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THE LEWIS CARROLL SOCIETY )l OF NORTH AMERICA

NUMBER 29 SUMMER 1988

Spring Meeting at Huntington Library Features Outstanding Speakers and Events

More than sixty members and guests gathered at the Huntington Library in San Marino, Cahfornia on May 14, for the second West Coast meeting of the Lewis Carroll Society of North America. Hilda Boehm and Myra Cohn Livingston had made the arrangements and thanks were extended to them by President Edward Guiliano in his opening remarks. After some Society business, Professor Guiliano introduced the

PROFILE:

EUie Luchinsky,

Vice President, LCSNA

By day, Elbe is the mild-mannered Assistant Head of the Fine Arts and Recreation Department at the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore, her home town. By night, however, she reveals her true colors as a cross-stitcher and avid Carrollian. In the latter role, she has published two articles in jabberwocky, the most recent being a spoof of some of the more outlandish interpretations ofAlice.

Her interest in Alice began at the age of fourteen, when she received the Complete Works of Lewis Carroll for her birthday. Although her eclectic collection is small, it is much cherished and includes a Carroll letter and the Postage Stamp Case. Her friends are never at a loss for presents, birthday or unbirthday.

SherecallswithjoyAugust of 1982, when LCSNAsponsoredaweekat Oxford. Aside from the wonderful people she met, getting a chance to see the places she read about and to retrace the steps of her hero was an experience that deepened and expanded her interest in Carroll, and made her a better scholar and member of the Carrollian community.

first speaker, Dr. Thomas V. Lange, Associate Curator for Early Printed Books at the Librar>'.

Dr. Lange began his informative and well-illustrated talk by pointing out that Henry Huntington had'collected books throughout his life, and built a research center to house his 350,000 rare books and 200,000 reference books on a 270-acre garden estate. Not the Gutenberg Bible in the library nor the painting of Blue Boy in the art gallery was the subject of Dr. Lange 's remarks, but rather the Lewis Carroll materials in the Library's special collection.

These Carroll items also are treasures. They include Carroll's own copy oiThe Garland of Rachel, which included one of his poems. Even rarer, perhaps, is the 1870 title page, index and three proof pages oi Looking Glass House. According to Dr. Lange, the Huntington has the only extant copy known. Slides were shown of Carroll's own copy of A TangledTale, the 86th thousand edition of AAIW(1897) and the reissue of 1898 with a different number of bends in the Mouse's tale — as well as several Carroll photographs. Among the many letters in the collection, there is the famous one byTenniel to the Dalziel brothers, concerning the recall of the IS65 Alice. Other letters in the collection

Thomas V. Lange

Prof. Morton Cohen

include eighty to the illustrator Gertrude Thompson.

Dr. Lange concluded his remarks by pointing out that the Huntington owned a complete set of proofs from the original A/Jc^ woodblocks done in 1937, thus indicating that the blocks had not really been lost.

The next speaker, Professor Morton Cohen, is the latest Carroll scholar to under- take his biography. In his talk, Professor Cohen explained that, while working on the letters of Carroll, he began to appreciate the degree to which Carroll's father. Archdeacon Dodgson, influenced his son's life. Examining the contrasts in their characters and careers — at the University, in the church and in society — Professor Cohen demonstrated the negative and positive aspects of their relationship. Collingwood's comment upon the father's death "It seemed as if a cloud had settled on his life which could never be

Robert Hornbeck

dispelled" — was interpreted by Professor Cohen as an indication that any sought-for reconciliation with his father was now im- possible for Carroll.

The final speaker, Robert Hornbeck, a professional horticulturist from Southern

Continued on Page 2

Martin Wesley-Smith, Down-Under Composer of Underground Subjects

Australian Composer Martin Wesley-Smith

(Mr. Wesley-Smiths letter to the editors inquiry as to music he composed which was influenced by Lewis Carroll, follows).

Dear Mr. Marx,

My twin brother Peter Wesley-Smith and I started working on a large-scale theatre piece to do with Lewis Carroll back in 1979 (we were in New\brk together, saw Sondheim's Sweeney Todd, and resolved to do something if not similar then on a similar scale. ) The result, eventually, was a musical comedy called Boojum! — a version of this was performed by State Opera of South Australia at the 1986 Adelaide Festival of Arts (amongst the guests on opening night were HM Queen Elizabeth II and hubby. ) The production was quite successful, but Peter and I were very unhappy with the fact that the director re-wrote the show without our consent, in the process changing it quite substantially in ways we did not like.

After the fuss had died down, and having decided that I never wanted to see the piece again in that form, I turned it into a choral piece that could be done with limited stag- ing. Now, instead ofa cast of 12 actor/singers and an orchestra, it is scored for 8 or so soloists, a large choir, and a three-piece band with computer music on tape and audio-visu- als. (This version was done in the Concert Hall of the Queensland Performing Arts Centre in Brisbane at the Expo 88 Arts Festival by The Song Company (a Sydney ensemble) and the Queensland Youth Choir (65 voices) onTuesMay31,Juneland2, 1988 edit.) I am directing this production, which has costumes, set, full lighting rig etc but which is still done mainly "in concert" — as you can imagine I'm now in the thick of getting it ready. It remains to be seen, of course, how effective it will be, but so far I've been encouraged by the response of the singers. Another production is being planned for Sydne)' in November this year with The Song Company and the Sydney Philharmonia Motet Choir.

AcoUection of songs from the show — Songs for Snark-Hunters (homBoojum!) — for choir and piano — has been fairly extensively performed and broadcast in Australia. I have asked the Australian Music Centre to send you a copy of this, with my compliments. You are, of course, free to do with it what you will, but if there's a local choir looking for something Australian to do in 1988 (it's the 200th anniversary of White settlement here) then I would be grateful if you were to let them have a look at it . The piece always goes down well in performance, for it is very accessible and, in parts, quite humorous'.

I've called the Boojum! libretto I'm sending you Version 0.86. It's the first libretto for the concert version. The next version (0.99) is only slightly different, and is the one we're now using (bu{ I have no spare copies to hand). The .plan is to-come up with the final version (1.0) after Brisbane, for no doubt there'll be changes when I see what works and what doesn't. In the meantime 0.86 certainly contains the essence of the work and will give you a good idea of what it's all about. You'll see that we use The Hunting of the Snark as a basic skeleton for Dodgson's own search for

Carroll Collectors. . . We Need¥)ur Help !

Do you have a book, a pamphlet, memorabilia, sheet music, china, ephemera in your Carroll collection — that you would donate for a good cause? LCSNA is planning to conduct an auction at our October 15th meeting for the benefit of. . .LCSNA.

Extra money is urgently needed to support our publishing projects and other expenses that a non-profit organization must find money for. All donations are tax deductible, of course, but more than that, you will become a part of the success of our auction and feel a glow of pride as well!.

So don't hesitate another moment. Find something you like, and that others will like (value over $20.00, please) and send it to:

Ellie Luchinsky

6804 Bonnie Ridge Drive, Apt. 201

Baltimore, MD 21209

Phone: (301) 486-7122

Any information you can send with it will be appreciated. Thanks for your help.

tnith — it's meant to be a nonsense work that nonetheless contains at least a modicum of good sense. It's to do with Dodgson's life and ideas as well as his work.

My librettist, Peter Wesley-Smith, is a Professor of Law at the University of Hong Kong, with many publications to his credit including books of children's nonsense verses.

I have composed several Lewis Carroll-in- spired pieces, including:

1. Several pieces called Doublets (Doublets l,2[a] etc) for various forces. These don't necessarily sound Carrollesque but use the word-game as the basis of the music.

2. Dodgson's Dream, an audio-visual piece for clarinet, live electronics, tape & trans- parencies. This has been played in the States by Dr. F. Gerard Errante, who teaches clarinet at Norfolk State.

Continued on Page 4

Meeting Continued from Page 1

Past President Sander Burstein and Myra Cohn Livingston at LCSNA cocktail party.

California, presented a delighttful "Garden TourofWonderland". Gardens during the Victorian period, Hornbeck stated, were collections of all types of plants and animals living together. From the many examples of plant imagery in Wonderland, Mr. Hornbeck discussed the famous mushroom-eating scene, with its consequent increases and reductions in size. According to Mr. Hornbeck, Carroll was familiar with a review of the Britisli mycologist's M.C. Cooke's book on fungi, in which the hallucinogenic properties of Amanita Muscaria are discussed. Tenniel, however, was careful not to draw the dangerous mushroom and instead chose a harmless edible species. (Incidentally, Mr. Hornbeck said that there actuallyare bluish-green caterpillars!)

As for the dormouse at the Tea Party — he belongs to the sleepy nocturnal rodent family of the Gliridae, but in the illustration, it may havesomeof the features of the Australian wombat, and the speaker wondererd if Dante Rosetti's pet wombat was the model. A comparison was also drawn between the talking flowers in Tennyson's Maud and Carroll's Garden ofTalking Flowers.

Following the meeting, members and guests strolled in the Huntington Librar}''s own magnificent gardens. August Imholtz

iHINGS

To the Editor:

Sander Burstein's question "Why is Alice right-handed inside Looking Glass Land" got me to thinking. I've noticed that sections of Looking Glass Land and its inhabitants are not mirror-reversed. Tenniel shows the Red Queen, the Paper Suit man, the embroidered collars of theTweedle, the price tag on the hat of Hatta, Humpty Dumpty shaking hands, the King's men and Queen Alice inscription on the arched doorway right-side-to rather than mirror-imaged. Carroll also has Alice able to read signposts, collars and doorways without a looking glass, unlike the reversed Jabberwocky which she must read in the mirror. Perhaps . . .we must look to Martin Gardner's explanation that the Jabberwocky sequence was a late addition, and the author did not consider the discrepancies.

Richard M. Boothe

(Mr. Boothe was the Research Librarian for two issues of Dollarsense Magazine, which featured Alice themes and illustrations. It led to his involvement with LCSNA.)

Alice in Wonderland, published by Abrams, introduction by Brian Sibley. $15.00. Contains illustrations of magic lantern slides produced circa 1890, which were accompanied by a lecture, included in the text . . .TwoA/jc^ reissues in England: Margaret Tarrant's illustrations from the original Ward, Lock edition, from Tiger Books, £8.95; and the Bodley Head edition with W.B.Walker's illustrations — from Michael O'Hara Books at the same price . . .From Lorien House, P.O. Box 1112, Black Mountain, NC 28711, comes The Search for the Rabbit, a paperback priced at $8.00. Adventures on a New York subway train featuring various Wonderland creatures and some additional animals.

Sandor Burstein must have a vast network of investigators at his beck and call, who seem to ferret out for him the most unusual Carrollian items. Thankfully, he faithfully lets us know before each issue of the Knight Letter so that we're able to fill in an awful lot of space. Here are four recent items: Alice in La-La Land, a novel by Robert Campbell, Poseidon Press, New York, NY, at $16.95. A hard-boiled detective novel whose sole redemption, says Sandor, is that a one-armed bar hanger-on reads the two Alice books. Final comment: not recommended . . .Moe, a Japanese magazine, has published two issuesjammed with CSrrollian matters. Among the photos artd drawings, translations and comments, are scattered ads for Carrollian ephemera, including games, dolls, crockery and tea sets. Issues #4 and 5, for 1987, cost 500 Yen each . . .ContesPour Enfants,\o\.5, is entitled A/zV^. Published in French byTournesol, and does not identify any of the contributors! . . .Marc Burstein has just published Mmc/jA^o, The Pogofenokee Trivia Book. Page 36 is primarily devoted to listing the Alice characters who have appeared in the Pogo books. (341 Lovell Ave., MillValley,CA94941).

William L. De Andrea's 1985 spy thriller, Snark, featuring the hunt for an intelligence agent by a man who calls himself "Bellman" is now available in paperback from Mysterious Press, 129W.56thSt., New York, NY10019 . . .ANewYorkTimes article about the translation of the Pooh books into Russian by Boris Zakhoder, who also trans- lated the Alice books, said that Pooh was more popular with Russian children, because Pooh is spontaneous, modest and naive, while Alice is brilliant and cold . . .A new book by AT&T, called Process Quality Management and Improvement Guidelines uses the Caucus

Race, the Croquet Game and the Mad Tea Party as examples. Available from the AT&T Customer Information Center, Order Entry Dept., Indianapolis, IN 46219.

Pamphlet Project Editors Still Seek "Lost "Items

The LCSNA project to issue a series of books on all the pamphlets of Lewis Carroll has good news and bad. The good news is that the first volume on the Oxford pamphlets is expected to be issued within the year, with the second volume, the mathematical pamphlets following on its heels. In all, six volumes are projected.

The "bad" news is that there are some elusive pamphlets which are being dili- gently searched for, and it is hoped that mem- bers can be of help. These pamphlets are:

Notes on the First Part of Algebra - 1861.

General List of Subjects - 1863

Algebraical Formulae - 1868 ^ 1870

Arithmetical Formulae and Rules - 1870

Symbols to be Used in Euclid - 1872

Purity of Election - 1881

Rules for Reckoning Postage - 1883

Profits of Authorship - 1884

Circular i^ Prospectus About a House - 1885

Circular About Counters - 1886

Should anyone know of the whereabouts of the above pamphlets, please write to the Editor of the Knight Letter. All help will be acknowledged. If anyone has information about pamphlets not mentioned in the LC Handbook, the editors will be grateful beyond words.

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(Editor's Note: We're constantly receiving information from members concerning matters relating to LC. Since we don't have space to print it all, we try to choose those items which seem more significant than others. But thank you all and keep sending items of interest).

The Boojum, an odd-looking tree that grows in the southwestern desert, was named in 1922 by a transplanted Briton, Godfrey, Sykes. The Arizona Republic, a Phoenix, Arizona daily, ran the story with a photo in its January 31, 1988 issue. The Boojum grows one inch per year and lives for centuries.

Artists continue to be inspired by the AIW theme. A lovely catalogue from the Hammer Galleries in New York illustrated a bronze of The Mad Tea Party in an edition often. The artist, Harry Marinsky, has also produced seven other Carrollian themes. . .California artist Julie Inman has produced a print of Malice in Wonderland, showing a dead white rabbit, Alice with gun in hand and a grinning Cheshire cat. Ms. Inman can be contacted at 1278 Glenneyre, Suite #1, Laguna Beach, CA 92651. . .ACeramic chess set, designed by artist Leslie Phillips in 1985, was auctioned in San Francisco recently. With its own

glass-covered chess table, it was estimated at $800-$1200. Final bidPJust under $5,000. . . Grenada issued a series of nine Alice stamps and a souvenir sheet at Christmastime.

According to the Hoya, a publication of Georgetown University inWashington, DC, a production of AIW in Italian was recently performed as a project of Professor Chamber's Basic Italian classes. Students say it's a great way to learn a language. Has AIW ever been performed in Italian previously?

Sharon Rogtrs, Shamrock Press, PO Box 8869, FT. Wocth, TX 76124, has sent in a list of Carrollian memorabilia which she has for sale. . .Sanjacinto College Central's Larry Wilson informs us that Alice in Wonderland in Paris, a video is currently available from Sinister Cinema, PO Box 777, Pacifica, CA 94044. Cost is $16.95 plus $2.05 postage. Alice serves as the connection among four other children's stories. . .Also noted: The medical publication Keeping Current in the Treatment of Headache issue of January 1988 features an article "Hallucinations in Migraine" and is mostly about LC's headaches. . .Kirk Gibson, of the Los Angeles Dodgers, is called "Mad Hatter" by his teammates.

Wesley-Smith Continued from Page 2

3. Pat-a-Cake, for trombone & tape. This has been played extensively in the States by American trombone virtuoso Miles Ander- son.

4. White Knight and Beaver, for trombone, violin/viola & tape. This also has been played extensively in the States — again by Miles Anderson along with fiddler Erica Sharp. They are planning to release it on record soon. It has been recorded in a version for marimba and xylophone by Australian percussionist Michael Askill.

5. Snark-Hunting, for flute, piano, percussion, cello & tape. This is soon to be released on LP and CD by the Australian group Flederman. It has been played all over, including by the New York-based group Terra Australis (they recently did it at a Festival in Houston) and a local group in Aspen.

6. The afore-mentioned Songs for Snark- Hunters (horn Boojum .').This is, I think, getting a few performances in the States this year, but as yet I do not have any details.

Yours sincerely, Martin Wesley-Smith

Songs for Snark Hunters may be obtained from The Australian Music Centre, 3 Small Street, Broadway, Sydney NSW 2007, Australia. Write for details.

For assistance in preparing this issue, we would like to thank Joel Birenbaum, Mark Burstein, Dr. Sandor Burstein, Elizabeth Erickson, Jean-Sebastien Noth, Kenn Oultram, Lucille Posner, Lynette Sounion, Nancy Willard and Zysmial Zyxx.

The Knight Letter is the official newsletter of the Lewis Carroll Society of North America and is distributed free to all mem- - hers. Subscriptions, business correspondence and inquiries should be addressed to the Secretary, LCSNA, 617 Rockford Road, Silver Spring, MD 20902. Submissions and editorial correspondence should be sent to: Stan Marx, 15 Sinclair Martin Drive, Roslyn, NY 11576 Designed and produced by Jack Golden, Designers 3, Inc.

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

Dr. Sandor G. Burstein

2233 Post Street

San Francisco, CA 94115

June 25, 1788 USA

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