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THE LEWIS CARROLL SOCIETY

OF NORTH AMERICA

^TTV

Number IS

March 1981

1981 Dues Due!!

If you have not paid your 1981 dues, please send your $15 or $50 (see below) check payable to Lewis Carroll Society, 617 Rockford Road, Silver Spring, Maryland 20902.

May Meeting

Mark your calendar! Next meeting is FnV/aj, May 8. 1981 at Houghton Library, Harvard. Further details are below.

n "A loaf of bread" the Walrus said "Is what we chiefly need."

But out on Long Island, N. Y. at Roslyn's La Silhouette Restaurant on October 18, twenty-five membersand guests of the Society were dining in high style. After the meal a short walk brought this crew to the Bryant Library where the Fall meeting of the Society came to order with a motion for adjournment. After the confusion died down (some of the members wrote "importanf'and some "unimportant" on their slates), Mr. Martin Barooshian, whose prints have been displayed in such places as the N.Y. Museum of Modern Art, showed a number of his most interesting pictorial interpretations of the Alice stories. This was followed by Dr. Beverly Lyon Clark's scholarly talk entitled "Nabokov's Assault on Wonderland" (see Dr. Clark's abstract immediately following). Stan Marx then presented eight or nine wise words (no more, as time was running out) about Carroll collecting. He exhorted Carroll collectors to ignore his own example and to specialize in some facet of Carroll mania. The meeting ended with Stan leading us in White Rabbit style to his home where his fantastic collection was on display. The admiring membership thanked Diana and Stan for their hospitality and for all their help in making this a day to be marked with a white stone.

D Abstract of Dr. Clark's presentation.

Vladimir Nabokov's mature works are rather Carrollian in their word-play, their mirroring, their play with fantasy. It is therefore not surprising that at the start of his career he translated Alice's Adventures in Wonderland into Russian. Some of the changes he made while translating simply give Wonderland a Russian setting (1000 roubles instead ofa 100 pounds) or capture the spirit of Carroll's wordplay (instead of literally translating, say, "reeling" and "writhing"). But other changes stray farther from the original and hint at Nabokov's own later style and vision.

In general, while not radically altering Wonderland, Nabokov harries the boundaries between the fantastic and the realistic, making the two harder to distinguish and hinting that reality is itself rather fantastic. He allows alliteration, for instance, to extend to repetition of additional sounds within words and to creep out of the verse and dialogue and into the narrative text. He reduces our reliance on Alice's perspective, on the perspective of the representative of the "real" world, so that it is harder to judge the fantasticality of Wonderland. Similarly, he eliminates many of the specifications of Alice's height, which in the original help to orient us to how different Wonderland is from the "real" world. He also disorders numerical sequence and relates otherwise unrelated numbers, as if to suggest that the absolutes of cause and effect, of logical progression, of numerical sequence, are no longer absolute, and reality has become relative. In Nabokov's Wonderland, fantasy is kept less firmly in its place as something to be carefully differentiated from and excluded from reality, as something that creatures from reality can assault and then retreat from with impunity; instead, the assault on Wonderland triggers a reciprocal assault and the capitulation of an independent reality, making reality relative, making reality fantastic.

B.L.C.

n A New Class of Membership.

Lewis Carroll stated that Postage-Stamp Cases may be divided into one species, the "Wonderland." The same principle has applied to our Society. Membership, up to now, has been divided into only one class. At the Fall meeting, however, a motion passed to add a new membership classification "the sustaining." Anyone who wishes to become a sustaining member of the Society may accomplish this by simply paying dues of $50 a year in preference to the humble $ 1 5 a year for ordinary members. Funds are needed if we are to continue our publication policy of the past, and it is hoped that this new class of membership will increase our balance in the treasury.

D Lewis Car roll's Library

The Society's chapbook for 1981 will be Lewis Carroll's Library, edited and with an introduction by Jeffrey Stem. The 1 12-page book will contain a facsimile printing of the catalogue of the auction sale following Dodgson's death, and three additional 1898 booksellers' catalogues offering books from Dodgson's somewhat curious library. Consider on the one hand a library containing a run of Dickens first editions, three rare Keats first editions, and facsimile reprints of Robinson Crusoe and Paradise Lost, and on the other hand, Anstie's Stimulants and Narcotics, Ward's Fallacies of Teetotalism and Winslow's Uncontrollable Drunkenness as a Form of Mental Disorder.

D Carroll Bibliography Published

The Society has joined the Bibliographical Society of the University of Virginia and the University Press of Virginia in publishing Edward Guiliano's Lewis Carroll: An Annotated International Bibliography, 1960-1977. The bibliography lists and annotates primary and secondary publications in more than forty-five languages. Library Journal in a Jan. 15 review called it ". . .an essential reference tool for most literature collections." LCSNA members can receive the $15 bibliography for $12.00 including shipping and handling from the University Press of Virginia, Box 3608. University Station, Charlottesville, Virginia, 22903. Make sure you and your local library has a copy. . .or two.

D Society's Spring Meeting, May 8, 1981

Big plans are under way for a special Friday Spring meeting at Harvard University on May 8. Members are invited to lunch at the Harvard Faculty Club at 12:30. At 2:00 the general meeting will convene at the Houghton Library. Choice Lewis Carrol holdings of the library will be on display. There will be four presentations: Prof. William Bond (Houghton Library) will discuss the 1865 Alice; Prof. Michael Hancher(U. Minn.) will give a slide presentation on "Punch and Alice: Thru Tenniel's Looking-Glass"; Artist Barry Moser will discuss his forthcoming "Illustrations to Wonderland"; and Prof. Francine Abeles (Keane College) will talk on "Dodgson's Mathematical Ideas in his Political Phamplets." More info to follow.

D Alice in New York and Philadelphia

In the January cold. Elizabeth Swados' Alice in Concert with Meryl Streep played at the Public Theatre in New York City. The performance was sold out even though there was next to no advertising of the event. Stan Marx's review is presented below. . . During December, the Philadelphia Company, a semi-professional group of actors presented their somewhat offbeat version of Through the Looking-Glass in a two- by-four theater on Philadelphia's Broad Street. Among the scenes presented were an amusing version of the Red Queen's lessons in manners (excellent portrayal). Humpty Dumpty (in a Snoopy helmet) using an unbirthday calculator, and a rendition of "A-Sitting on a Gate" to the tune of "God Save the King." The scenery consisted of panels painted with forest scenes that were carried by the actors and formed into varied patterns, providing a most unusual feature of the production.

D Alice in Concert

Every lover of Alice will enjoy Alice in Concert - to some extent. At times delightful in its stagecraft and performance -at times irritating in its lack of direction, this production oi Alice attempts to encompass all cultures and times. Although not entirely successful, it gets an A for effort. After a stormy two or three years in production, Elizabeth Swados has finally brought her Alice to New York in a limited engagement. Her musical score, written entirely by herself, is electric if not memorable, running the gamut from rock-and-roll to Caribbean dance forms. On the other hand, Meryl Streep as Alice is consistently delightful throughout -dancing, singing, acrobatically moving her flexible body, being on the stage every moment. A supporting cast of ten is somewhat uneven, but there are delightful moments by the Cheshire Cat, the Mad Hatter and even Bill the Lizard. Alice in Concert is being transferred to television sometime in May. We urge everyone to see it as another example of the amazing pliability of this marvelous story.

S. M.

D Alice in Cartoonland.

In the last six months Alice and the cartoonists in the U.S.. Canada and England have had numerous encounters. In July the Toronto Star showed a caterpillar-manned 1 .V. camera mounted atopa mushroomand the Director(the White Rabbit) lookingat his watch while the Hatter interviewed the King of Hearts. Ihe caption -"TV news has evolved into such an Alice-in-Wonderland madness of information, it has become a parody of itself.". . . . August brought a New York Times article entitled "Coping with Metrication in Canada"showinga U.S. Tweedle-Dee of 1 10 pounds with a Canadian T weedle-Dum of 50 kilograms. . . . September found Alice in ScienceSO coming through the Looking-Glassand proclaiming"! think I've made a breakthrough concerning the structure of matter.". . . .October produced an article in the London Economist eniiiled"\n Thatcherland" that began "Lewis Carroll who coined the word 'contrariwise' would have enjoyed Mrs. 1 hatcher's first 18 months in government." The magazine cover shows Mrs. Thatcher as the Duchess holding a bellowing Britian. . . . Late in October the Louisville Cowr/Vr- Journal presented the White Queen with a Carter-like Alice. A sign proclaimed "Welcome to lnflationland."The quote, of course, is "It takes all the running. ..." Inflation and "running to keep in the same place", although apt, has been appearing in American political cartoons once every four months for the last two years. The Knight letter may at some point publish an album of practically identical cartoons.

D "What is it you want to buy?" the Sheep said.

Gumps in San Francisco (250 Post St. ,94 108) is offering a concrete Cheshire Cat made exclusively for Gumps by Lou Rankin for only $90. . .At 49 West 72 St., N.Y. is a store named "Slithy Toves". . .Alice tee shirts can be had from Litera-Tee Shirt Co., P.O. Box 480469 in L.A. (90048). . .The Artisan Galleries of Dallas (75204) are selling an /l/Zcem W^oAiJer/aAi^ paint set for $10.95. . .A new item at the Cheshire Cat in Cazenovia, N.Y. (13035) is a colorful Alice silk scarve for $32.75. . .Pamela Courtleigh (P.O. Box 639, Edgartown, MA 02539) is offering a Herald pendant on a red cord that measures 3" x IVi" for $80 and a Cheshire Cat stickpin {V/i" x W not counting the tail) for $40.00. ... In Nantucket, MA. there is a restaurant called The Mad Hatter which is decorated entirely with paintings and murals from /4/jce (both the Tenniel and various other illustrations), uses the Mad Hatter as a logo, and has entire sets of dishes with pictures of the Hatter on them.

D Fit for a King (of Hearts).

A limited edition of Wonderland, illustrated by Barry Moser, will be published by the Pennyroyal Press in Jan., 1982. The edition will be three hundred copies and contain a preface (and scholarly commentary) by James Kincaid. The price -$1000. If, however, ten members place orders with Bromer Booksellers (607 Boyleston St., Boston, MA 021 16) within the next three months. Bromer will provide a 15% discount. Therefore, be sure to say you are a LCSNA member when you write them. . . Farnan Studios (P.O. Box 42020, San Francisco, CA 94101) is offering a handlettered and illuminated print by William Farnan of the Jabberwock. It is printed in eight colors in an edition limited to 250. Price per copy is $50. Mr. Franan has also produced part of the edition in book form with a five-color flyleaf depicting the Beamish Boy pursuing the Jabberwock. The book sells for $150.

D "And what is the use of a book", thought Alice, "without pop-ups?"

By all odds the best is the new Macmillan Alice pop-up book published in the U.S. by Delacourt Press. Macmillan has also published an Alice "colouring" book and three new items that are not only traditional, but have color plates that were used in 1911. Macmillan discovered these plates while rummaging around in their archives and are curious about who added the colors. They doubt if Tenniel was the one. The three items? (1) - a set of the two Alices: (2) - a set of just the color prints, and (3) - an Alice birthday book.

D "And what is the use of a book if you haven't sold the motion picture rights?"

last April Charlotte Henry, the star of Paramount's 1933 Alice 6\cd in San Diego. Time magazine in its obituary remembered that "she played Alice to Cary Grant's Mock Turtle, Gary Cooper's White Knight and W.C. Field's Humpty Dumpty." This film remains the best of the /I //Ve motion pictures. . .A new /I //Vr produced in Poland and France with mainly French actors arrived a year ago in England, and may have sneaked across the Atlantic. It's an up-to-date version with an Alice "with blonde hair and fishnet tights and stiletto heels who dances on a table among champagne glasses." The Daily Mail didn't think much of it. . . Last June, David and Maxine Schaefer presented a paper entitled "Lewis Carroll's Alice Books and Motion Pictures" to the Salisbury (Maryland) Conference on Literature, History and Film.

D 1981 - Hundredth Anniversary oi Purity of Elections (introducing Carroll's 100 year crystal ball).

(The following is from the Lewis Carroll Handbook). In an article on the General Election pubHshed in the St. James Gazette of 4 May 1881 "Lewis Carroll" advocates not only secret voting, recently introduced, but also sealing the votes till the election is over, to avoid that curious effect of a definite tendency in the early results in influencing in the same direction the later voting. Voters like to be on the winning side.

D This game requires one Player, at least

.HORIZONTAL ..

..V...K

Peter Waters sent the following word puzzle. The object is to find all the listed words mixed in with the random letters. . . E. D. .C B.

The words may be vertical, or horizontal, or diagonal, and forward or backward as shown to the right. The list of . . R . . 1 . . A . . . A . .

words to be ferretted out are:

LEWIS	TARTS	LOBSTER	JABBERWOCKY
CARROLL	MISCHMASCH	QUADRILLE	ELLEN
CHARLES	DREAMLAND	EVELYN	lERRY
LUTWIDGE	LANRICK	HAICH	CROFl
DODGSON	EIJRNISS	SKEFFINGION	GUILDFORD
PHANTASMAGORIA	LONDON	DODO	RFC I OR Y
LIDDELL	BELFRY	HARRY	JOHN
SYMBOLIC	ALICES	LORINA	lENNIEL
LOGIC	ADVENTURES	EDITH	BRYLLYG
XIE	IN	MATHEMATICS	POSTAGE
KITCHIN	WONDERLAND	APPLETON	STAMP
GODSTOW	DOUBLEIS	MACMILLAN	CASE
WALRUS	EASTER	DEACON	HARCiREAVFS
CARPENTER	GREETING	CROQUET	PHOIOGRAPHY
TEA	HUNTING	CIPHER	YE
PARIY	OF	DARESBURY	CARPET IE
HATTER	THE	CHESHIRE	KNYGHTE
GRYPHON	SNARK	CAT	PURPLE
DIARIES	WHITE	CHRIST	INK
EDGAR	RABBIT	CHURCH	COLI.INCiWOOD
CUTHWELLIS	MARCH	OXFORD	VIVISECIION
YATES	HARE	ENGLAND	ROMANCE MEN I
VICTORIAN

..T...A..B..C ..I.D..G...K. ..C..R..O.... ..A. ..A..N.. .

..I W..A .

...K. L.

...KCAB..C ..

A..

FORWARD. .B

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D "There's no such word in the language!" said the Wasp. "It's in this newspaper, though" Alice said a little timidly.

The Wellesley Alumni Magazine has a lead article entitled Nabokov, Wellesley and Alice, which suggests that Nabokov was invited to teach at Wellesley because of his translation oi Alice's Adventures. . . . Comedy and Culture: England 1820-1900, by Roger B. Henkle( Princeton Univ. Press, 1980), contains a discussion of Carroll and the Alices. . . . Comic Faith: The Great Tradition from Austen to Joyce, by Robert M. PoIhemus(Univ. of Chicago Press, 1980), has a long chapter on "Carroll's Through the Looking Glass { 1871): The Comedy of Regression.". . . . Alice is analyzed in "The Ambivalent Status of Texts: The Case of Children's Literature" by ZoharShavit in Poetics Today, I, No. 3( 1980), 75- 86. . . . A new Russian translation of Through the Look ing-G lass appeare([ in 1980 translated and with a preface by V. Orel (Eagle in Russian!), illustrated by G. Kalinovsky, and published in Moscow by Detsyaya Literatura.. . .The Oneida Daily Dispatch of Aug. 2 had business news headline "Chesire Cat Grinning in Cazenovia." Member, Kay Rossman, and her shop should be grinning about the fine publicity. ... In September the Boston Globe published an unusual crossword puzzle that was un-do-able until you realized that the complete first stanza of Jabberwocky was in the puzzle. ... In July Florence Becker Lennon had in print a rave review of Morton Cohen's Letters, while at about the same time Peter Heath's complimentary review entitled "Carroll through the Pillar Box" appeared in the Virginia Quarterly Review. . . .The New York Times in November presented "Who's Who in Stone in Central Park." A description and picture of Jose de Creeft's Alice statue was included. . . .The January (1980) American Journal of Art Therapy has an article entitled "Out of Childhood's Wonderland Through the Looking Glass of Art" by Judith Simmon, describing the therapeutic results of designing a twenty-four piece clay set of figures from the two Alices. All the figures were around two feet high.

n "Oh, I can't dream of letting oo stop yet!"

Despite many premature reports of its death, Sylvie and Bruno remains among reprinted and translated books. The Story ofSylvie and Bruno, a photoreprint of the 1926 Macmillan edition has just been produced by Mayflower Books. Robinson Verlag Brunner and Lorck of Frankfurt has just published a German translation of S«&B. This edition is especially interesting as the various degrees of consciousness of the characters are indicated by variations in the margins of the text.

n A Dutch Treat.

Steef de Bruijn writes to tell about the Dutch Lewis Carroll Genootschap publication of the "1981 Lewis Carroll Calendar." His reassuring words are "Don't be worried by its foreign origin; it is distinguished by a remarkable shortage of language problems, its Dutch words being found mainly in the titles of two translations of the The Hunting of the Snark . In retrospect is appears that there is one basic idea behind the twenty-odd loosely connected contributions to the calendar; after all these years it is still great fun to play with Carroll's inventions. You will find them described orexplained when necessary, applied, combined orextended when possible, and moreover, in the pleasant company of original illustrations. The contents include: the last Dodo, Memoria Technicia in a Labyrinth, Acrostic Doublets, Lewis vs. Charles according to the game of Life, Time-reversed Checkers, Puzzles (including the question why to a true Carrollian a Boojum equals exactly 40 Snarks) and a Sorites in 25 installments. The calendar is available for $8.00 from Mr. A.M. Willemse, Grunder 50, Amsterdam, Holland (Ed. Note: The calendar is a lot of fun).

n Godel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid: A metaphorical fugue on minds and machines in the spirit of Lewis Carroll By Douglas R. Hofstadter. 800 pages. Basic Books, 1979. $18.50.

If you don't know the prize winning volume, you should. Not a book so much as a printout of Hofstadter's mind , this formidable but fascinating work weaves together three strands— the Incompleteness Theorem of Kurt Godel, the often-paradoxical art of M. C. Escher, and the subtle fugues and canons of J. S. Bach— around a core of exciting topics from computer science and artificial intelligence (a fiedgling discipline which studies and creates computer programs displaying intelligence). These subjects Hofstadter ties to a host of others from ant colony organization to Zen. Ideas are presented not just explicitly, but also by a myriad of irreverent and bizarre analogies, puns, and jokes in the Dialogues preceding each chapter. The Dialogues, two of which are actually by Carroll ("What the Tortoise Said to Achilles"and Jabberwocky in English, French, and German), center on Achilles and the Tortoise, who live in a world populated by record-player breaking records, Subjunc-TVs, Meta-Genies, a sentient ant colony named Aunt Hillary, and a book on "metal-logic" entitled Copper, Silver, Gold: an Indestructible Metallic Alloy. Some readers will find this playful extravagance too cute or even condescending in places; others may find the book abstruse at times. But those with the tolerance and, above all, the curiosity of Alice, will find it a rewarding adventure in Wonderland.

Jon Handel

D Goodacre's Query or Catching the Limited.

The two Alice books published by the Limited Editions Club of New York in 1932 and 1935 surely rank as two of the most lavish ever produced. Alice { 1932) is bound in full red morocco (issued in a blue slip case!), Z-oo/cm^-C/a^i in blue morocco (in a red slip case); the Tenniel pictures are "newly engraved" by Bruno Rollitz (Alice), and Frederick Warde (Looking Glass). All copies were to be signed by the original Alice. I acquired copies recently and certain questions come to mind: (a) Is it really true that Alice only signed a number of the copies of Alice? The quantity is variously stated to be "most of the copies" (Monthly Magazine of the Junior Heritage Club), "only a few" (Alice 100 catalogue) "less than a quarter" (Sotheby "Remus" catalogue Feb. 1973). And if it is true, why was it? Did she get tired, bored, disillusioned? (b) How many copies did she sign of Looking-Glass.' Sotheby "Remus" says "she died having signed just over half of them." Now Alice died in Nov. 1934. Where, and when did the signing take place? Did they ship over the entire edition to England? Ordid she sign both editions in 1932 when she was in the USA for the Columbia Exhibition? And if that is so, why did they wait three years before issuing the second volume? (c) If the pictures were indeed reengraved. why does the Dalziel signature still appear, and why do the pictures still appear to be line-for-line reprints of the Tenniel/ Dalziel engravings? (d) The pictures in Looking Glass seem to be quite as good as those in Alice. Why did not Rollitz do both sets? Or, contrariwise, as Warde supervised the typography and binding for both, why did he not carry out the engraving for both, instead of just Looking-Glass? (e) My copy of Alice is also signed by Frederick Warde - is this true of o// copies?

S.H.G.

D Thank You

Our thanks to all contributors to the Knight Letter including Julius Allen, Alice Berkey, Julia Blumenthal, Sandor Bernstein, Judy Gansburg, Selwin Goodacre, Edward Guiliano, Helen Grover, Jon Handel, Peter Heath, Virginia Langlois, Florence Becker Lennon, Stan Marx, Horst Muggenburg. C.J. Palmer, Kay Rossman, Steve Sage, and John Davis.

I he Knight Letter is the official newsletter of the Lewis Carroll Society of North America and is distributed free toall raegrbers'll is edited by David Schaefer, in cooperation with the Society's Editorial Board, and is printed and typeset by Bel-Jean Printing',^Jnc. Silver Spring, Maryland. Subscriptions, business correspondence and. inquiries should be addressed to the Secretary. The Lewis Carroll Society of North America, 617 Rockford Road. Silver Spring. Md. 20902. Submissions and editorial correspondence should be addressed to the Editor, The Knight Utter. 617 Rockford Road. Silver Spring, Md. 20902.

Lewis Carroll Society of North America 617 Rockford Road Silver Spring, Md. 20902

Dr. Sandor G. Burstein

2233 Post Street

San Francisco, CA 9411 5