and Ardagh.
The name itself, Elphin, derives from the Irish 'Aill Finn',
meaning a 'white stone' - the white stone which was to
feature so strongly in Dodgson's Diaries.
. . . they pointed to the groves and holy wells. . .
dedicated. . . marked by upright stones, chiselled on
the upper part with a cross in relief.

The Ancient Stone Crosses of England
Alfred Rimmer

These stones marked sites where spiritual energy
was particularly concentrated. Often the stones marking a
centre of pre-Christian worship were buried, and Christian
churches were erected on the site. The ancient Greeks knew
of such a centre, the Oracle at Delphi, and referred to it as
the omphalos [6ii(paX6a\ the centre of the world. In Viking
Norway, these stones in sacred places were known as
Hellige hivide stene (holy white stones). Such stones, says
Nigel Pennick, were 'cylindrical pillars terminating with a
hemisphere, made from white stone, either marble, quartzite
or granite.' Pennick continues to say that it is likely that
these stones were the object of worship of Yngvi-Frey, who
was one of the ancient gods of the Norse pantheon. In
Clackmannan, Scotland, for example, there is a similar stone
which stands by the church, hallowing 'the centre-point of
the land, where the spiritual essence is at its height'.

In many cultures, the centre-point, or omphalos,

was marked by a great tree or pole - Yggdrasil, the World

Tree in Norse mythology being one example. It is the tree

which gives us the symbol of the cross. Benson refers to

the following:

The ancient Druids. . . took as the symbol of their god

a living tree, a stately oak, cutting off all its branches

except two on opposite sides, forming thereby a giant

cross . . . The "accursed tree, " as the early Christians

designated the cross upon which Christ was crucified,

a death of suffering and disgrace, has become the

symbol of vicarious sacrifice and atonement. . . The

meaning of the Christian Cross is clear and significant.

It is the symbol of life eternal, of redemption and

resurrection through faith.

In Cumbria, Lutwidge country, there is a cross
which illustrates this. The lower part of the Gosforth Cross,
at St Mary's Church, depicts the Norse World Tree -
Yggdrasil, which marked the centre of the world. The upper
part of the cross shows the triquetra, the symbol of the
Trinity. In Hoxne, Suffolk, there is a cross which was erected
in 870 A.D., commemorating the execution of King
Edmund of East Anglia, on a tree which stood there until
1848.

The Celtic Cross stands in many Irish churches and
churchyards, and the ancient sun wheel, which forms the
background to the cross, describes well the nature of Christ
as the light of the world. The sun wheel is the circle which
'entwining the cross has become a familiar Christian
emblem symbolising eternal life, without beginning and
without end' (Brewer's). The Celtic monks of the early
Church had a simplicity and a love of nature that manifested
itself in the joy of God's creation, and went a long way in
converting a Druidic people to the new religion.

Throughout Great Britain and Ireland are many holy
wells, also sites where the faithful could petition the divine.
They are now dedicated to Saints, but long ago formed a
part of pre-Christian belief, and far down lie countless small,
white quartz stones thrown into the waters. The faithful
visiting these early shrines would drop a white stone in to
the well. It was an offering, and a private communion between

the suppliant and the divine. The altar at St Trillo's Chapel at
Llandrillo-yn-Rhos (Rhos-on-Sea), is sited over a holy well,
and outside the chapel the ground is littered with small white
stones. The chapel itself was founded at the place where a
saint bore testimony to a Celtic Cross of light which
emanated from the ground.

Alice in Wonderland includes a reference to a holy
well - during the Tea Party, the Dormouse, responding to
Alice's query about why Elsie, Lacie and Tillie lived at the
bottom of a well, says that it is a treacle well. Alice's
immediate response is that there is no such thing, but she
later humbly concedes that "There may be one. " There is
one, of course, the Treacle Well at Binsey in Oxfordshire -
a well dedicated to St Margaret.

Dodgson enjoyed walking; even in old age he
insisted on undertaking long walks through the countryside
- a countryside steeped in history and the myths of diverse
cultures. Wherever he turned, place names evoked these
myths, stirring an ever fertile imagination. In pre-Christian
and early Christian society, each thing encountered by the
people and each feature of the landscape had its own identity.
To quote Pennick again, 'Each name reflected some inner
nature, a personal quality that had meaning. In the
ensouled Celtic worldview, the personality of every place
and artefact was recognised to be as real as the individual
personalities of human beings. This is the case with
seemingly inanimate objects such as stones and crosses.
Such an ensouled world can only exist when there is
intimate personal contact with existence. ' Such an idea
must have seemed particularly relevant to the Victorians,
caught as they were in a world where increasing
industrialisation was fast promising to remove the essential
character of a hand-made artefact, and where the leisurely
peace of the country was gradually being disturbed by the
railway. To a man as filled with wonder and uncertainty as
Charles Dodgson, Victorian Britain with its certainties,
rationalities and its blinkered focus on progress, progress,
progress, must have seemed as threatening as an onrushing,
uncontrolled locomotive. Dodgson liked railways - and
progress - but preferred knowing that there was a restraining
and guiding presence in the cab!

VIA CRUCIS - THE WAY OF THE CROSS

Then do folk long to go on pilgrimage,

And palmers to go seeking out strange strands,

To distant shrines well known in sundry lands.

~ The Canterbury Talesf Prologue)
Geoffrey Chaucer
The placement of these Crosses and stones was
significant. In early Church history it was the custom of the
Church to grant Plenary Indulgences to those who were able
to undertake a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and walk in the
footsteps of Christ. Some succeeded in making the
pilgrimage, but many failed - old age, war, sickness, all took
their toll. The Church at Rome recognised the difficulty
facing many of the faithful and permitted the Stations of
the Cross to be erected, usually on a hill or mound - a
decision which enabled worshippers to undertake a

pilgrimage and meditate at each stopping place. Similarly,
when the early Christian monks travelled about the
countryside, it became their custom to erect a wooden
marker, or sometimes a stone, to mark the place where they
had preached to the faithful. These stones, then, became a
place of worship and meditation, a stepping stone in the
spiritual journey which drew one nearer to God. They can
be found on the old pilgrimage roads and track ways, in
churchyards, anywhere that the dead might be rested on their
way to burial and their preparation for a new life within
Christ; a place where prayers could be said or a weary
traveller could become spiritually refreshed. Many pre-
Christian monuments were re-dedicated with the Christian
symbols, the fish or the Cross, sanctifying a holy place and
presenting a silent testimony to the presence of God in
everyone, despite differences in belief. Some were simply
reconsecrated. In the early days of the Church, Masses were
generally only said on a feast day, and it was customary to
carry out the saying of the Mass at the tomb of the martyr
or saint, which once again explains the significance of the
Cross on these sites. The altar stone is a reminder of those
times.

These places are still commemorated in the place
names of Britain - names such as Market Cross, Palmers
Cross, and Whitstone (White Stone). Through the city of
Guildford runs an old footpath known as the Pilgrim's Way,
which led from Winchester to Canterbury. Palmer's Cross,
for example, derives its name from the custom of presenting
those who had completed their pilgrimage with a palm
branch, long a symbol of the victorious. Brewer's explains:
"To bear the palm " alludes to the Roman custom of
giving the victorious gladiator a branch of the palm-
tree.

When the triumphant Christ entered Jerusalem, the
crowd strewed the way with palm branches and leaves {John
12:12-19). As a reminder of that day, a consecrated palm
branch was given to a palmer, the pilgrim who had reached
the Holy Land. He carried the palm branch back to his
homeland, and laid it upon the altar of his parish church as a
reminder of his victory. On Palm Sunday, faithful Catholics
receive a palm, which is kept by the crucifix to inspire
devotion until the following year.
"He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith
unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give
to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white
stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no
man knoweth saving he that receiveth [it]. "

Revelation 2:17
The palm was the symbol of the final victory, the
overcoming of the trials faced by the pilgrim on his difficult
journey. The journey, as we have seen, was marked by stones
or crosses, where the pilgrim could stop and rest, and
become sufficiently renewed so that he could continue on
his journey. In Roman times, invited guests were presented
with tesserae, which were small white stones which could
be broken into two parts. Each party wrote his name upon
his piece, and they were exchanged as a sign of hospitality,

the name remaining secret, a pledge of friendship and
hospitality between the two parties.

A successful Roman gladiator was awarded the
tessera, which took the form of a white stone with the letters
SP [L. spectatus, proven, past participle o/specto] engra-
ved upon it, which also served as an admission ticket to the
feasting which followed, and was a recognition of victory,
and an outstanding performance in overcoming his oppo-
nents. A white stone day was just cause for celebration -
providing both spiritual and physical sustenance, and reward-
ing the victorious. The Greeks also had their equivalent in
the wreath of victory, presented to the winner in the races at
the games. A pilgrim in later times had only to present a
stone at certain houses, proclaiming that he was a pilgrim,
and he would be taken in and given bread and drink.

The end of the journey could also be physically
marked by a stone, or a cross, both also
symbols of final victory and eternal life.
Pennick explains that

The ensemble of the burial mound

with a standing stone or image on

top of it is the forerunner of the

Celtic high crosses. . . [also in] the

shape of the leachta. (These are

small, altar-like structures). On top

of each leacht is a stone slab. . . set

into this an upright stone cross.

Leachta are holy stopping places at

which prayers are offered by devout

people.

The Greeks also erected
tombstones, a standing stone or herma,
constructed from one large upright
stone surrounded by smaller ones. The
name of Hermes ['Epp.r)s\, the Greek
god who later became known as the
psychopomp and led the dead from this
world to the next, is connected to this word herma [ep/ia],
meaning stone heap. From very early times, the custom of
also using these 'stone heaps' as markers for travellers,
particularly at crossroads, existed in Crete and the Greek
areas.

"And the Gentiles shall see thy righteousness, and all

kings thy glory: and thou shalt be called by a new

name, which the mouth of the Lord shall name. Thou

shalt also be a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord,

and a royal diadem in the hand of thy God. "

Isaiah 62:2-3
The white stone or cross, the palm branch and the
crown, or wreath of victory, were interchangeable symbols
of the victor, the pilgrim who has overcome adversity at the
end of the journey, and gained spiritual sustenance along
the way by stopping at the smaller markers which marked
the religious and physical stages of the journey.

One can see, therefore, that to Dodgson, the White
Stone harboured deep spiritual and emotional significance.
It was a form of spiritual marker, a reminder that life is indeed

a journey along which one passes just the once and that to
succeed in this journey, one must divest oneself of such
unnecessary and debilitating burdens as pride and sloth. At
all cost, one must also remember that the quest requires
adherence to a purity of spirit, an innocence which Dodgson,
throughout his life, saw most vividly expressed in his
relationships with children. He found within their presence
that lack of artifice and that simplicity which the monks of
old had sought - and found - and which suggested to him
the presence of the sacred.

Many times in the Diaries appears the reference
to the white stone day, albo lapillo notare diem, as it was
known in Latin. The first reference appears in his Diary of
4 September, 1855, and says simply "Mark this day, o
Annalist, with a white stone. " Wakeling's annotation to the
Diary entry records this as being " Dodgson s method of
indicating a special day which had
given him great personal
pleasure. " It was a common enough
term in Victorian times, but to
Dodgson it meant more than merely
a 'red-letter day'.

Numerous similar entries
are to be found in his published
Diaries during the years 1855 to
1867. These white stone references
occur on days when he was inspired
or uplifted in some way, perhaps by
art or music, as in the entry of 18
March, 1856, when he heard the
beautiful words of Handel's
Messiah, sung by Jenny Lind. But
by far the majority of references
occur on days when he was in the
company of children. He found that
"Their innocent unconsciousness is
very beautiful, and gives one a
feeling of reverence, as at the presence of something
sacred."

Dodgson had a constant struggle to overcome
earthly temptations, and gain the tessera on which was
written the name, which was a reminder of the covenant
which existed between each man and his God. It was a
constant battle, but along the way there was help, white stones
which marked a day which had made the journey easier. In
Stolen Waters, it is the pure and chaste child who provides
salvation. "And a little child shall lead them. " (Isaiah 11.6).
It is she who provides the manna, the spiritual bread of the
pilgrim, and reminds him of the garland still to be won,
whose silent presence turns him away from the path of folly
and inspires him to seek "The garland waiting for my brow,
That must be won with tears, With pain-with death-1 care
not how. " For Dodgson, the presence of the childlike and
innocent must have seemed like angelic intervention.

The need to live a pure life was paramount to
Dodgson. At any time could come the call to fight the last
fight, and the need to be constantly prepared was always

there. Never, even for a moment, could he cease to be

vigilant. And vigilant he was. He ate and drank sparingly, and

took long walks, through a countryside which was filled with

constant reminders of the sacred.

Be sure the safest rule is that we should not dare to

live in any scene in which we dare not die.

But, once realise what the true object is in life - that it

is not pleasure, not knowledge, not even fame itself,

"that last infirmity of noble minds" - but that it is the

development of character, the rising to a higher,

nobler, purer standard, the building up of the perfect

Man - and then, so long as we feel that this is going

on, and will (we trust) go on forever more, death has

for us no terror; it is not a shadow, but a light; not an

end, but a beginning!

Sylvie and Bruno (Preface)
This, then, is the significance of the white stone in
the life of Charles Dodgson. Like the original white stones
throughout Britain which marked the presence of the sacred,
the White Stone Day to Dodgson also marked a day when
he had experienced the sacred, in children whose 'innocent
unconsciousness is very beautiful, and gives one a feeling
of reverence', in music, or in art, or in the words of the
Bible. Like the white stones and crosses which marked the
way of the pilgrim, Dodgson's marked the shrines on his
own road. They brought hope that one day he would feel
worthy to preach the words of Christ; and he was inspired
by these moments, as he drew towards the end of the
pilgrimage, when he would receive the new name and eternal
life.

Dodgson wrote a set of Directions regarding my
Funeral, etc., in which the last line requested that 'there be
no expensive monument. I should prefer a small, plain head-
stone, but will leave this detail to their judgement.' Even
then, he disliked artifice.

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson is buried in the Mount
Cemetary, Guildford. His monument is not the small, plain
stone which he sought, but a white marble cross, on which
are inscribed the words 'Thy Will be Done.' The pilgrimage
was over, the white stone attained.

A Nameless Epitaph

Ask not my name, O friend!

That Being only, which hath known each man

From the beginning, can

Remember each unto the end

Matthew Arnold (1867)

pn

jzmoriam

Works cited:

Hudson, D. Lewis Carroll An Illustrated Biography. Constable.

1976(1954)

Pennick,N. The Celtic Cross. Blandford. 1977

Benson, G. W. The Cross: Its History and Symbolism. Hacker
Art Books. 1976(1935)

Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. Cassell. 1988 (1870)
Cohen, M. Lewis Carroll. A Biography. London: MacMillan. 1995

Wakeling E., ed. Lewis Carroll's Diaries . Lewis Carroll Society
(U.K.) Vol 1, 1993.

B.BJTo6aHOB

Vasily Vasil'evich Lobanov

Jan. 8, 1926 -Dec. 6, 2001

The distinguished Russian librarian and Lewis Carroll
bibliographer, Vasily Vasil'evich Lobanov, died in
Tomsk, Siberia, on Dec. 6, 2001. Mr. Lobanov
received the Soviet "Medal for Bravery" for his
efforts during the fight against the Germans in the
Second World War. He was a 1962 graduate of the
Philological Department of Tomsk State University
and the author of many books, including a catalog of
incunabula and a bibliography of Slavonic books
published in the Cyrillic alphabet from the sixteenth
to eighteenth centuries. His meticulous bibliography
of Russian editions of Lewis Carroll's works was
issued in privately printed fascicles over several
years and then collected in an edition published by
Moscow State University in a special number of its
journal Folia Anglistica in Autumn 2000 [KL 66
pp. 4-5]. I had the honor of corresponding with Vasily
Lobanov for the past four years and counted him as
a friend.

~ August Imholtz

I tried those self-whitening toothpastes, but actually
it was the dental strips that did the trick for me."

cartoon by Casey Shaw

Leaves from the Deanery Garden

Now and then Knight Letter drops like a thunderbolt from'
its usual superior cruising altitude into sheer profundity,
and to me, Issue 67 is one of those moments. I was proud to
be thar, as we say in Appalachia. I enjoy being jolted till I
frizzle. Two unlikely stars happened to collide, and the
explosion is still brilliant. The first I noticed was in "Of
Books and Things" (p. 2 1 ), where an Amazon.com reviewer
of AW is (maybe, but maybe not) deservedly slammed for
the following astonishing excerpt. Of course, the comments
in brackets are mine. I put them in mainly to show ecstatic
frenzy.

"Maybe the author has English back round... A lot of her
{Alice's} decision during the book make no sense. . .And
why would she follow the rabbit to an unknown land to
begin with? {Yes, why?} One thing of the book 1 did not
understand was the theme. {Me neither.} One other thing
I didn't see in the book was a plot {nor do I}. In my
opinion this book. ..had no
meaning {ditto, if you add 'single'
after 'no'}. It had no moral, and
nothing to learn from it. {Refuses
to let one on the premises.} So I
think the book was very pointless.
{And proud of it.}"

Look again; there are gems here —
oddly cut, I grant you. Cumulatively,
it is an ingenuous summary of what
is arguably Carroll's greatest
invention — the anti-narrative, so
richly functioning and still so lacking
in essential features. It was a time
when novelistic bent for both adult
and children's work drove in the
direction of indomitable con-
struction— as in most of the classic
Victorian/Edwardian fiction writers
between James Barrie and George
Elliot. Yet Dodgson, this pedant/
divine whose personal life was one
long compelling rubric, concluded that in fiction less is
more, and not only that, but a springboard to even less, and
then, even less again. This was opening the way for literary
modernism. Yet he makes it stick, no mean task, especially
for a pioneer. Alice, which doesn't show even string and glue
holding it together, is so much more seaworthy than, for
example, the bolted-and-caulked Peter Pan. Peter, despite
musical success, is on the decline, but Alice's popularity
keeps growing by its own power.

If you can stop yourself wondering whether the Amazon
reviewer thinks Carroll is a butcher specializing in odd cuts
of meat — "English back round" — or possibly suffering from
an exclusively British spinal affliction, notice how
effortlessly this thinker isolates and separates ultra-inherent
narrative elements — theme, plot, motivation — from the
whole.

It is as if Carroll were present to the writer in a form like
one of those pre-sliced hams so easy to serve up because it
only looks whole. It sounds as if the reviewer has not so
much discovered as assimilated, in what might be called the
"Alice process", how to have jam and no jam at the same
time — an operating story with most of the story stuff absent.
This rare effect is not unknown in literature. Both
Shakespeare and Spenser display it now and then. Reading
that review, I got the feeling that a child, probably an older
child, was writing. Such children have stumbled on the tombs
of Pharoahs and on the cave mouths which conceal the Dead
Sea Scrolls. Maybe more children should become critics.

Put it this way. Of the quoted sentences above, which would
your critical sense of AW allow you outright to deny?

Second: on page 1 5 a very careful and precise adult, Karoline
Leach, comes to much the same conclusion as the Amazon

reviewer. That is, she jostles
into it during an exasperated
attempt to reify conclusions
of John Docherty's about
Charles Dodgson, based, as
she sees it, on logical fallacies
and no extra-textual evidence.
It's just a little general
observation at the head of a
paragraph. She probably
doesn't give it much thought,
as she is in the press of an
important argument about
what constitutes valid evi-
dence (and good manners). "In
that sense {Docherty's inter-
pretive method} Alice is no
more than an ink blot test —
we find what we want to see
there. If you... are convinced
...{of a particular interpreta-
tion } then that is what you will
find." By me, Leach has got it
in one — whatever she was aiming at. Alice is what you make
her. (This point is a valuable contribution to our studies by
poet Stephanie Bolster.) AW surpasses any other do-it-
yourself text I ever read for completion and ease of
execution.

The inkblot is also a mirror; you see what you bring. Bear
with me while I carry the metaphor a bit further. If authors
authoring were painters painting, with Carroll standing among
them, and all using the same tools and brushes — Carroll
would be the one turning out not natural scenes or people,
but a seamless mirror. Casually, and with no different tools.

We are dealing with a construction as deliberately empty as
the Bellman's blank sea chart. It is emptied. Carroll keeps
us in Flatland by refusing to create depth. In a way we
ourselves are erased. As poet Alan Tate says, we become
"function, depth and mass / Without figure, a mathematical

shroud / Hurled at the air." Why? How? Carroll has a thousand
tricks for making his work impenetrable. Verisimilitude
never left an author colder. He won't let us escape the moving
line of words — even of letters. Yet Carroll scholars seem
as a group strangely uninterested in the production of the
entrapping surface. How many scholars examine AW purely
as constructed narrative? Whether scholars begin with the
text and then turn outward from it, like Leach, to investigate
history and biography, or inward, like Docherty, to establish
meaning, far too few examine the mechanism, the
workmanship. We look for meaning when we should be
looking for method.

Carroll, the author, is always in control — ferociously so.
His precision is far beyond average, even for a "great" author.
It is not surprising. He had inherited skills from his father,
honed them through a productive boyhood, and never,
apparently, experienced any dramatic shift in style or
purpose. To me, the author-reader relationship with him is
always slightly controlling — beneath the antic persona he
cultivates. Perhaps this is one satisfaction he gained from
child-friendships — the child follows a leader. But it is
doubtful whether critics removed by experience and time
should allow him still to control them — to drive them off
with his ferocious expertise and predilection for privacy.
We must not be intimidated by a fascinating surface. Beneath
it, there is a brilliant, absolutely unique, construction to be
investigated. It is like a pretty little bomb perhaps activated
inside a Faberge egg. The time comes to break the shell, let
the pearls roll where they may, and figure out what's ticking
in there. Otherwise, the next Amazon.com review may have
to do it for us.

Finally, Carroll study is particularly vulnerable to what might
be called the streetlight syndrome. Remember the joke about
the drunk who drops his watch at night in the middle of the
block? He looks for it on the corner because he can see so
much better under the streetlight. The big questions don't
go away because they go begging. Why is characterization
so fluid? What is the theme — or, if the work is allegorical,
what is the process analogized? Why do characters whom
the author has sensitively humanized then behave so un-
humanly? Charting conflict is one of the biggest challenges
in the book. Why are we unsure of every main character's
motive? Does Alice experience any revelation at all during
the climax?

It's a mistake to shrug off questions because they have no
answers. I don't say all this critically, but to caution. I wish
somebody would write a book exclusively about Carroll's
narrative strategies and constructs, however tentative. Maybe
somebody has. I'm new around here. Tell me if you know
one. In the meantime, Kenneth Burke can put all this in
perspective: "what we want is not terms that avoid ambiguity,
but terms that clearly reveal the strategic spots at which
ambiguities necessarily arise." (A Grammar of Motives,
U.C. Press, 1 969) To realize how slithy Carroll's ambiguities
remain, is to begin at least to survey the tasks that I describe.

Chloe Nichols

On New Year's Day a float called "Wonderland of
Imagination" won the President's Trophy at the annual Rose
Bowl Parade in Pasadena. This was a fabulous rolling display
of the Alice landscape and characters, made from many kinds
of flowers, split peas, rolled oats, and corn husks (all
surfaces on floats must be covered with plants). The Cheshire
Cat hung near the back, rolling his head and wagging his tail.
"Look at the animation on that tigerl" urged the announcer
on HGTV (Home & Garden TV network). Yours for more
English literature classes,

Angelica Carpenter

More details on the float are in Car roll ian Notes, p. 15.

In "Tracking down the Jabberwock" {Knight Letter, Issue
67), Alan Martin wonders if the Arabic words "al-Jabr w'al-
muQabalah" influenced the naming of Carroll's poem
"Jabberwocky." The Arabic is the title of a mathematical
book published in 825 a.d. by al-Khowarizmi and means
"the art of bringing together unknowns to match a known
quantity". As Martin notes, the words already gave English
the term algebra and the author's name the word algorithm.
Understanding that the article was abridged, I was wondering
if the author attempted to peruse the dictionaries and the
mathematical books Carroll owned. One of the mathematical
books could have made some minor reference to the Arabic
title and certainly one of his dictionaries could have had the
etymology for algebra listed. Checking just three of these
dictionaries at The New York Public Library, I found that
Worester's (noted in CLD's diary for April 4, 1867) and
Richardson's (listed in the auction sales) mention only
alginbarat and jubr roots without mention of w'al-
muqabalah. Another dictionary Carroll owned, Cole's, had
no etymology and another, Webster's, had too many to
choose from. The other dictionaries he was known to have
owned upon his death were either unidentified or not
available.

Despite Martin's well-researched paper, I believe Carroll,
in naming his poem "Jabberwocky," was influenced by the
fabricated words in the pre-existing first stanza: brillig,
slithy, toves, gyre, gimble, wabe, mimsy, borogoves, mome,
raths, outgrabe — all but one appearing with a red wavy
underline as I write. He was obviously influenced by the
word "jabber", defined as "to talk rapidly, unintelligibly, or
idly" — a certain feeling one gets from reading the stanza.
Carroll's title has even entered our language as a word,
meaning "nonsensical speech or writing." Perhaps its
entrance was facilitated not only by jabber's meaning but
also by its onomatopoeic b sound, a plosive consonant with
an expressive lip movement. So many words with similar
definitions, no mere coincidence, employ the letter: babble,
gibber, blather, gabble, gab, gibble-gabble, blabber, blab,
blether, burble, blatter and, of course, jabber itself. Naming
the poem after a concept — the ^-ending — rather than the
beast — "The Jabberwock" — probably aided its entrance as
well.

10

Jabber's appearance in Jabberwock is surely not'
coincidental. Perhaps due to the obviousness, the point does
not even necessitate a comment in Martin Gardner's The
Annotated Alice. Most, but not all, of the first stanza's made
up words have etymologies from basic English words,
supporting my somewhat bland assumption of Carroll's
intentions. Since so many words in English are curiously
similar, sometimes even the same, and have separate
meanings, the concept Alan Martin suggests should probably
be labeled "expected coincidence" — for odds are
coincidences should occur from time to time. In point of
fact, the wordjabber is the only babble word with a possible
double meaning of some relevance to a fighting creature,
that is, jabber: "one who jabs, punches." Think "the claws
that catch." If Carroll thought hard on the issue —
Babblewock?, Gibberwock? — he certainly chose wisely.

Further, two words that are often thought to be nonsense
but are not — burble and whiffle — have a similar meaning
with jabber. In the poem, these two words, by no mere
coincidence, specifically refer to the Jabberwock who
"Came whiffling through the tulgey wood / And burbled as
he came!" Due to other English words and the context of
the poem, one can hardly miss an oral definition for
burble — a word Carroll likely thought he made up. Despite
its proposed "burst" and "bubble" etymology and its
legitimacy, he wrote to Maud Standen (Letters, December
18, 1877):

if you take the 3 verbs "bleat," "murmur," and "warble,"
and select the bits I have underlined, it certainly makes
"burble"; though I'm afraid I can't distinctly remember
having made it in that way.

Note that Carroll's three words are all vocal descriptions.
Clearly, the creature is named after the jabbering sound of
the nonsense words.

Besides these arguments, what reason would Carroll have
to allude to or be influenced by such an unconnected
concept as this mathematical work? Part of the Arabic does
mean "to oppose, compare, or set one thing against
another" — a connection between "Jabberwocky" and the
mathematical work Martin fails to notice. But still, the two
concepts seem too disconnected.

So what's cookin' in Carroll's "-wock"? Whether con-
sciously or simply using a subconscious poetic feeling, Car-
roll could have been influenced by the related words roc
and cockatrice, and the less likely wyvern, the only related
word beginning with a w. But, with the jabber beginning,
the first two letters of the word word and the near rhyme
word talk — Jabberwords, Jabbertalk — also come to mind.
Cockatrice is defined as "a mythical serpent reputed to be
hatched from a cock's egg and supposed to have the power
of killing by its glance". Think "eyes of flame." Roc is
defined as "a legendary bird of prey of enormous size and
strength". Perhaps Mr. Martin won't be surprised that it
derives from Arabic.

Carroll himself addressed the meaning of the word
Jabberwock. When a Boston school wrote him requesting
to name their magazine after the beast, he responded
(Letters, February 6, 1!

Mr. Lewis Carroll has much pleasure in giving to the
editresses of the proposed magazine permission to use
the title they wish for. He finds that the Anglo-Saxon
word "wocer" or "wocor" signifies "offspring" or "fruit."
Taking "jabber" in its ordinary acceptation of "excited
and voluble discussion," this would give the meaning of
"the result of much excited discussion."

Due to Carroll's tone and present-tense research, one should
not take him too seriously here, nor interpret this as a
declaration of the word's true etymology 20 years before.
Though I happen to believe his meaning of jabber, I doubt
Carroll had wocer in mind when creating the poem. There
is a son in the poem, of course, but he is the Jabberwock's
slayer.

Matt Demakos

I'm hoping that the LCSNA might like the opportunity of
accommodating academics, researchers or simply visitors
to London connected with your Society, in a house
frequently visited, though never owned, by Lewis Carroll. I
have recently finished restoring the unique, Gothic-looking,
three-bedroom town house in Camden Town/Mornington
Crescent that used to be the home of George MacDonald,
author and great friend of Lewis Carroll's. MacDonald lived
there for many years with his family and the house became
the hangout of several other important literary and artistic
figures of the time; John Ruskin and Ford Maddox-Brown
to name but two. I'm fairly sure that George MacDonald's
children were the first to hear read out loud the story that
was eventually published as "Alice in Wonderland", and there
is no doubt in the minds of historians and researchers that I
have spoken to that the reading would have taken place in
the self-same house.

I have had an application in with English Heritage for a blue
plaque to George MacDonald for nearly three years now so
my case is bound to come up for consideration fairly soon.
The house has been beautifully restored, if I may say so
myself, and in my mind, still retains the magic that might
have inspired the writers and artists of the time. The house
itself was designed and built by an artist, Charles Lucy, in
1843, and contains a exact plaster cast copy, of which there
are only three in existence, of Michelangelo's "Madonna
and Child", set into the wall of the entrance hall. It is
currently on the market to let for £900 per week.

Should you like to know any more about the house, please
do contact me. I assure you the house and the willow tree
that stands in front of it make an absolute picture, and I've
no doubt it would be a great asset to your Society, as well as
a pleasure for Lewis Carroll lovers to stay there.

Sebastian D. Tennant
sdtennant@telinco.co.uk

11

What a fine name for a landlord! However, further
inquiries revealed that it can only be let for a year or
more, as it is unfurnished, so a shorter time period would
be considered impractical.

I enjoyed Ruth Berman's article "Reflections on a Week of
Wednesdays" in Knight Letter 68, especially the part about
"Knot X" in A Tangled Tale. Ruth questions whether the
"Knot" was influenced by the International Prime Meridian
Conference in Washington, DC which began October 1,
1884. Carroll's "Knot" appeared a month later in the
November issue of the Monthly Packet and deals in part
with his "where does the day begin" puzzle of old.

Wondering when the public was informed of the conference,
I checked Palmer's Index for The Times, available online at
The New York Public Library. The first mention appeared
on September 22 under the umbrella headline "The United
States (By Anglo-American Cables.)" The entire paragraph
reads: "The International Conference to fix a prime meridian
meets in Washington on October 1 ; arrangements are now
making for the sessions in the State Department. Almost
every country of Europe and America will send repre-
sentatives."

The conference received its first headline in the October 4
issue. Though the conference was mentioned twelve times
between October 1 and 22, and once on November 3, these
mostly consist of only a few sentences. A long commentary
(lacking a headline as was the practice of the time) and a
separate news report appeared in the October 15 edition.

Below is a chart showing all the knots for which we have
some hint of a composition date. (The lag days were figured
from the dates Ruth sent to the Lewis Carroll eGroup after
her article appeared and assume a first-of-the-month
publication date for each issue).

Date Month Lag Days

Feb 20 Apr 1880 40

May 30 Jul 1880 31

Feb 19 Apr 1882 41

Nov 22 Jan 1883 39

Vm Finished Jan 21 Aug 1883 191

♦Carroll acknowledges the acceptance.

Since 40 days seems to be a mean average, though based on
slightly different occurrences, the September 22 date of
The Times notice and the November appearance of the Knot
curiously fit:

Knot

Occurrence

I

Accepted*

m

Mailed

vn

Finished

DC

Finished

Month Lag Days
Nov 1884 39

Knot Occurrence Date

X The Times Sep 22

I do not mean to suggest that Carroll was influenced directly
by any given newspaper or even this specific newspaper,
though the possibility remains. Regardless, more
newspapers need to be checked to confirm exactly when

the conference was "in the air". Sadly, the New York Public
Library is not the best facility for researching old British
periodicals. However, The New York Times, dated just two
days after its British namesake, did print a half-column
notice of the event. The proximity of these two dates
supports a possible world-wide news "leak" sometime after
mid September — the time Carroll is recorded to have
finished previous Knots.

If Carroll was not influenced by this conference, it remains
a terrific coincidence. In all his letters to telegraph
companies trying to solve his own "Knot", and even in his
failed Monthly Packet answer, he never mentioned the
conference or an International Dateline.

Lastly, Ruth mentions that in 1882, Samoa decided to have
two Fourths of July to coincide with America's calendar
instead of Australia's. Well, the 4th of July for that year was
a Tuesday!!! So the question is what day of the week were
these "fourths". If the 3rd were a Monday (all around the
world — which I am not sure about), then they must have had
two Tuesdays in a row — a small part of Looking-Glass
coming true.

At the end of her piece, Ruth thanks me for suggesting
Blaise's book Time Lord; but I wish to go on record that I
did not enjoy it. If interested in the topic, please try any
other source she lists.

Matt Demakos

[Time Lord was recently awarded the Pearson Writers '
Trust Non-Fiction Prize.]

I'm grateful to Matt Demakos for showing that Carroll would
have had time to add the day-beginning riddle to "Knot X"
after news about the Prime Meridian Conference had started
to appear in the general papers. Information about the
upcoming Conference had gone out to the scientific
community about a year earlier, and I had assumed that
Carroll would have heard about it through his academic
contacts and would have begun thinking then about the
possibility of presenting his riddle again. But the first
announcements in the general newspapers would have
reminded him that the subject was about to be topical and
that he should hurry up and send his material on it to the
Monthly Packet. I suspect that the reason Carroll did not
mention the Conference in his discussions of the answers
to "Knot X" was that he was disappointed that it did not,
after all, make any formal recommendation for adopting an
International Dateline.

Ruth Berman

[Ruth is responding to MatPs letter, above, which she was
sent before publication.]

Hear about the gryphon that tried to board a flight with two
dormice in his beak, but they wouldn't let him on? New rule:
only one carrion allowed.

Alan Tannenbaum

12

<©jr

Fits of Peake

8c

...'and what is the use of a book,' thought Alice, 'without
pictures or conversation?' [sic!!]. So begins the Bloomsbury
edition graced with the restored 1945 Mervyn Peake
drawings and featured in the last issue. What has come to
light since is that Bloomsbury's printing was a trade edition
and there exist spectacular fine press volumes by Libanus,
who also did the restoration work on the illustrations. The
Libanus edition is much larger (320 * 218 mm), letterpress
and bound in full cloth, and consists of: 60 copies of the
books and a set of prints (all at the original size of Peake's
drawings), boxed and numbered (£300 - [sold out]); 120
standard copies (£150); and 100 sets of the prints (£110)
and all include a four-page color supplement. Their
sumptuous edition has the relevant quotations with the
drawings, not the full text of the book.

An article in The Times (London), December 12, 2001,
describes the genesis of the original illustrations,
immediately following WWII and at a time when Peake was
in bad emotional shape. Returning to England, he got to know
the Norton family, who kept a kind of artistic salon in
bombed-out Chelsea. He often dropped in, talking about his
projects and delighting 11 -year-old Caroline with his
storytelling. Realizing that she would be a fine model for
his Alice, he asked her to sit for him, which she did.

Fifty-five years later, Michael Mitchell of the Libanus Press
happened to be sitting next to a lady at a dinner who asked
him what his press was working on. "Restoring Mervyn
Peake's Alice drawings," he said. "Oh, I sat for those," she
replied to his astonishment. For the limited edition she has
also written a short recollection of Peake, whose "volatile
face and expressions were a joy to watch".

Contact the Libanus Press, Rose Tree House, Silverless
Street, Marlborough, Wiltshire sn8 ijq, U.K.; +1672.
515378, -511041 fax;. susan@libanuspress.co.uk.

And by-the-bye, the many textual errors have been corrected
in the second edition of the Bloomsbury printing.

Psittaciformes Atramentum

Polish-born British illustrator Francizka Themerson ran the
Gaberbochus [L. Jabberwock] Press from 1948 to 1979.
Her illustrations to TTLG were completed in 1946, but never
published. Now her niece Jasia Reichardt has rectified that
by publishing a fine press edition through Inky Parrot Press:
48 special copies, bound in quarter leather, with six initialed
and numbered prints, in a slipcase (£168) and 372 ordinary
copies, signed by Reichardt and Graham Ovenden, £62. Inky
Parrot Press, The Foundry, Church Hanborough, Witney near
Oxford ox29 8ab, U.K. +1993.881260; -883080 fax.

A Blackstone day indeed

A news story of 28 November, 2001
described "a temporary export bar"
from the U.K. on a rare set of
photographs of Alice Liddell. Arts
Minister Baroness Tessa Blackstone
made the order amid fears a foreign collector could whisk
the glass negatives and photographs, taken by Carroll
himself, out of the country. The photos were sold at the
Sotheby's auction in June to an "if not nameless, herein
unnamed" U.S. collector, who promised to display them at
Oxford University. However, as foreign buyers have since
expressed interest in the pictures, a consortium involving
the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television
(NMPFT), the National Portrait Gallery, the Museum of
Oxford and the Victoria & Albert is currently trying to raise
the £600,000 ($850,000) to repurchase the pictures and
put them on permanent display at Christ Church.

As we go to press, the British government has extended the
export bar until the end of May.

Politically Correct

The Pamphlets of Lewis Carroll: Volume III: The Political
Pamphlets and Letters of Charles L. Dodgson and Related
Pieces, compiled and edited by Francine F. Abeles,
published by the L.C.S.N.A.

Not only does this volume provide the reader with access
to rare materials, most of which have never previously been
reprinted, Dr. Abeles' commentary contributes an unparal-
leled look at Dodgson's involvement in the spheres of
politics and voting theory.

The book is divided into four sections, each with its own
introductory essay. "Fairness in Elections" reprints
Dodgson's pamphlets on voting procedure. The next section,
"Rationality in Sports," contains Dodgson's writing on tennis
tournaments and on betting. In some cases, Dodgson's
letters to the editor of the St. James s Gazette mention the
opinions of other correspondents, and Abeles has included
these other letters as well, giving the reader a complete view
of Dodgson's work in context and of the response to it.
"Proportional Representation" also includes letters by his
contemporaries that respond to and elaborate upon his
arguments. This section also contains Dodgson's major work
Principles of Parliamentary Representation. A short
section of "Political Humor" finishes the book, but previous
sections are not without their drollery as well. Many of the
pieces reprinted here show that Dodgson could use his
Carrollian wit even on a seemingly dry topic.

Prof. Abeles' general introduction is a serious reconsid-

13

eration of Dodgson as a political scientist, considers his
activism, and puts his theories in the context of the history
of poli-sci. An outstanding scholarly contribution to the
fields of Victorian political theory and Carrollian studies,
this will be an important addition to libraries from the
largest university to the most modest Lewis Carroll
enthusiast.

List Price: $70; Member Price: $55 + shipping @ $2 per
volume. Send orders to LCSNA c/o Stan Bershod, 58
Crittendon Way, Rochester, NY 14623.

Carrollian

Notes

Things we wouldn't bank on

International Money Marketing begins its Dec. 6, 2001
article on the adventures of Do It Yourself portfolios with
the following sentence: "Lewis Carroll is most widely known
for penning the Disney adaptation of his story Alice's
Adventures in Wonderland, eclipsing his other works..."

Frankly, My Dear

Alan Frank in the Daily Star of Jan. 4, 2002, commenting
on the Disney 1951 "Alice" film says: "The animation is
inventive, the tuneful songs include 'A Very Merry
Unbirthday to You' and 'I'm Late' and although the ail-
American voices aren't exactly what Carroll had in mind,
the film is delightful." Italics added. That judgment will be
new to Kathryn Beaumont.

They sought it with Stegdetect...

Take a good look. Can you unravel the secret code in this
picture?

University of Maryland graduate student Niels Provos and
other CITI (Center for Information Technology Integration)
researchers embedded, appropriately enough, the entire first
Fit of The Hunting of the Snark into this image. Chances
are you don't see a thing. That's the key to steganography:
delivering a secret message in an existing image without
altering the original content.

It's the stuff spy novels are made of and according to some
published reports, could be the means of communication
for many terrorists around the world.

Steganography, Greek for "hidden writing" {oreyavoypa-
cpid) from stego (areyco), to conceal, is "the art and science
of secret communication", says Peter Honeyman, scientific
director at CITI. It's the ability for people to communicate
without anyone else knowing that communication is
taking place. It's different from cryptography, which carries
an encrypted or coded message. In cryptography, people see
the means of communication and know the message is taking
place, but don't know how to decipher it. The whole basis
of steganography is to conceal that the communication is
even taking place.

The digital world has opened the door for this type of coded
communication, meaning e-mails, CD-ROMS, photos, even
compressed music files. "Any digital representation of
information offers an opportunity for steganography," says
Honeyman. "It doesn't require any special equipment, just
someone who knows their way around a computer and can
use a mouse." (Obviously, the picture as prined at right
contains no hidden messages: only the digital online version
does!)

A few extra spaces, dots or dashes to any original program
or file are all that's needed to create a steganographic mes-
sage. These additions don't disturb the original content but
do embed a secret note. A simple computer program can
break the code.

"About 10 percent of an image or file can be used to hide a
message," says Niels Provos. "Beyond that, you run the risk
of altering the original content. But 10 percent is enough to
get the word out." For example, a message might be hidden
within an image by changing the least significant bits to be
the message bits.

Spurred by these reports, Provos developed a stega-
nographic detection framework. He analyzed two million
images from the Internet auction site eBay using several
computer tools, including a crawler that downloads images
from the Web; Stegdetect, which identifies images that might
contain hidden messages; Stegbreak, which then tries to
conjure up a key to break the code; and a distributing
computer framework that runs multiple instances of
Stegbreak on a cluster of workstations.
Despite all the hype, Provos came up empty-handed. What
did you expect, a Boojum?

14

Avon Calling

Charles Lovett

The mobs of uniformed schoolchildren descending from
coaches in Stratford should have been enough to warn me
that the recent production of Alice in Wonderland by the
Royal Shakespeare Company was intended more for children
accustomed to Christmas pantomimes than for adult students
of Mr. Dodgson. Alice is not an inherently dramatic vehicle,
and for this reason stage versions in general are ultimately
doomed. Though the book contains some elements of drama,
in particular the brilliant dialogue between Alice and the
creatures she encounters, it lacks what Stanislavsky would
call a "through line of action." The essential elements of
drama — conflict, plot, and resolution — are missing in Alice,
and this is part of what makes the book so revolutionary;
however, Carroll's freeform dream-tale will always be less
than perfect on the stage. This is not to say that an evening
with Alice (in this case at the RSC) is an evening wasted.
There are opportunities for wonderful stage moments here,
and this new production, dramatized by Adrian Mitchell and
directed by Rachel Kavanaugh, gives us many such moments.

The evening begins with Dodgson, Duckworth, and the
Liddell girls rowing onstage as the Victorian skyline of
Oxford (no tower on Christ Church Hall, an authentic 1 862
touch) drifts past. ^Catherine Heath, as Alice, immediately
establishes her fine ability to take the stage, as well as
demonstrating a remarkable resemblance to Alice Liddell.
Here is where the resemblance to actual figures ends,
however. Daniel Flynn's redheaded Dodgson has all the
slickness of a used car salesman — more R T Barnum than
C.L. Dodgson.

Alice's fall down the rabbit-hole, in which she spends part
of her time wonderfully sprawled in a wing chair that sways
to and fro a few yards above the stage, was remarkably
rendered, as were a number of other effects. Her growing
and shrinking were accomplished by flashing across the stage
a series of doors of different heights — simple but effective.

The musical numbers, by Terry Davies and Stephen Warbeck,
were remarkably forgettable, the exception being the setting
of "All in the Golden Afternoon," which was memorable
not for being good, but simply for being better than the rest
of the score. Especially ill-conceived was a Music Hall
rendition of "Father William" in which the third line of each
verse (where the joke usually appears) was sung to a
completely different (and much faster) rhythm from the rest
of the song. Such experimentation may have its place, but
not in a production meant to appeal to children. The audience
sat silent throughout the number, as no one could understand
the funny bits.

A similar digression, the Tweedles' recitation of "The
Walrus and The Carpenter" was, in contrast, one of the
highlights of the show. The Oysters were presented as
puppets, the Walrus and the Carpenter as wonderfully sly
and comic, and the rarely heard extra verses written by
Dodgson for the 1886 stage version of Alice were included.

Act I ended rather abruptly with Alice waking up not on the
riverbank where she had fallen asleep, but in the chair by
the fireplace with snow falling outside. To be sure this
prepared us for going through the looking-glass in Act 2,
but we were left wondering what happened to the river. At
the end of Act 2 we returned to the riverbank — perhaps it
was all a single dream.

In his notes in the programme, Adrian Mitchell says that he
"wrote this play" to please seven children he loved, but to
call him the author would be a gross exaggeration. He sticks
largely to Dodgson's words, for which he should be thanked,
and the few jokes of his own he throws in only serve to
show how perfect Dodgson's own humor was. Though many
scenes are necessarily omitted, Mitchell sticks to the proper
progression of episodes, and does not mix characters from
the two books — a refreshing change from so many hodge-
podge productions created by those who seem to think that,
because there is no dramatic structure to the works, the
episodes can be presented in any order.

Reign on My Parade

Congratulations to FTD, Inc., whose Alician float "The
Wonderland of Imagination" won the President's Award for
the Best Overall Floral Display at the 2002 Rose Parade.
Some pictures can be found at www.ftdi.com/pr/float.htm.

"Alice's hair is fixed with individual strands of raffia,
while walnut shell, cornmeal, and paprika will blend
together to make her skin. Alice's friend, the spectacular
caterpillar, came to life with orchid carnations and
Madame Pompadour, while orchid florets carefully
accent the yellow button chrysanthemums. The White
Rabbit found himself escorted down the parade route
with fur made of white carnations and shredded coconut
flakes.

Also, around Alice and friends, you'll see mushrooms
made of natural lunaria pods, dehydrated oranges, limes
and lemons with spots of solid hot pink Preve
roses,oversized Canterbury Bells of yellow strawflower
petals and sculptured thistles, consisting of over 7,000
stems of liatris which sit amid old-fashioned English
country gardens of delphiniums, snapdragons, larkspur,
peony, lilies and cabbage roses. Of course the entire float

15

has more than 30,000 flowers of 14 varieties
intermingled throughout the gardens, while rambling
rose vines complete the gardens in this whimsical
storybook setting."

A propos de rien, the National Geographic for June 1954
has a photo of that year's Alice float in that year's
Tournament of Roses parade.

The Grinning Cheshire Cat: But this puss was no Lewis
Carroll creation

Mark Be van

Reprinted in full with the kind permission of "The
Cheshire Magazine" at www.cheshiremagazine.com/.

"It vanished quite slowly, beginning with the end of the tail,
and ending with the grin, which remained some time after
the rest of it had gone."

Lewis Carroll did not invent the enigmatic Cheshire Cat.
Sorry! Please don't feel disillusioned, for the truth of the
origin of the Cheshire Cat pays a greater tribute to the
scholarship of the Rev. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson than to
the imagination of his alter ego, the children's writer.

Born in 1 832, Charles grew up in what was then the isolated
small country village of Daresbury, where his father began
his career as curate. The elder Dodgson was himself no mean
scholar, becoming in later life Archdeacon of Richmond
and a Canon of Ripon.

As the eldest son of a family of eleven, Charles showed an
early aptitude for amusing small children. He devised games,
and edited a series of family magazines to which all his
brothers and sisters were expected to contribute.

Painfully shy, with a stammer, deaf in one ear, and with few
friends outside his family, the young Dodgson was a
voracious reader and academically brilliant.

Picture this quiet, studious, but fun-loving boy devouring
the ancient books in his father's library. Was it here that he
first became familiar with the tale of the disappearing
Cheshire Cat?

The story begins with the eleventh century Earl of Chester,
Hugh Lupus, a nephew of William the Conqueror, Hugh 'the
Wolf, a very big man, was also known as Hugh 'the fat'.

Hugh Lupus bore as his coat of arms a wolf's head, jaws
open and teeth bared. He had this symbol of authority, given
to him by his royal uncle as a reward for his services,

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displayed all over the conquered Cheshire countryside.

Medieval provincial artists had a somewhat primitive
drawing technique, and his noble emblem soon debased to a
pale imitation of the original. The snarl of the wolf began to
resemble a grin. Defeated Saxon peasants were quick to call
their new master's badge 'Fat Hugh's Cat.'

Fat Hugh the Wolf had no son. Both his Cheshire estates
and the family tendency to obesity were inherited by his
nephew Gilbert, also known by a nickname - Le Gros
Veneur, 'the Fat Hunter'.

Gilbert Le Grosvenor took as his arms the devise azure a
bend or. That is a gold diagonal stripe on a blue background,
a fairly simple badge, as were most early examples of
heraldry. It was quite common then for two or more families
to have very similar coats of arms but, providing they lived
some distance from each other, no confusion would arise.

As heraldry became more complicated and more people
became entitled to display their own devices the system was
formalised and regulated by the Court of Chivalry.

It was in 1389 that Sir Robert Grosvenor of Hulme fell foul
of the Court of Chivalry when Sir Richard Scrope, Baron of
Bolton, won the exclusive rights to the arms azure a bend
or. The Grosvenors were required to find an alternative.

"I have just the thing," says Sir Robert (or words to that
effect). "I shall take as my arms those of my illustrious
ancestors the Earls of Chester, the Grasvenor family."

Spelling, you will notice, was another medieval art still to
be perfected.

Indeed that is what Sir Robert did. He took as his arms the
golden wheatsheaf, not the wolf's head, 'Fat Hugh's Cat'.

And so it was, because our ancestors could neither draw
nor spell, the embodied grin of the Cheshire cat finally,
accidentally, disappeared 600 years ago.

A Godley Crew

The following is a letter to the editor of the Times Literary
Supplement which appeared in the June '01 issue, and is
reprinted with the kind permission of its author.

Sir, — Pauline Hunter Blair's article ("The Baker's tale",
March 2) on a possible source for The Hunting of the Snark,
and for the Walrus in Through the Looking-Glass, by Lewis
Carroll, is entirely plausible [reported in KL 66, p.21]. The
young Charles Lutwidge Dodgson would surely have known

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16

about the career of his distant uncle Admiral Skeffington
Lutwidge — a portrait of whom by the American painter
Gilbert Stuart ( 1 755- 1 828) hangs in the Ponce Art Museum,
Puerto Rico — and may very well have examined papers or
a log of his illustrious forebear's Arctic voyage. It is
unlikely, however, that Carroll published Lieutenant Floyd's
log of the voyage, as Ms Hunter Blair suggests he might
have done. We have no record in Carroll's diaries or letters
of such a publication, and it was not Carroll's practice to
conceal any serious publication he was involved in.

Other influences on The Hunting of the Snark, moreover,
present themselves, and Mavis Batey called a likely one to
my attention recently. This tale begins with John Robert
Godley, born in Ireland in 1814 and educated at Harrow and
Christ Church, Oxford. Early on he became interested in
colonial emigration and, during his Oxford years, dreamed
of establishing a colonial settlement based not on refugee
or convict labour but on a plan for a community of emigrants
with developed skills and a strong Anglican motivation.
Creating a college was an integral part of the scheme. Later,
together with another expert on colonial emigration, Edward
Gibbon Wakefield, he did in fact establish and, for a number
of years, ran a Church of England settlement for emigrants
at New Canterbury in New Zealand. He named the New
Canterbury settlement Christ Church, after his Oxford
college. The Canterbury Association, the name taken by the
organization backing the venture, enlisted fifty-three
distinguished persons to support the project, thirty from
Oxford, no fewer than seventeen of them from Christ
Church. Among them was Charles Thomas Longley, Bishop
of Ripon, an old friend and fellow student of Lewis Carroll's
father, then serving as examining chaplain to Longley.

On July 30, 1850, the Canterbury Association gave a
breakfast, celebrating the Canterbury Pilgrims, as the
emigrants were called, aboard the Randolph, one of the ships
they would sail on, at East India Dock, Blackwall. The
breakfast was attended by "from 200 to 300 ladies and
gentlemen", and the "London Tavern" and the Coldstream
Guards provided "elegant entertainment", which was
followed by "speeches full of hope and promise".

On September 1, an "immense body of persons" attended a
special service at St Paul's Cathedral in honour of the
Pilgrims and heard a sermon by the Archbishop of
Canterbury. Two days later, the Association gave a leave-
taking dinner at Gravesend, and on the following day, "at
about half-past six o'clock" in the morning, the colonists
set sail on their perilous journey from Plymouth.

The Pilgrims included a well-known Oxford printer, twenty
teachers, a surveyor, carpenters, farmers, mechanics,
dressmakers, "graduates", a bishop designate and healthy
labourers. The ships they sailed carried the elements of a
college, the contents of a public library, the machinery for
a bank and plans for a constitutional government. The
settlement was established, flourished; within a year it had

its own newspaper and could boast a visit from the Dean of
Christ Church, Oxford, who went out to celebrate the
successful founding and progress of the settlement (The
Times, July 31, September 2, 3 and 5, 1850).

Three and a half months before the pilgrims left England,
on May 23, Lewis Carroll, aged eighteen, matriculated at
Christ Church, Oxford. In 1873, the year before he wrote
The Hunting of the Snark, he was serving on the Governing
Body of his college when it celebrated the completion of a
cathedral college at New Canterbury. It is surely not far-
fetched to believe that the reports of this remarkable group
and their journey to New Zealand contributed something to
Carroll's eccentric crew and the voyage to Snarkland.

Sources and influences are elusive birds, seldom amenable
to capture. Both Pauline Hunter Blair's Arctic voyage and
the New Zealand Pilgrims very possibly played their part in
shaping the Snark. But we can be no more certain of the
true sources of the longest nonsense poem in the English
language than we can be of that last line that popped into
Carroll's mind as he walked over the Surrey Downs. For the
Snark was a Boojum. You see?

Morton N. Cohen

For further information, see an "Overview of the
Canterbury Settlement, Colonists, Emigrants and the
Canterbury Association 's First Four Ships ", which can
be found at www.tp2000.org.nz/groups/heritage/
1 50th Celebrations/Overview, htm.

&mmm

Nothing is yet cast in stone/ but it looks as if

our Fall 2002 meeting will be in "Everybody's

Favorite City", San Francisco, and will

feature a visit to SFMoMA where the

"Symbolic Logic: The Photographs of

Lewis Carroll" exhibit will be on.

The curator, Doug Nickel, will also be

one of our speakers.

17

Ravings from the Writing Desk
Of Stephanie Lovett

The LCSNA has never had a home of its own. Our mailing
address has always been the home of the then-current
secretary, and though we have looked into having a permanent
address, it seems that would cause more problems than it
would solve. These days we can be said to live at
www.lewiscarroll.org, which has been wonderful for routing
news and information, and has made it much easier for the
rest of the world to contact us. Still, we do also exist as an
organization in three dimensions — our members, our books,
our Knight Letters, and all the artifacts of our 28 years. As
a group of members, the organization might be said to flicker
into existence like Brigadoon twice a year. As a legacy of
publications, files, and artifacts, though, the LCSNA lives
in attics, file cabinets, bookshelves, and various dusty
corners all over the world.

Now, however, we have a home, a landmark development
for the LCSNA. It's not an office for doing the business of
the society — that will always be the desks of the many
officers, editors, and chairpersons who give so much of their
time. It will be a place you can actually visit, though, which
is part of the point. New York University (downtown) has
agreed to accept our archives and to accession, catalogue,
and store them. Thanks to the efforts of August Imholtz, the
records of our business, copies of our publications,
correspondence, and documents from our various doings
will no longer be scattered, incognito and inaccessible, but
will be catalogued and available for anyone to use. As was
the case with our twentieth-anniversary booklet of 1999,
this is an ideal time in the life of the Society to capture
these things, before so much time has passed that they
become irretrievable, lost among people's personal papers.
Once the archive is established, we will have a precedent
for what to keep track of and add in the future.

August will be soliciting those he thinks might have the
necessary papers and so on languishing in their files and
under their beds, but our archives will be all the more
comprehensive if all of the membership will pause in their
spring cleaning to rummage in the backs of desk drawers
and look for things that represent important doings of the
LCSNA, such as correspondence about the development of
a publication, drafts of documents, letters to and from
speakers at meetings, and so on. Contact August
(imholtz99@atlantech.net) about your materials, and with
questions about what is suitable for the archives. NYU has
been a gracious host to us for meetings and private research
in the Berol Collection, and Fales Librarian Marvin Taylor
has been most welcoming and supportive of this effort.

The other candidate for being thought of as the home of the
LCSNA is Princeton University, because it was there that
the society had its founding meeting in 1974. We have
returned several times since, including our tenth- and
twentieth-anniversary meetings. I hope that you will all give
consideration to joining us in Princeton this April 13th for

the Spring meeting, when we will hearing from a composer
inspired by Memoria Technica, at least one distinguished
scholar, and the team at Princeton University Press who just
produced Lewis Carroll: Photographer. You will enjoy
seeing the town and campus, and you will be present for the
donation of a rare book from the LCSNA to the Parrish
Collection in honor of our longtime friend there, the late
Alexander Wainwright. Since our last visit there in 1994,
the Firestone Library now also houses the Cotsen Children's
Library, and curator Andrea Immel, who has been our host
in arranging this meeting, will be bringing our day in
Princeton to a close with a reception for us. All in all, a day
for remembering old friends along Memory Lane, and for
learning new things and making new Princetonian friends.

Serendipity

Lo, like a Cheshire cat our court will grin.

Peter Pindar
Pair of Lyric Epistles (1795)

Where other trav'lers, fraught with terror,

roam
Lo! Bruce in Wonder-land is quite at home.

ditto
"Complete Epistle" to James Bruce (1812)

[The satirist John Wolcott (1 738-1819) wrote under the
nom de plume of Peter Pindar. James Bruce (1730-1794)
of Kinnaird was known for his sojourns in Abyssinia.]

For it is here that Fantasy with her mystic
wonderland plays into the small prose
domain of Sense, and becomes incorporated
therewith.

Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881)

Sartor Resartus: The Life and Opinions of

Herr Teufelsdrockh(l83l)

I always thought even as a child that
Wonderland and Looking-Glass Land were not
the same place but neighbouring kingdoms
which share a common boarder.

Deborah Caputo
in the Yahoo Lewis Carroll eGroup

[Though unintentionally "uttered", Deb has shown her
customary sense of humour in allowing us to reprint it.]

18

From Dor ratc-fiom<}<

Books

Great Comic Cats (revised edition) by
Malcolm Whyte, Pomegranate Press,
contains several chapters on Victorian
book and magazine illustrations, and
features Cheshire Puss prominently. 0-
7649-1737-4. $25 paper; $45 signed
limited edition hardcover, available at
www.word-play.com/books/cats.html.

The distinguished Dutch translator and
critic Nicolaas Matsier has published
Journaal van een reis naar Rusland
in 1867, the first Dutch translation of
CLD's journal of his trip to Russia.
Hoogland & Van Klaveren. 90 76347
1 31.

Another Dutch Snark has just appeared
in print: Henri Ruizenaar, De jacht op
de Snark: Een doodsstrijd in 8 stuip-
trekkingen. Includes annotations by
Mr. Ruizenaar and illustrations by Jan
te Wierik. 90 76837 03 1.

Markus Lang's Finnish Carroll
anthology Kirjeitd lapsiystdville ja
muita kirjoituksia, EUR 6. Unusual
material: letters, the Russian journal,
etc. Contact the publisher, loki-
kirjat@lokikirjat.com; www.lokikirjat.
com/carrkirj.html.

What seems at first an odd idea, Stamp-
ing Through Mathematics: An Illus-
trated History of Mathematics
Through Stamps by Robin J. Wilson
(Springer, 2001), 0387989 498, takes
its name from Ernest Rutherford's
quotation "All science is either physics
or stamp collecting". The chapter on
"The Liberation of Algebra" mentions
Dodgson's contribution and displays
the Mali postage stamp. Apparently the
pairing is not such an unpopular one:
Philomath: A Journal of Mathe-
matical Philately is published
quarterly by a society devoted to the
cause! See www.math.ttu.edu/msu/
generalinfo.html.

Lisbeth Zwerger's illustrated The
Wizard ofOz and Alice in Wonderland
have been combined into a boxed set.
$30. North South Books; 0735813426.
Regrettable.

Corregponclenfe

Quotable Alice, compiled and edited
by David W. Barber, Quotable Books
(Canada), $15 paperback. A
compendium of the best-known lines
from the canon. 0-920151-52-3.

Into the Looking-Glass Wood: Essays
on books, reading, and the world by
Alberto Manguel, Harcourt, 0-15-
601265-0. A collection of articles
with all-Alician chapter-heading
quotes, but mainly of interest is the title
essay, on his experiences reading and
re-reading the Alice books.

Byron Sewell's latest publication
Alina's Adventures under the Land of
Enchantment, Storkling Press, 2001,
"a Christmas fable... equally derived
from A W and another story I wrote a
number of years ago, entitled
Tucumcari [NM] Dreams. The latter
was a fanciful retelling of family
history and legend." Available only on
floppy disk, with permission to print
two hardcopies.

R.J. Trudeau in his book The Non-
Euclidean Revolution, 1987, reprin-
ted by Birkhauser, 2001, includes and
comments on work by Lewis Carroll.
"Trudeau's assessments are very
positive." ~ Fran Abeles.

Alice in Blunderland by Scott Adams
is a miniature book of Dilbert cartoons
featuring Alice, who works in his
office. Andrews and McMeel. $5.
0836274792.

Understanding 'Alice', from the
minimag press, $1, 814 Robinson
Road, Topanga CA 90290.

Sarah Ellis' From Reader to Writer:
Teaching Writing Through Classic
Children s Books, Groundwood, 200 1 .
'"...Librarians will be thrilled with the
connections that can be made from the
books cited and unique ways to
introduce their authors' including
Lewis Carroll. I'm ordering this for the
Arne Nixon Center." ~ Angelica
Carpenter. $15. 0888994400.
19

Dr. B. Ekbal, Professor of Neuro-
surgery and Vice-Chancellor of Kerala
University in India, is writing a book
on migraine in literature in which he
devotes a chapter to "Alice's growing,
shrinking, and finding distorted body
parts — all classic symptoms of non-
classic migraine."

Jostein Gaarder's 1997 bestseller
Sophia's World, A Novel About the
History of Philosophy, tr. from the
Norwegian by Paulette Moller, was
described by Time as "a modern TTLG"
and she literally (literarily?) visits
Alice et al. in the chapter devoted to
Soren Kierkegaard.

Monica Edinger noted several books
for younger readers involving
productions of AW plays: the series
"The Kids in Ms. Colman's Class" by
Ann M. Martin contains #3 Class Play
(1996); her series "The Baby-Sitters
Club" has #121 Abby in Wonderland
(1998); also Alice Whipple in
Wonderland (1989) by Laurie Adams
and Allison Coudert.

Uncle Albert and the Quantum Quest
by Russell Stannard (1994) In the third
installment of this series explaining
physics to 10-15 year olds, Uncle
Albert (loosely, Einstein) transports
his niece Gedanken via a Thought
Bubble into a quantum Wonderland
where Alice and the White Rabbit set
her straight. Faber & Faber, 057117
3446.

Who Betrays Elizabeth Bennet? by
John Sutherland, Oxford University
Press (0-19-283884-9) contains a set
of 34 puzzles regarding details in
classic 19* century novels, including
the title mystery (from Pride and
Prejudice) and "How long is Alice in
Wonderland for?", in which she
believes (owing to clues about seasonal
changes) that Alice has actually slept
some three months into autumn and
wakened an adolescent instead of the
child who went to sleep. ~ Ruth Berman

In the latest work published by Yale
polymath Professor Harold Bloom,
Stories and Poems for Extremely

Intelligent Children (Scribner,
$27.50), Lewis Carroll has the largest
number of selections, eight, of any
single author. Furthermore, Harold's
latest crusade is against J.K. Rowling's
Harry Potter novels in favor of
literature like Alice. See also the item
in Media, below.

Kirsten Boie's Der durch den Spiegel
kommt, published by Otinger, Hamburg,
presents a new Looking-Glass-based
narrative of a girl who goes through a
mirror to new, somewhat unsettling
adventures. For children. 3789131458.

Articles

Nina M. Demurova's brilliant article
"On the Degrees of Freedom:
Translations of Lewis Carroll's Poem
The Hunting of the Snark" [title
translated from the Russian] appears in
AjibManax nepeeodnuxa (Almanach
Perevodchika) Moscow: Russian State
Humanistic University, 2001. 5-7281-
0306-5. She compares several trans-
lators' versions of identical Snark
passages and astutely evaluates their
success, www.mkniga.msk.su/nk/nk99-
12.htm.

The Lion and the Unicorn, Vol. 15 No.
3, September '01, reviews Robin
Allan's Walt Disney and Europe,
Joseph Zornado's Inventing the Child,
and Bjorn Sundmark's Alice's
Adventures in the Oral-Literary
Continuum, all of which feature AW.

The New York Times, 30 September '01
"From a Child of Tradition, A New Ap-
proach to Ibsen" discusses actress Kate
Burton's life and work, including her
AW on Broadway with her father,
Richard.

In Paper Collectors ' Marketplace,
January '02, Vol. 20 No.l, the cover
feature "The Remarkable World of
AW reviews the collectibles, sou-
venirs, novelties, "momentos" [sic],
ephemera, and memorabilia associated
with the works.

The October issue of Book Source
Monthly has a rarely reproduced
photograph of Alice, Ina and Edith on
the cover. The picture is often
attributed to CLD, but may not be his
work.

"Welcome to Wonderland: From Alice
to Scarlett O'Hara, millions of
masterpieces reside at UT" in the
Austin [TX] American-Statesman,
February 17, 2002, the first of a three
installments discussing the Harry
Ransom Center at U.T.Austin, opens
with our own Alan Tannenbaum lusting
after the "India Alice".

Narrative Analysis of a Fairy Tale in
Application to Relational Psycho-
therapy: A Critical Review is a fairly
recent, 2000, dissertation by Cheryl
Ann Raczynski in which she analyzes
AW and several other texts according
to narrative analysis theory, narrative
therapy approach, and narrative-
constructionist theory. The therapist,
she argues, through use of the
metaphorical, allegorical, or analog-
ical, can pierce defenses and explore
patterns problematic to the clients. The
therapist thus becomes a co-con-
structor fashioning a more helpful
version of reality. Like Wonderland.

"Sindrome de Alicia en el Pais de las
Maravillas asociado a infeccion por
el virus de Epstein-Barr" (AW syn-
drome due to Epstein-Barr) by C.
Perez Mendez et al. in Anales Espah-
oles de Pediatrica, June 2001, vol. 54,
no. 6, recommends that children pre-
senting a clinical picture consistent
with the syndrome should undergo
serological testing for Epstein-Barr
virus infection.

Katie Roiphe, defending her depiction
of Carroll in her novel Still She Haunts
Me, says in The Guardian, Oct. 29,
2001, says that "there is a nobility in
(Carroll's) self-restraint so forceful
that it spews out stuttering tortoises and
talking chess pieces." One perhaps
wishes there had been a bit more
restraint in her novel. Online at http://
books.guardian.co.uk/departments/
classics/story/0, 6000, 582828, 00.
html. According to a Nov. 4, 2001
report in the Providence Journal-Bul-
letin, it was while teaching Victorian
children's literature at Princeton that
Roiphe became interested in Dodg-
son's complicated relationship with
Alice Liddell. Parrish the thought.

20

A fascinating article bringing modern
mathematical thinking to bear on one
of Carroll's problems is "Lewis
Carroll's Obtuse Problem" by R. Falk
and E. Samuel-Cahn in Teaching
Statistics, 2001, vol. 23, no. 3. Not for
the obtuse.

Sanjay Sircar reviews Ronald
Reichertz's The Making of the Alice
Books: Lewis Carroll's Uses of
Earlier Children 's Literature in the
Children's Literature Association
Quarterly, 2001, vol. 26, no. 2, pp.
101-103. In the same issue, Jan Susina
offers a new construction to the
famous riddle in his article "Why Is a
Raven Like a Writing-Desk? : The Play
of Letters in Lewis Carroll's Alice
Books".

Carolyn Sigler reviews the biographies
of Lewis Carroll in her article "Was the
Snark a Boojum: One Hundred Years
of Lewis Carroll Biographies" in
Children's Literature, 2001, vol. 29.

An attempt to place Carroll's classic
work in the tradition of the search for
a lost paradise is made by H. Graf in
iilHier sind alle verruckV: Lewis
Carroll oder die Suche nach dem
verlorenen Parodies" in Merkur,

2000, vol. 54, no. 12.

In a long article in The Guardian, Nov.
30, 2001, British critic Francis
Spofford picks the ten best children's
stories ever written. The two Alice
books together come in second after
E. Nesbit's The Story of the Amulet.
Why second place? Spofford says "The
idea of childhood here is dead as a
doornail, the disquieting undertones are
quite real, and the parody poems have
all outlasted their originals. But still
Alice's adventures transport readers as
no other books can to the strange
borderland where logic and dream
meet, and leave minds altered,
stretched, enlarged and stocked forever
with our culture's touchstone moments
of surrealism."

The "Grammar Lady" column of the
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Nov. 30,

2001, on "portmanteau words" has the
following observation: "portmanteau
words, a term coined by ^-century

mathematician and author of children's
books Lewis Carroll. He has Humpty
Dumpty defined as 'two words in one
bag.'" [sic. Humpty may be portly but
hardly a portmanteau, unless of
course he wanted to be one. ]

A profile in the San Francisco
Chronicle, March 8, 2002, of "The
Mad Hatter", who makes those up-to-
eleven-foot-tall hats for the long-
running hit show "Beach Blanket
Babylon" and also collects hats,
reveals his real name to be. ..Alan
Greenspan. Which might explain the
present state of the economy.

The Rev. David Stuart-Smith claims in
The Times of Dec. 1, 2001, that John
Bunyan's Pilgrim 's Progress rather
than AW is the most widely translated
work after the Bible and Shakespeare.
The Bunyan Museum in Bedford holds
translations in 167 different languages.
How many are still read, we wonder?

Cyberspace

"Casebook: Jack the Ripper" lists CLD
as a suspect, www.casebook.org/
suspects/carroll.html. "In fact all
Wallace really succeeds in demon-
strating is that Dodgson used the same
alphabet as everyone else in the western
world, and that, therefore, his words
can be rearranged to make other words
- including rather rude ones about
ripping ladies open." Meanwhile, best-
selling crime novelist Patricia
Cornwall has been promoting her new
theory that Jack the Ripper was not
CLD, but rather the German-born
British painter Walter Sickert (1860-
1 942). http://books.guardian.co.uk/
news/articles/0,6 1 09,6 1 5448,00.html.

Jim Buch at www.angelfire.com/art2/
wonderland has some nice freeware —
Alice screensavers and wallpaper,
mostly Tenniel-based, but some rather
different — and, for sale, personalized
hardbound Tenniel-illustrated editions
of AW. "Personalized" means you can
get your edition of Lucy's Adventures
in Wonderland based on the name of a
girl. Accessible from the above or
www.youralicebook.com.

Lauren Harman's fine site on the illus-
trators (over 100!) has moved again:
http://laurenharman.tripod.com/alice.

Deke Rivers, a rather unmannerly
plonker, has put up "The World's Big-
gest AW Site" at http://groups. yahoo,
com/group/alicewonderland/.

There's a site devoted to soup, with our
hero quoted on the home page and a
recipe for Mock Turtle Soup at www.
soupsong.com.

"'Alice' is a functional programming
language based on Standard ML,
extended with support for concurrent,
distributed, and constraint program-
ming...'Alice' programs can therefore
interoperate with Oz." www.ps.uni-
sb.de/alice/.

A new online encyclopedia, which is
composed of reader submissions of
material — editable and expandable by
anyone — called Wikipedia (www.
wikipedia.com). You might want to
correct or expand the CLD entries.

Karoline Leach's article "The Real
Scandal: Lewis Carroll's Friendships
with Adult Women" published in the
(London) Times Literary Supplement
on 7 Feb '02.

Angelica Carpenter's home page at http:
//zimmer. csufresno.edu/~angelica/
discusses her forthcoming bio of
Carroll for children.

"The Snarking of the Hunt" by George
Kenealy at www.snarking.co.uk is "a
mathematical diversion for all who
delight in problem-solving!"

A bunch of nekkid hippies cavorting on
the Alice statue in Central Park in
1968, a photo by Yayoi Kusama, at
www.bombsite.com/archive/kusama/
portfolio/image 1 8.htm.

www.concordance.com/carroll.htm
contains searchable concordances of
AW and TTLG, as well as "Lewis
Carroll's Commentary on Victorian
English Society: Alice, Anti-Hero on
a Failed Quest" by Rachel Lawton. Also
fun stuff: the top 100 words by
frequency (A W: SAID, ALICE, VERY, LITTLE,
OUT, DOWN, UP, ABOUT, KNOW, LIKE, WENT,
HERSELF, AGAIN, THOUGHT, OFF, TIME,. . .);
a thesaurus, completion words, etc.

Gilbert Heatherwick's "Dreams for
Alice" musical and CD [KL 63, p.2] has
a website at www.gilberthetherwick.
com/alice.php.

Need to know how to fold a "press hat"
(such as the Carpenter's) out of a
newspaper? See the Minnesota News-
paper Museum at www.mnnewspaper
net.org/MNFMuseum/presshat.htm.

Our webmaster Joel Birenbaum has
seeded the "Lewis Carroll and His
Religion" site on the LC Home Page
(www.lewiscarroll.org/carroll.html)
with a subset of comments made by
persons on the Yahoo eGroup "Lewis
Carroll" list, and some helpful links.

William Osborne's Alice Through the
Looking-Glass, a "family opera for
chamber orchestra and singers" at
www.osborne-conant.org/alice.htm.

A "moving" version of a verse from the
"Walrus & Carpenter" at www.home.
zonnet.nl/AAvanZwol/walrus/towalrus.
htm# plays visual games with the text
and has a sonic background of a
seashore.

An unabridged, dramatic audio
production of AW in RealAudio™ from
Ohio U, featuring the "Wired for
Books Players" at http://wiredfor
books.org/alice/.

An invisible Red Queen and God as a
donut: http://users.erinet.com/355 1 II
jqueen.htm.

A list of Japanese books inspired by
Lewis Carroll: www.hp-alice.com/lce/
alicebook.html. In English.

"Lemmawocky" at www.jaworski.co.
uk/m 13/ 13_lemmawocky.html seems
to be proving something. But what?

A bookplate for the Cleveland Public
Library's LC room was designed by
Paul Kucharyson under the WPA:
www.cwru.edu/UL/preserve/WPA/
KuchBookAl.htm.

A fine portal for Disney's "Alice
Comedies" with valuable links on the
subject: www.multiliteracy.com/
persist/28. html.

An Aussie gal's collection is on view
at http://alicedu.tripod.com/.

21

Portuguese ceramicist Elisabete
Gomes fine AW and other work for
Disney at www.the-magic-carpet.net/
gomes/.

Lore Fitzgerald Sjoberg has humor-
ously rated all the Alice characters at
www.brunching.com/ratings/rate-
alice.html.

If you remember "MadLibs" you might
enjoy the Alice "CrazyLib" at http://
rinkworks.eom/crazylibs/c/c3.shtml.

A gorgeous guitar with over 80 inlays
of the Alice characters at www.bloom
ington.in.us/~wolfie/alice.html.

Anyone seeking a nice simple expla-
nation of the solution of the "Red Shift
Code" (KL 56 p. 8-9) can see one at
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~xeno
phon/code.html.

"Advice from an Arthropod", a fantas-
tic sand sculpture http://indigo.ie/~am
monite/Advice.htm.

An art exhibition "Alice in Wild Land"
by Israeli liana Raviv at www.israelart
guide.co.il/raviv/exhibition/invita
tionl.html.

Media

National Public Radio's Renee Mon-
tagne talked with Harold Bloom about
his new book Stories and Poems for
Extremely Intelligent Children of All
Ages, on December 27th, '01 and
discussed AW. You can get a cassette
or transcript from www.npr.org.

Antiques Roadshow UK broadcast on
Oct. 6 (show #101) was from the
Victoria and Albert Museum and was
reputed to have some CLD letters.

Aerosmith's recent video for the song
"Sunshine" uses an AW theme.

The NBC show "Providence" which
aired on May 12, 2000 was called "Syd
in Wonderland" and made good on its
title.

North Korea, on its state-run Central
Broadcasting Station, began showing
for the first time a series of cartoons
from the West. On Oct. 27, 2001, the
series began with the Disney AW. The
Korea Times in the South observed on
Nov. 6 that "it is not known via which

channel North Korea imported the
rights to air the books."

The American Museum of the Moving
Image, located in Queens, New York,
presented a series of Alice films Dec.
22-3 1 , 200 1 . Beginning with the 1 933
Paramount AW, the series included:
Disney's 1923-26 Alice cartoons -
"Alice's Wonderland," "Alice Gets
Stung," "Alice's Fishy Story," "Alice's
Wild West Show," "Alice's Spooky
Adventure," "Alice's Mysterious
Mystery," "Alice Stage Struck," and
"Alice Chops the Suey", all of which,
in the words of the program announce-
ment, were "more inspired by rival
animators Max Fleischer and Otto
Mesmer than by Lewis Carroll". Both
1951 films, the Lou Bunin and the
Disney, were also shown as were the
Svankmajer and "Dreamchild." Your
present KL editor was quoted in a New
York Times article on Dec. 9, 2001 on
the then-upcoming film festival.

Performances Noted

The Lantern Theatre Company of
Philadelphia performed a new
interpretation of TTLG at St. Stephen's
Theater, Oct. 1 2 through Nov. 1 1 , 200 1 ,
adapted for the stage and directed by
Dugald MacArthur.

American composer Lorraine
Levender Whittlesey's intriguing com-
position on Lewis Carroll's "Memoria
Technica" was performed at Goucher
College in Baltimore, Maryland, on
Nov. 5,2001.

A performance of "Jabberwocky"
opened the holiday season on Nov. 23,
2001, in Hartford, Connecticut.

The Marriott Theatre for Young
Audiences presented a lavish new
adaptation of AW with music and lyrics
by Dyanne Early and Phil Orem, in Lin-
colnshire IL, Nov. 28 through Dec. 29,
2001.

Southeastern Louisiana University's
Department of Music and Dramatic
Arts presented AW in early December,
200 1 , in an adaptation by Anne Coulter
Martens.

The Young Men's and Young Women's
Hebrew Association of North Jersey

22

presented in Bergen, New Jersey on
Dec. 16, 2001, a musical adaptation of
Alice called "Winter Wonderland" in
which a modern-day Alice cannot
accept the fact that some of her friends
celebrate other holidays such as
Hanukkah and Kwaanza.

Puppetwork's AW Jan 5 - March 12,
'02, weekends in Brooklyn, NY.

In the Starr Foster Dance Project's
Alice, "the King of Hearts is a nerd,
complete with a pocket protector, the
White Rabbit is black, and the
caterpillar is oily and sleazy and wears
fishnet from neck to ankle". Grace
Street Theatre, Richmond, VA. Feb. 28-
Mar. 2.

AW, through March 10. Theatre Com-
pany at Hubbard Hall, Cambridge, NY.

Exhibitions

"Symbolic Logic: The Photographs of
Lewis Carroll" will be up at San
Francisco MoMA from August 3rd to
November 10th, 2002. It then goes to
the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston
(Feb. 22nd - May 26th, '03), the Inter-
national Center for Photography in
New York (June 16th to Sept. 7th) then
perhaps to the Art Institute of Chicago.

"Alice's Wonderland" at the Children's
Discovery Museum in San Jose (www.
cdm.org) opened 02/02/02 (one hopes
at 02:02:02 p.m.!). Partially sponsored
by the National Science Foundation, it
"makes science exploration fun for
kids" while they study shadows in a
Pool of Tears, experiment with
densities at a Tea Party, and so on. The
exhibit will travel, and is booked
through 2006.

The stained glass window of Alice and
the Duchess at Yale University's
Sterling Memorial Library is visible at
www.library.yale.edu/humanities/
english/glass.html.

The statue of Alice stepping out of a
book at the Carthage (MO) public
library can be seen at http://carthage.
lib.mo.us/alice.jpg.

North Hollywood artist Mahara T.
Sinclaire's AW murals were on display
at Mt. San Jacinto College Fine Art
Gallery, San Jacinto, CA through Feb.
23, 2002.

Auctions

The prototype of James Bissel-
Thomas' Alice globe [KL 67 p. 24] sold
at Christies for £3,000.

At an auction held on Nov. 20 and 21,
2001, at Burgersdijk & Niermans in
Leiden, The Netherlands, a collection
of Dutch and other Alices brought Fl
650,000. www.b-n.nl, catalog 314.

On Dec. 13, 2001, a previously un-
known seven-page Carroll letter to
Ethel Moberly Bell was expected to
bring £20,000 to 30,000. Dr. Peter
Beal of Sotheby's said the letter
contained Carroll's "most explicit
expression of his sense of the loss of
innocence entailed in what elsewhere
he called 'the transition.'"

Places

Alice's Tea Cup, "a whimsical new tea
salon and emporium" in the words of
the New York Times of Dec. 19, 2001,
recently opened at 102 West 73rd
Street in New York. More than 100
varieties of tea are offered along with
soups, salads, sandwiches, snacks, and
an assortment of "theme-gifts", as they
are now called, including "Drink Me"
salt and pepper shakers, Mad Hatter tea
pots, etc. Member Janet Jurist
pronounced it "delightful" on a recent
visit. Warning: if you order coffee, it
will be served in a mug with the word
"loser" on it.

In a recent visit to the Weaver
Collection at the wonderful Harry
Ransom Humanities Research Center
at the University of Texas at Austin,
August Imholtz learned that Weaver
kept on his desk two volumes from
Lewis Carroll's library: Carroll's copy
of the Greek New Testament and his
Book of Common Prayer.

Things

"The Crazy AW Game" from Price
Stern Sloan $6, 0-8431-7499-4, is a
picture-matching puzzle for the six-
and-up crowd.

Mimi's Furniture Creations carries
custom-made AW finery, including a
treasure box ($325), a Humpty Dumpty
lamp ($58-$78), bookends ($42) and

are happy to customize other items.
www.mimisfurniture.com; 623.566.
2725; 20329 N. 59th Ave, A2; Glen-
dale, AZ 85308; mimi@mimisfurni
ture.com.

Disney "Storybook Ornament Sets"
include AW, $32.

Griffin Rogers or Roger Griffin reads
"Nonsense Stories" by LC on CD from
"CDBaby". $13. www.cdbaby.com/cd/
jabberwocky; cdbaby@cdbaby.com;
800.448.6369; 5925 NE 80th Ave,
Portland, OR 97218.

The "Someplace In Time: Purveyors of
Victorian Wares" catalog offers much
AW, including some nice tea sets.
www.someplaceintime.com; 800.366.
0600.

Terry Gilliam's first solo directing
effort "Jabberwocky" (1977) has been
released on DVD, as has Richard Bur-
ton's 1983 Broadway revival of Eva Le
Gallienne's adaptation.

U.K. expat Sas Christian's painting of
Alice and the WR "Amandaland" can be
seen at www.hotboxdesigns.com/
NewFiles/Arto f_Sas_Christian.html.
Although the original has been sold,
you can order digital prints for $20.

Young folksinger Maria Papadopolou's
new CD "In A Secret World" (in Greek)
from Warner Music, WEA 8573
88737 2, features AW artwork by
Antony Glikos.

British actress Patricia Routledge
reads an unabridged AW, Cover to
Cover books, 1 85549 278. £7 on
cassette, www.covertocover.co.uk.

Danny Kaye's rendition of Disney's
song "I'm Late" is available on the CD
"The Best of Danny Kaye". There are
several CDs with this title; you'll want
the MCA one.

Hantel's hand-painted pewter
miniatures "with novel movement" at
£28 apiece from Greenwich
Collectibles at www.greenwichcollect
abIes.com/shop/page23.htm or 3/4
Nelson Road, Greenwich, London
SE10 9JB, U.K.; 01 1 44 20 8858 33 1 1 ;
info@greenwichcollectables.com.

A soft plaid one-of-a-kind vest of the
Queen of Hearts ($350) BJ's Studio,
17305 Monterey Road, Morgan Hill,
CA 95037; 408.778.7550; brucebj@
webtv.net.

Great Jabberwock quilt at www.susan
chapman.com/quilts/jabberwock/jab
berwock.html.

Hand-sculpted Mad Hatter teapot
($400) www.ezzellstudios.com/
ceramics/mhatl.htm or Ezzell Studios,
Hood River, OR 97031; 541.387.
5371; Kent@EzzellStudios. com.

Matted prints, gift enclosure cards,
note cards, notepads, trading cards,
bookplates, bookmarks, party
invitations, stationery, envelopes and
postcards of non-Tenniel Alice
illustrators. Story-Lovers 877.996.
7007; bubbul@vom.com; www.story-
lovers.com/alicecategory.html

Stained glass Cheshire Cat
"SunCatcher", 5" x 7", $30; www.
stainedglassmagic.com/sun_catchers
_cheshire.html; 800.218.6185; Con-
tois Reynolds Studio, 1501 Trace
Creek Road, Hamlin WV 25523;
conreyn@stained glassmagic.com;
800.218.6185 Orders; 304.824.5651
Inquiries.

Hand sewn, soft-form sculptures, set
of five, $315; www.puppetartists.com/
story book_htm/al ice_2.htm; 6930 Nez
Perce Road, Darby MT 59829;
888.746.2438; puppets@puppet
artists.com.

Timeworks 13" AW clock with
pendulum, from Kings River Gifts,
39421 RD. 36, Kingsburg, CA 93631;
sales@kingsrivermall.com;
www.kingsrivermall.com/storytime/
alicein.htm; 559.260.0776.

Many Tenniel needlepoint patterns (£7)
from "SewAndSew"; www.sewandso.
co.uk/ran591-0.html; 1453.752022;
salesteam@sewandso.co.uk.

Kirk's Folly has AW-themed picture
frames ($60, $156), a watch ($103),
earrings ($9), necklace ($45), bracelet
($40). 401.941.4300. 236 Chapman
St., Providence, RJ 02905. www.kirks
folly.com; customerservice@kirks
folly.com. Or the QVC channel!

23

Five different Mary Myers nutcrackers,
roughly $150 apiece. 800.244.2197.
kris@christmasinternational.com;
www.christmasinternational.com/nut
cracker/marymyers.html (scroll down
to bottom of page for "Wonderland").

Mezco toys' "Scary Tales" series has a
rather grown-up Alice (both Caucasian
and Afro-American versions are avail-
able), a creepy White Rabbit, and a
frighteningly mad Hatter; www.
mezco.net; wherever action figures are
sold.

Australian artist Meg Brooks' unique
sculptures of "Alice and the Cook", and
others ($860 in terra-cotta; $320 in
hydrocal [gypsum]) www.coralcoast.
com/art/Meg.Brooks/; Coral Coast Art
Gallery, 1 9 Memory Boulevarde, Innes
Park, Bundaberg, Queensland, Australia
4670. (253)390-2519; artgallery@
coralcoast.com.

Kiki Smith's limited edition print of
the "Pool of Tears", intaglio and chine
colle, $2,000. Greg Kucera Gallery,
212 Third Avenue South, Seattle, WA
98104; 206.624.0770; info@gregku
cera.com; www.gregkucera.com/
smith.htm.

Valerie Schwader's hyper Cheshire Cat
is available as a postcard, notecard, or
iron-on transfer from dargenhara@
hotmail.com; http://dargenhara.tripod.
com/art.html; 1003 Jennings Street,
Bethlehem PA, 18017.

Printed canvas "re-creations" of Arthur
Rackham's suite of illos ($150) from
www.artmasterworks.com/g-alice.htm;
artist@artmasterworks.com

This one you need! A nine-foot tall, 550
lb. garden sculpture of Alice by Bruce
Friedle for $20,000. www.artdirectory.
com/featuredart/.

Prints of the White Rabbit and the
Gryphon (5"*8", $30). www.galaxy
mall.com/art/prints/gallery.html; pbx
market@yahoo.com; 310.322.2276;
PBX Marketing, 908 Lomita Street, El
Segundo, CA 90245.

Ann Cushing Gantz's portrait of Alice,
$1200 from www.artexasgallery.com/
Artists/Gantz/alice-liddell.htm; Bill
Cheek, 7802 Cornerstone Parkway,
Dallas, TX 75225; BillCheek@
ARTexasGallery.com; 214.750.9723.

"Alice Gets Her Kicks in Wonderland"
is a song, described as "bizarre but
pretty brilliant," on the most recent CD
from the band Entropy. It contains the
lyric "It's nice to see she's giving me/
her undivided mockery." Contact Glenn
Alexander - glenn@glenn53.fsnet.
co.uk.

^^aJrii.1? ..^■mn.w^,'.,,! .... rWn -,«,;• .„.. J- ^'a^-^j...^,.'... ^■^amw -iL

'Neo-surrealist" Norman Parker, a retired biology teacher, has been painting for nearly a half-century
and often uses Alician imagery. See www.normanparker.com.

For help in preparing this issue thanks are due to: Earl Abbe, Fran Abeles, Clark Allen, Ruth Berman, Joel Birenbaum,
Llisa Demetrios Burstein, Sandor Burstein, Angelica Carpenter, Monica Edinger, Devra Kunin, Alien Grossman,
Lauren Harman, August Imholtz, Clare Imholtz, Stephanie Lovett, Lucille Posner, Charles Stats, Alan Tannenbaum,
Alison Tannenbaum, Edward Wakeling, Cindy, Charlotte, and Nick Watter.

Knight Letter is the official newsletter of the Lewis Carroll Society of North America. It is published several times
a year and is distributed free to all members. Subscriptions, business correspondence, and inquiries should be addres-
sed to the Secretary, P.O.Box 204, Napa CA 94559. Annual membership dues are U.S. $20 (regular) and $50 (sustain-
ing). Submissions and editorial correspondence should be sent to the Editor, Box 2006, Mill Valley CA 94942.

President: Stephanie Lovett, uffish@earthlink.net Secretary: Cindy Watter, hedgehog@napanet.net

Vice-President and Knight Letter Editor: Mark Burstein, wrabbit@worldpassage.net

Lewis Carroll Society of North America Home Page: www.lewiscarroll.org

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