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The Blog of the LCSNA

Waring the World Am I?

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OK, it was broadcast almost 70 years ago, but just came to our attention. The Fred Waring Show (yes, he of the Blendor [sic] and the Pennsylvanians) ran on CBS from 1948 to 1954. Half of his hour-long show of March 18, 1951 was devoted to previewing Disney’s Alice in Wonderland, which would be released six months later. (Although Fred makes a big deal about it being the first time Disney’s Alice was presented on television, he was mistaken: Disney’s One Hour in Wonderland had been shown the previous December 25 on NBC.)

Walt was present through a prerecorded intro, but Kathy Beaumont and Sterling Holloway were live. Walt talks a bit about the production, but the lion’s share of the show was taken up by live re-creations of the musical scenes from the upcoming film.

Click here.

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The Riddell with Many an Answer

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Award-winning writer/artist/political cartoonist Chris Riddell, Children’s Laureate emeritus of the UK, whose illustrations to The Snark came out last year and whose Wonderland was due to come out in October from Pan-Macmillan but whose release apparently has been postponed, no doubt due to the pandemic, talks about Carroll and Tenniel in a long Alice Day interview, which also contains a drawing lesson, with Nicolette Jones of Oxford’s Story Museum.

His Wonderland’s ISBN is 9781529002461, and he says he is already working on illustrating Looking-Glass. We are very much looking forward to both of them.

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The Inky Parrot Strikes Again!

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Dennis Hall’s marvelous Inky Parrot Press and its sister company, Artists’ Choice, which have in the past given us stunning fine-press editions of John Vernon Lord’s Wonderland, Looking-Glass, and Snark; Kalinovsky’s two Alice books; Russian Alices; the compendium Illustrating Alice; a Wonderland with each chapter featuring a different illustrator; and renowned Spanish artist Ángel Domínguez’s spectacular Looking-Glass,* now present:

ADHS

The Hunting of the Snark, illustrated by Ángel Domínguez (130 numbered copies, £38).

and

ADAW

A gorgeous edition of Wonderland, with the 1929 illustrations of Willy Pogany (126 numbered copies, £38)

To order, contact Dennis via email. The books will be sent out by the end of June.

* Ángel Domínguez’s Wonderland was published by Artisan in 1996. Inky Parrot published his Looking-Glass in 2015.


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Lewis Carroll’s Photography and Modern Childhood

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Diane Waggoner’s impressive new book is now available from Princeton University Press. The text is most informative, and the photographs superbly reproduced.

Diane has addressed the Society twice: in Los Angeles at our Spring 2006 meeting, and ten years later in Washington, D.C., where she is curator of 19th-century photographs at the National Gallery of Art.

Happily, Princeton has offered a 30% discount to LCSNA members (only), bringing the price down from $65 to $45.50. The code is LCS30, and the offer is good through December. Click here and put in the code when you see “Add coupon” to the right of “Discounts.”

The book will receive a full review in the Fall 2020 Knight Letter.

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Golden Age Illustrators

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Time to give a shout-out to the Pook Press of Alcester, Warwickshire, UK, which is producing an inexpensive series of facsimile editions, “celebrat[ing] the great ‘Golden Age of Illustration’ in children’s literature – a period of unparalleled excellence in book illustration from the 1880s to the 1930s,” the original editions of which would be prohibitively expensive. Illustrators included in their Wonderland editions are: Frank Adams, Honor C. Appleton, Ada Bowley, Gwynedd M. Hudson, A. E. Jackson, Dudley Jarrett, Gertrude A. Kay, M. L. Kirk, Thomas Maybank, Blanche McManus, Charles Pears and T. H. Robinson, Willy Pogany, Arthur Rackham, Charles Robinson, Harry Rountree, Georg Soper, Millicent Sowerby, Margaret Tarrant, John Tenniel, and Milo Winter.

They also have a mash-up that showcases many of the above called The Illustrated Alice in Wonderland: The Golden Age of Illustration Series; Songs From Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, illustrated by Charles Folkard; and Alice in Wonderland: A Play by Emily Prime Delafield, illustrated by Betram Goodhue.

The books are POD (print-on-demand) and are available in hard- and softcover and Kindle.

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Wander through the V&A with Richard E. Grant

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On Alice’s birthday, the UK online series “Wander: Walks through Beautiful Spaces Accompanied by the World’s Favourite Voices” took on Richard E. Grant and the V&A. He is reading the Tea Party chapter as he wanders through the halls. Some of the art is from the V&A, some not. View Part I and Part II, a delightful 11 minutes in the company of Allegiant General Pryde.

(This has nothing to do with the ginormous Alice: Curiouser and Curiouser show at the V&A planned for late June, which will probably be postponed.)

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Lit Hub’s Tribute to Alice’s 155th Birthday

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“20 Artists’ Visions of Alice in Wonderland From the Last 155 Years” by Emily Temple on Grove Atlantic’s online site “Literary Hub” was published on Alice’s 155th birthday. (The fictional Alice, that is, as Wonderland was published in 1865; Mrs. Hargreaves would be observing her 168th.) Since it did celebrate the books’ inspiring “creative work of just about every genre,” I suppose one cannot quarrel with their including a painting by Max Ernst and a screenprint by Peter Blake. Naturally, a list like this will engender any number of opinions, but in this person’s mind, she has done very well with the highlights, but would someone please tell me what Nick Hewetson (Templar, 1995) is doing in place of Willy Pogany, Ralph Steadman, or Helen Oxenbury? De gustibus non est disputandum, I guess.

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If you knew Time …

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“Either the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly, for she had plenty of time as she went down to look about her, and to wonder what was going to happen next.”

For so many of us, this topsy-turvy world of shelter-in-place has left us with time on our hands. Our president, Linda Cassady, has some suggestions for some fine online Carrollian resources. And who knows? You might discover some unknown or little-known item or a fresh perspective that we can tell the world about!

Our website – come explore! Go into areas in the menu bar you haven’t before. And if you find something wrong, or something that could be improved, or you’d like to add, let us know!

The Cassady Collection at USC

The Bodelian Digital Library at Oxford

Princeton’s holdings of CLD’s photographic albums

27 beautifully rendered hi-resolution facsimiles of Alice in many languages are at the Rare Book Room. Enter “Carroll” in the Search (not Authors) box.

Mark Richards’ Lewis Carroll Resources

Image: digital collage by Adriana Peliano.

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Twinkle Bat Variations on Podcast

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Dr. April Lynn James wears many different hats—award-winning singer & scholar, librarian, creative educator exploring the intersection of the arts, spirituality, and wellness. The guardian angel of her sense of humor, Madison Hatta, Sonneteer, has written many Alice-related poems, published under the title “The Twinkle Bat Variations.” You can now hear them as a series of podcasts, a fine way to while away the time in these curiouser and curiouser times.

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Oleg Lipchenko’s Looking-Glass!

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In 2009, Oleg’s fabulous illustrations to Wonderland were awarded the annual IBBY Canada Elizabeth Mrazik-Cleaver Award, which honors outstanding artistic talent in Canadian picture books. His 2012 Snark is also a treasure. And now he’s ready to go with his Looking-Glass! Look here.

In order to achieve this, he has initiated a Kickstarter campaign. You can buy (prices are in CA$, about 70% of US$): a set of Unbirthday cards ($20), playing cards ($25), postcards ($50), prints of chapters ($50 and up), prints ($80-$120), the Limited edition of the book ($350 and up), even original art ($500).

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