“The Red Chess Pieces” Original Artist’s Proof for Barry Moser’s TTLG
"The Red Chess Pieces" Original Artist's Proof for Barry Moser's TTLG
Need a few Carroll books for Christmas presents? An unnamed LCSNA has donated her entire collection to raise money for the Society’s programs. There’s hundreds of great books over there, get them while they last.
“ORDERING INSTRUCTIONS: send the item number or numbers of the books, magazines, etc. to the Publications Coordinator at imholtz99@atlantech.net.
DO NOT SEND payment.
Since there is only one copy of each item, the items will we be sold on a first come, first serve basis. We shall respond to your orders by e-mail and inform you of the what is still available, and the total cost, including postage by U.S. Postal Service media mail rate or other shipping means, e.g., non-book items may not be sent media mail rate.”
‘The Nursery Alice’ was first printed in 1889 but Carroll didn’t like the pictures, ‘too bright and gaugy’, some sheets were sent to America and some were used for the People’s Edition in 1891. The book below is the Second but first published edition dated 1890. 10.000 copie were printed but sales were slow so some became the 2nd people’s edition.
Caffeine Theatre and Chicago Opera Vanguard are staging Boojum! Nonsense, Truth and Lewis Carroll, from November 16th through December 19th, at the DCA Storefront Theater in Chicago. Described as “part existential musical theater and part fantasy adventure story,” it was created by Australian play-writing and composing team Martin Wesley-Smith and Peter Wesley-Smith (whose identical last names are either an extraordinary coincidence, or else not a coincidence at all.)
A few reviews are out: Chicago Now’s Katy Walsh described it as a “nonsensical operetta that is all in its head,” and provided a nice description of the premise:
Reverend Charles Dodgson battles his pseudonym over the origins of his most famous literary masterpiece. The reserved Charles and the flamboyant Lewis deconstruct their lookingglass fame. Who better to help in the rediscovery process than Alice? Both of them! The child and adult version of Carroll’s inspiration challenge him on the intense connection and de-connection of their relationship. As Charles sorts out his Alice issues, his imagination unleashes the makings for his farcical poem, “The Hunting of the Snark”. Quirky characters fill Charles’ head with a jumble of demands for attention. BOOJUM! Nonsense, Truth and Lewis Carroll is a stay-cation to a world of the unexpected. What a head-trip!
After the rather challenging illustrations in our last two posts, here’s a recent Arlo & Janis comic that is a bit easier on the eye. It was published on Comics.com on October 14.
Alice in Wonderland continues to inspire artists in all genres. This one is from artist J. Scott Campbell’s series “Fairytale Fantasies” from the website www.deviantart.com.
Cartoonist Marin Rowson, contributor to U.K. newspaper the Guardian, has drawn possibly the scariest Alice/Palin yet. It appeared on Sunday, October 31 on the Guardian website under the heading “Martin Rowson on a tea-party at the US midterms.” This time we seem to have a Murdoch Mad Hatter stuffing an Obama Dormouse into the teapot while U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron peers out of his pocket – and that is definitely Glenn Beck in the high chair – but I can’t place the two-headed March Hare. Any guesses?
How many more tea-party cartoons can we expect? Check out our Political Cartoons page if you need a reminder of the ways Wonderland was co-opted into political parody in the pre-tea-party world.
Mentioning every Carroll-related item that comes up for auction would be impossible, and not the good do-it-before-breakfast kind of impossible either. Nevertheless, here’s a couple of lots coming up at the end of this month that seem worth a mention.
On November 30, Christie’s in London will be auctioning a number of books and pamphlets. Lot #212 (pictured left) is a uniformly bound set containing the first published edition of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (the true first edition was recalled by Carroll due its unsatisfactory reproduction of Tenniel’s illustrations) and a first edition of Through the Looking-Glass. Sale 5476 also features Algebraical Formulae and Rules for the use of candidates for responsions (Lot #214), never mentioned in the author’s diary, but possibly an expanded version of Algebraical Formulae for Responsions.
The following day, on the other side of the world, the Leonard Joel auction house in Sydney, Australia, will be auctioning a facsimile of Alice’s Adventures Under Ground (Lot #294), signed by the author and dated November 15, 1895. The lot also includes two letters to Olive Gould and one to Mrs Gould and, intriguingly, “part of a poem on bats.”
A photo of the poem is below. With a bit of squinting I can read that it begins “She gave it both some bread [and?] milk / and felt its furry wings / which were as soft as softest silk / and said all sorts of things,” but I can’t make out much of the rest. If you can decipher it, please leave a transcription in the comments! Click on the photo to see a larger image.
If anyone is near Lake Tahoe this month, stop in the Incline Library, Incline Village, Nevada. Some choice items from LCSNA member Sue Welsch’s Lewis Carroll book collection are on display there until December 30th! Sue, who used to teach the class “The Logic and Literature of Lewis Carroll” at Sierra Nevada College in Incline Village, will be giving a talk at the Incline Library on December 18th at 2pm.
Update: Here’s a blurb in the North Lake Tahoe Bonanza.
The new era of online markets and digital media has of course revolutionized the ability for authors outside of the mainstream publishing industry, or new authors wondering how to break in, to put their work directly into the hands of potential audiences. A new generation of e-book readers and tablet computers (some with the android operating system to compete with Apple’s iPad) coming out this year and next will be shaking up the publishing industry. This could be seen as good news for many Lewis Carroll-inspired authors!
Here’s two humble books that just came out. Mel Gildensent us his “middle-grade children’s’ book” The Jabberwock Came Wiffling, which he summarizes thus:
Twas brillig, and Albert finds himself dealing with slithy toves, mome raths, borogoves, and a girl named Alice. The only way that Albert can get home is by slaying the jabberwock and getting into the cave of a snark, which is, unfortunately, a boojum. Wonderland was never so much fun or so dangerous.
It looks charming and also has a character named Floyd-Bob. It’s only available right now as an e-book on Amazon Kindle for $3.99.
We also found a new novel on Amazon with the amusing title Straight Out Of Lewis Carroll’s Trash Can: A Jonathan Tollhausler Adventure, probably self-published because “Spielplatz Novelties” doesn’t appear to exist anywhere else. The author, Michael J. Rumpf, is described as “probably a real person who always loved books, and it was after reading some really great writers […] that he was inspired to write a book as well.”
This is a pretty stylish “Lomography Diana F+ Mini Wonderland Edition Camera” exclusive to Urban Outfitters. Who knew anyone was still making classy 35mm cameras? Perfect for the complete Carrollian interested in both Alice merch and photographing their child-friends.
