text: tLietter ' '» ■ •■■ »l — 2V WHAT IHI AVE YO U B E if Ml DOHIM 6 WfHTRl finis Ml 1MB laIRy? iHiowHAViEYou fan? I If ILOOIK1 FAlf , AND-m??UUS£ M VERTvS LOW Silver Jubilee in the Great White North The most charming Dayna McCausland and the ever gracious L.C. S.Canada played host to a very full weekend convocation (22-24 October) celebrating the twenty-fifth anniversary of the L.C.S.N.A. A great deal of credit also goes to our President, Stephanie Stoffel. '"There's glory for you!'" Sparkling in the brisk autumn air, Toronto is a beautiful cosmopolis, with modern skyscrapers interwoven among classic buildings, particularly striking in the Georgian and Oxfordian architecture of the University of Toronto campus, where much of our muchness was held. The Board assembled over a delicious dinner on Friday at Le Select Bistro, where attendees were from all over the U.S. and Canada, and we were honored to have Mark and Catherine Richards of the L.C.S. (U.K.) in our midst. The spirit of the late, much- beloved "gentleman collector" Joe Brabant (1925-1997, see KL 55) was omnipresent. We met first on Saturday at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library 1 on the central St. George Campus of the University of Toronto, an elongated hexagon of a building with six visible and five invisible stories (above the ceiling or ^-^if below the floor). There were eight glass /* cases on the entrance floor with Alice material - first edition TTLGs with a presentation inscription and drawing by Tenniel and one from Carroll, autograph letters, drawings, and many books open to pages of striking illustrations (a Brabant specialization). This was quite sweet and must be taken in context of Joe's gift of some ten to twenty thousand books, manuscripts, letters, memorabilia, ephemera, photographs and other Carroll items bequeathed to the Fisher - and this in turn should be looked at in context of the three hundred other special collections it houses, numbering seven hundred thousand items, and that itself should be looked at in context of the ten million books catalogued at the University of Toronto. Richard Landon welcomed us to the magnificent library of which he is the Director. The Fisher specializes in post-Restoration English and Canadian literature and the history of science and medicine, but its holdings range from cuneiform tablets to copies of every book by Canadian authors as they are printed. He talked a bit about the Brabant legacy and the exhibition he and his staff had prepared. Joe was unique in many ways, one of which was his devotion to one author - most collectors have at least a small collection of other writers, but not Joe, who "could not be seduced down different trails". It was also Joe's decision that the Fisher, which is non-circulating but open to all legitimate researchers, would make a better permanent home for his 1 a virtual visit may be had: http://vvfww.library.utoronto.ca/fisher/ fe€£2£«£ Tfl collection than the Osborne, which, although specializing in children's literature, was open to the public and hence more vulnerable. The exhibit continued downstairs, where the walls were festooned with theatrical posters ("Alice on Ice!"), lobby cards, and Alice in Ad-land, selling cars, mattresses, refrigerators, tomato juice, cake mix, guitars, and Guinness ale among other things. Many display cases were housed in this room, with autograph letters, panoramas, albumen prints, mathematical pamphlets, drawings, and the like. The exhibition is called "All in the golden afternoon: the inventions of Lewis Carroll", runs through 28 January, and its fine catalog is available. 2 Stephanie called us to order, and asked us to conjure Joe to be with us. The last time our Society met in Toronto ^ was in May, 1990 and Joe gave a O >" mock-legal opinion on the topic "Wouldn't It Be Murder?" (to leave the baby with the Duchess). 3 His dear friend Nicholas Maes gave us a most warm, funny, and affectionate reminiscence of life with Joe, whom he had met as a very young boy. 4 Joe's twin passions - collecting and Victoriana - eventually coalesced into his obsession Dodgsonian, whom ^ /r\ ' he felt embodied that era. Joe was /jL ^ described as "like Dodgson: precise, erudite, ^^ formal, yet affectionate, playful, kind and a trifle mad". Joe was also, like Phileas Phogg, obsessed with time. Nicholas shared with us a few anecdotes: Joe lived in a building whose "super" was a dignified emigre named "Lukas". When he came up one day to fix a leak or some such, he noticed the collection and withdrew a Serbo- Croatian volume. It turned out that Lukas was the translator! Another time, in the early 1950s, Joe's supervisor at Sun Life (where Joe was the senior legal officer) saw a picture of Brabant dressed in tails as befitted his role as president of the St. James Literary Society, and decided he must be a Communist. Nicholas also remembered the sentiment Joe showered upon him as Nicholas, after living for eight years in Joe's apartment, left to get married. Returning the next day, he came upon many workmen putting up additional shelves in what had been his bedroom. There was a nod to Freud's definition of addiction as part of the madness of civilization. 2 you can purchase a catalog for $35 Canadian / $25 U.S. including postage and handling, from Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, St. George Campus, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, M5S 1 A5 Phone: 416.978.5285. Email: email@example.com. 3 this talk was printed up as a beautiful keepsake for those in atten- dance at this meeting by The Cheshire Cat Press, with engravings and an epilogue by George Walker. 4 Nicholas's parents were friends of Joe Brabant, and Nicholas's children have added another generation to the relationship Our first speaker was Fernando Soto, whose talk "What I Tell You Three Times is True': A Medical Maxim and Diagnosis for Carroll's Snark", was on the significance the number three had for Carroll, the "master of conscious serendipity". The events in the Snark closely parallel the circumstances surrounding the death of CLD's favorite ne- phew, and godson, Charles Hassard Wilcox. Carroll's 1887 article "Alice on the Stage" contains the famous paragraph I was walking on a hill- side, alone, one bright summer day, when suddenly there came into my head one line of verse - one solitary line - 'For the Snark was a Boojum, you see.' I knew not what it meant, then: I know not what it means now; but I wrote it down; and, some time afterwards, the rest of the stanza occurred to me, that being its last line: and so by degrees, at odd moments during the next year or two, the rest of the poem pieced itself together, that being its last stanza. Morton Cohen's 1976 article "Hark the Snark" pin- pointed the day of the memorable walk and conjectured that "the patient's [Wilcox's] condition must have weighed heavy on [Dodgson's] heart and been etched deeply in his mind." Mr. Soto speculated on the significance of the three day wait between CLD's offer of coming to Guildford to help his sister and his departure, the three hours of sleep Dodgson had the night before the walk, and the fact that there were three doctors in attendance. The triple diagnosis of phthisis, or consumption, must then be "true". He felt that the "last line" which was the inspiration for the Snark could also refer to the "last words" of Charlie Wilcox and to the last words of the Baker's uncle in the poem, who looks particularly consumptive in the illustration. That Wilcox died of phthisis (pulmonary tuberculosis) is significant. The most common "cure" in those days was a sea-voyage (as in the Snark) and the protagonist was "consumed" at the climax of the poem. Soto feels, as is his thesis, that Carroll deliberately and "ration- ally" inserted these details into his last masterpiece. Continuing these themes in the second part of his talk, "The Snark, Easter Greeting, Disease and Death", Fernando theorized how several of Carroll's darker writings might have dealt with the "pig disease", scrofula, tuberculosis of the lymph glands. The word "scrofula" Carroll's preliminary sketch for The Pig Tale comes from the Latin scrofa, a sow, linguistically related to the Greek x°Tp°£ (chceros), a hog. The best treatment for it, according to Dunglison's Dictionary of Medical Science (1 860) was sea- water bathing. He began with a few quotes: Maiden, though thy heart may quail And thy quivering lip grow pale Read the Bellman's tragic tale! Is it of life of which it tells? Of a pulse that sinks and swells Never lacking a chime of bells? ~ part of an acrostic to Miss Marion Terry The Judge left the court, looking deeply disgusted: But the Snark, though a little aghast, As the lawyer to whom the defence was instructed, Went bellowing on to the last ~ the Barrister's Dream sequence in the Snark A certain Camel head him shout - A Camel with a hump. 'Oh, is it Grief, or is it Gout? What is this bellowing about?' That Pig replied, with quivering snout, 'Because I cannot jump!' ~ "The Pig's Tale" in Sylvie and Bruno Fernando demonstrated, using Groce's 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue and other such works, that "bellows" quite naturally referred to the lungs; "boots" was "the ... officer... whose job is to skink, that is, to stir the fire, snuff the candles, and ring the bell"; that "light" referred both to a "will-o'-the wisp; or corpse-candle" and to the lungs, which may explain why the Snark is said to be "handy for striking a light". Bells and candles were common referents to death, and a bell is ringing in the background of the illustration of the Baker's Uncle. Furthermore, Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable refers to "the five dark marks on the inner side of each of the pig's forelegs (that) are supposed to be the marks of the Devil's claws when they entered the swine" [Mark V, 11-15], and Soto correlated them with the five "unmistakable marks" of the Snark. Wright's English Dialect Dictionary contains the fascinating entry "SNORK, v. and sb....also in the forms snark... 1. v. To inhale noisily through the nose; to snort, to snore, grunt; ...Hence Snorker, sb. A young pig, a porker." Noisy inhalations are associated with TB, and "snork" can be seen as another Snark/pig/scrofula connection. Was the Snark, then, simply a pig - one Carroll associated with scrofula? Dodgson was fascinated by medicine, and certainly had enough knowledge to make this connection. Fernando asked us to look at the ears of the Baker's uncle in Holiday's drawing (scrofula was thought to be hereditary), the pig-baby in AW and both Carroll's and Furniss' pictures of sick pigs. His talk is being expanded and will appear in a forthcoming issue of The Carrollian. A lively question period followed, discussing evidence vs. coincidence, and Charlie Lovett brought up Carroll's 1892 letter to the St. James's Gazette on where the burden of proof (onus probandi) lies. 5 5 This incident is detailed in Lovett's invaluable Lewis Carroll and the Press, Oak Knoll Press, 1999. 1884718876. We then took a few hours to lunch and to mosey over to the foyer of the Osborne Library, scene of Friday afternoon's Maxine Schaefer Memorial Outreach Fund Reading. The entranceway is flanked by a lion and a gryphon, their mascot, and we were led down, down, down to a cheerful meeting room in a sub-basement. Dayna welcomed us, and introduced our next speaker, Leslie McGrath of the Osborne Collection of Children's Literature, part of the Toronto Public Library system, which is now the second largest in North America. The Osborne itself held an exhibit "We're All Mad Here" during CLD's 1998 death centenary year, and has hosted two L.C. S.Canada meetings. Ms. McGrath began by showing slides demon- strating the great breadth of their holdings - from a 14 th century >Esop through 16 th c. hornbooks up to the present day, including the original engravings for the Snark and Sylvie and Bruno. Her talk began "Perhaps less familiar are the reading materials of Carroll's own childhood. These are partly the makings of what Carroll called the 'bits and scraps' - the single ideas that were seized and added into the Alice books. Scholars have written about these volumes, but opportunities to look at them are limited... In the overview of holdings, you have seen the gradual progression of children's books from purely instructional to works of amusement, with a heavy dose of moral stories at the midpoint. Carroll, as a well-read child, would have faced a bookshelf full of these moral stories, with the odd bit of relief through old classics not written for children (such as Cervantes and Defoe) but widely read by them." Among the books she discussed (and illustrated with slides) were Puritan "children's books" like Happy Death Stories (1672); the collected poetry of Isaac Watts (1715) which includes "The Sluggard" and "How doth the little busy bee. . .", sources of Carrollian satires; the Curious Hieroglyphic Bible - a rebus and riddle book; Pilgrim 's Progress, which had a Revelation-inspired framing dream- device; "moral writings" such as Barbauld's Hymns in Prose for Children (the author's belief was that plain language and instruction would "avoid prolonging the imbecility of childhood"); Sherwood's Little Henry and His Bearer Boosy (1815) which has been described as "touching the heart without turning the stomach"; Scott's Waverly novels; the brothers Grimm; Sinclair's Holiday House, where naughty children were sometimes amusing, not condemned, also contained an amusing fairy-tale; and some periodicals of that time. Ms. McGrath discussed Dodgson's concerns for the social order of the day - the poor were to be pitied, but there was no impetus for social change. "Carroll would not be described as a social revolutionary, but in publishing his books he brought the more timeless emblem story of the fairy tale into a current social context, pointing out its foibles, and those of the adults who enacted it." She concluded "Carroll's contribution to righting the wrongs of the day was to provide escape literature - to provide a vocabulary of nonsense for children that allowed some of the more burdensome aspects of being small and powerless in a restrictive society, and some of its giants and ogres, to be laughed at and made ridiculous. The shelves at Osborne are divided into stories before and after 1850, but more properly, they would be divided into 'before Carroll' and 'after Carroll'. No one achieved quite the heights of nonsense since, but as the evidence shows, young readers will never stop wanting what Carroll perfected in Alice." Next the vaudeville team of Walker & Poole, with Andy Malcolm as their "second banana", entertained us with their fine comedy sty lings. Actually, these fine artists from the Cheshire Cat Press - George Walker is the engraver and illustrator, Bill Poole the typesetter and designer, Andy an associate - were responsible for bringing to life Joe Brabant's vision of a fine press set of AW and TTLG. In 1981, a small Christmas keepsake, "The Origins of the Poems of AW", printed by Bill was brought to Joe's attention, and Bill said he was invited to lunch by this formally-dressed "nice old man" (who turned out to be, in fact, two years Bill's junior). For the next fourteen years at the breakneck speed of two pages a month, George, Bill, and Joe would have luncheon and discuss their progress. "One never really, really knows a book until one has set it by hand", Poole remarked. 6 Every letter becomes your friend (or, when in short supply, your adversary). Even linotyped books do not come close to the intimacy of pulling individual letters, printing the pages, and dropping the letters back into a case. They did this to keep to the spirit of Carroll's experience (for instance, having the same technical difficulties in printing "Jabberwocky" backwards). Bill also reminded us that typesetters were the elite of the working class in Victorian days - serving an apprenticeship, receiving high wages, and, above all, having to be literate. When the book was released in an edition of 177 with ten on handmade paper (made from "old socks, prints, and proofs" said George), each one was bound differently - some by the Cheshire boys, some by the subscribers. A few of these were on display, such as a hardwood box with cards engraved on it, containing a music box which played "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Bat" when opened to that page. George brought along some of his engraving tools and showed us how he worked, as was done in days of yore. Tools were of such delicacy that when we look at a "halftone" photograph in a book printed in Victorian times, it is astonishing to remember that that "photograph" actually had to be engraved by hand into a block of wood before printing! A frontispiece depicting the Jabberwock was faithful to Carroll's original intention for TTLG. Further details of the Cheshire Cat printing are found in AX 55. After Andy read a frightening yet amusing series of letters between Brabant, Macmillan and A.P.Watt (their solicitors) and passed out to each of us a handsome bound keepsake edition of Joe Brabant's "Wouldn't It Be Murder" 6 "I must say that you can not tell what a picture really is or what an object really is until you dust it every day and you can not tell what a book is until you type or proofread it. It then does something to you that only reading can never do." - Alice B. Toklas BIZARRO Piraro speech, we scattered about Toronto. The Publications Committee, having found themselves thrown out of the library, improvised a meeting room at the nearest Donut shop, where the very composed Ms. Lucy Lovett (aet. 714 exactly) performed her duties as the "designated donut eater" so the rest of us could confer in relative peace. The Society next coalesced in the reception room of the Royal Canadian Military Institute, which was chosen for its Victorian atmosphere. There we met over cocktails with more LCSC members, including a half-dozen from the "Bootmakers", an organization of Sherlockians named not for the member of the Snark-hunting crew, but for "the only reference to Toronto in the Holmes canon" 7 . Several of them were in costume. After a tasty dinner, we were welcomed by Dayna who introduced "Lewis Carroll", who bore a remarkable resemblance to Donny Zaldin of the LCSC and Bootmakers. He gave us a "magic lantern" (slide) show of himself (as CLD) and "Alice" (Dayna's daughter) on their Adventures in Toronto - from a bakery called the "Queen of Tarts" to a giant chair outside a furniture mart. Then Dayna presided over a quiz written by Brian Gibson [at far left]. Andy Malcolm's "day job" is as a "Foley artist" 8 on films, and has worked on many major releases. Combining his passions, he is himself directing and producing a film, "A Golden Afternoon", which is a series of vignettes or "a slice of the life" of CLD and Alice circa 1859, including photography, storytelling, and a boat trip. It will be about an hour long and is being shot with nonprofessional actors, as there is no dialog. In fact, in the topsy- turvy Wonderland logic we're all so fond of, he is shooting it first, and will come up with a script afterwards (to be narrated by two persons sounding like Dodgson and Alice). Andy shared with us some of the meticulously crafted props, including a working reproduction of Dodgson 's camera, which was made by an artisan he found in Colloidon Quarterly, a magazine devoted to persons still using that process for taking pictures! Andy showed us how the camera was used, and how the entire process from preparation of the glass plate to development had to be done within 30 minutes. Andy also had faithful reproductions of Dodgson's 7 The Hound of the Baskervilles, Chapter 14: "Holmes sank to his waist as he stepped from the path to seize it, and had we not been there to drag him out he could never have set his foot upon firm land again. He held an old black boot in the air. 'Meyers, Toronto,' was printed on the leather inside. 'It is worth a mud bath,' said he. 'It is our friend Sir Henry's missing boot.'" 8 synching sound-effects to film in post-production 2nd so my wain message to you kid! is ihis: JUSf SWJ'MQ To WALLS diaries, photo albums and some of the books from his library to further enhance the realism of the shoot. It will be done on digital video, and he hopes to premiere it at our Spring gathering in New York or, more likely, next Fall's Texas meeting. Stephanie then announced our 25 th anniversary, and distributed the booklets, admirably edited by August Imholtz and fondly recalling a quarter century of "golden afternoons" to members present along with our official LCSNA pin! All currently active members not in attendance have been mailed the book and pin (and errata slip). Sunday may be a day of rest for some, but not the LCSNA&C! We met inside the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) in the Tanenbaum Center for European Art in front of the Arthur Hughes' painting "Girl with Lilacs" which had hung over Dodgson's mantle. 9 Here it was situated between Waterhouse's "Lady of Shallott" and a large painting of "Electra at the Tomb of Agamemnon" by William Blake Richmond, whose painting of "The Sisters" (Alice, Lorina, and Edith Liddell in Llandudno) is familiar to us all. Having seen "Girl with Lilacs" in reproduction does not prepare one for the sweet radiance and delicate brushwork of the original. This painting was either a preliminary study for, or a partial copy of a larger Hughes work, "Silver & Gold", 10 and this picture, a bit claustrophobic with a flat perspective, is tightly framed in its original by Hughes. The purple lilacs may be seen as "the first bloom of love" in the Victorian "Language of Flowers". Dayna gave us a talk on the Pre-Rafaelite brotherhood, founded by Dante Gabriel Rossetti in 1848, and dedicated to symbolism, bright colors, simplicity, and a revitalization of the "degeneracy" into which painting had fallen. Dodgson, whose taste in painting was fairly academic and conservative, preferring the narrative and sentimental, was welcomed within their society - but as a photographer and fellow-artist, not as a writer of children's books. He moved easily in their circle, observing and photographing many of them as they created their works. Some serendipitous influences were felt: Carroll wrote the poem "After Three Days" (1861) after seeing Holman Hunt's picture "The Finding of Christ in the Temple"; Sir John Everett Millais' "My First Sermon" (modelled by his daughter Effie) was parodied by Tenniel in his picture of the railway carriage and his "Sir Isumbras at the Ford" might have been a model for the White Knight. Dodgson also enjoyed Rossetti 's unfinished painting "Found" for its theme of redemption and rescue. Rossetti's daughter Christina is 9 See KL 58, p. 13 111 see the letter from Hugues Lebailly in KL 59, p.8 credited with the very first Alice parody, Speaking Likenesses. Artist / sculptor George Frederic Watts married Ellen Terry. Dodgson enjoyed a long friendship with the Hughes children (Dayna read his delighful 1871 letter to Agnes & Amy about flattening three cats, and pointed out that the name "Amy" was scratched into a tree in "Silver and Gold"). Arthur Hughes also illustrated the first printings of George Macdonald's At the Back of the North Wind and The Light Princess. After communing with the painting a bit longer, we wandered around AGO, finding a piece consisting of a car door with the number 42 etched on the window, and then basking in the radiance of one of the finest Henry Moore collections there is. Then home we steered, a merry crew, beneath the setting sun. > Further reflections from Cindy Watter: "No Lewis Carroll Society meeting is complete without sneaking into a bookstore, my version of the crack house hoping it hasn't been already picked bare by your friends. Dayna hauled me up the stairs to David Mason's on Queen Street. I felt as if I were being dragged through the rabbit hole in reverse, emerging into a delightfully shadowy, cluttered shop which seemed to have all the desirable attributes, including a three legged cat and a helpful, friendly shopkeeper. This last was most appreciated, since we were five minutes short of closing time. Dayna wondered out loud why all the Carrolliana seemed to be dispersed all over the shop. I took advantage of it, finding Lewis Carroll Observed, which had been on my "look for" list for a few years. This shop made me wish I lived in Toronto: deluxe Arthur Rackhams; hearty Edwardian girls' school stories, early 20th century novels in their original jackets, and a revolving bookcase stuffed with hilarious 19th century sermons. I have never seen such an eclectic assortment with such a high percentage of things i really liked. Now, I always thought that the parents of old were sadists who liked to frighten their progeny into fits, but Ms. McGrath said that was not the case. On the contrary, they loved their children very much, and the shocking infant mortality rate was most saddening to them. Parents felt it was important to prepare their children for eternity - an eternity in heaven, preferably. Therefore, books like The Fairchild Family (CLDII certainly read it) filled a need. In one story, Mr. Fairchild, concerned that his children were fighting among themselves, contrived a cheery family outing to a gallows, from whence dangled the rotting corpse of a fratricide. He made the little Fairchilds stand underneath it, and told them of the certain fate that awaited them if they continued to quarrel with each other. I told the story to my own classroom a few days later, and discovered the literary equivalent of the stun gun." Alas! In Punderland By Brian Gibson and Dayna McCausland {with some uncalled-for revisions by the editor} "'It's a pun!' the King added in an angry tone, and everybody laughed." Most of the answers involve some capital pun-ishment, but not all. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland 1 . A red nose, a white column, and a blue quean 2. Hipster from Guevara's county 3. Talk show host's surname 4. Curve from the Netherlands 5 . Burning circles & hoarders of shrubbery 6. I did the following. Who am I? stand a 1 head c b e k nose 7. Match the "factions" of the court to the words below mine attack foot cat 8. Macbeth 's flaw, a pretty girl, plastic surgery gone wrong, your feelings for this useless question 9. Unscramble the words below O odd | legate | pi game | raptor | low 10. As a Canadian might otherwise say "He died." Through the Looking-Glass 11. Unscramble the following words: Girly tile | sore | to live | park slur 12. The * square is mostly water 1 3 . Each of the following words suggests another word which in turn links to the word "fly": forest | Pent | fresh | can 14. Musical group, uh, seize | one of a kind kernel 1 5 . Chatter while on one half of a two-way radio 16. Two heartburn medicine tablets in a row 17. Identify the characters from this poem: a) not a toy store, but a store that sells just one partition b) this certain fish can come in c) Yiddish encouragement to mix some soup with a spoon Answers on p. 12 Charles Dodgson and the Solution of the Alternating Sign Matrix Conjecture Francine F. Abeles Introduction Anyone familiar with Charles Dodgson's mathematical work knows of his paper "Condensation of Determinants" read to the Royal Society by Bartholomew Price and published in the Society's Proceedings in 1866, giving a simple method to compute determinants. (Reprinted in Abeles 1994, 170-80) What is generally not known is that almost 120 years later, his method was shown to be a critical step in the solution of an important problem in enumerative combinatorics known as the "alternating sign matrix conjecture". The chronology of this problem in the 19 th century begins with two papers by the great mathematicians Carl G. J. Jacobi (1833) and James J. Sylvester (1851) on the theory of determinants. Recently, a book and an article on this subject in the Notices of the American Mathematical Society have appeared. (Bressoud 1999; Bressoud and Propp 1999) What follows is a simplified version of a portion of the article which, if readers will invest a little time and effort, will reward them with insight into how mathematical problems are posed and solved, as well as with additional evidence that Dodgson was much more than a recreational mathematician, despite the relative lack of recognition of this aspect of his work. Alternating Sign Matrices An alternating sign matrix (ASM) is a square matrix — a block of 0s, Is, and -Is — where the entries in each row and column sum to 1 and the nonzero entries in each row and column alternate in sign. Formulated in the period 1982 - 86 by David P. Robbins and Howard Rumsey, Jr. in their study of Dodgson's condensation method, an ASM also can be viewed as a generalized permutation matrix. (Robbins and Rumsey 1986) An example will make these (a b c} d e f kS h *j matrices - square matrices whose entries are all 0s except for one entry of 1 in each row and column (refer to Figure (d e /> g h i ideas clear. For the general 3 x 3 matrix, A there are seven ASMs, six of which are permutation 1). For example, one of these, (l)bfg, multiplying A produces a b c The term (-l)bdi is associated with the matrix where a 1 appears in the positions occupied by b, d, and i, in A and similarly for the other terms and their associated matrices. (l)aei r l 0" ^0 1 0^ (\ 0" r o o r 1 (l)bfg = 1 (-l)afh = 1 (l)cdh = 1 K \j J 0j ,0 1 0, ,0 1 0, (-l)bdi 0) 1 (-l)ceg = (0)bde _1 fh 1 1 0^ 1 Figure 1. The 3 x 3 ASMs Each term above includes a (1) or a (-1) according to the way the determinant is evaluated using the condensation method as the example in the next section will show. For the general 4x4 matrix there are 24 permutation matrices, plus 18 matrices of 0s, Is and -Is in which the nonzero entries in each row and column alternate in sign. The general n * n matrix where n is any positive integer can be viewed in the same way. Dodgson's Condensation Method ( ae — bd bf - ce^] Using condensation on the matrix A, we obtain as the first step the 2 x 2 matrix and as the next K dh-eg ei-fli) 2 2 step the 1 x l matrix, ((ae i-aefh-bdei+bdfh) - (bdfh-befg-cdeh+ce g)) / e . Collecting the terms, we have (l)aei + (-l)afh + (-l)bdi + (0)bde" 1 fh + (l)bfg + (l)cdh + (-l)ceg. These seven terms are the ASMs of a 3 x 3 matrix with the term (0)bde being an extra (vanishing) term because multiplying A by it and then evaluating the determinant of the product yields 0. This result generalizes to n x n matrices. Bressoud and Propp have this to say about Dodgson's method: Although the use of division may seem like a liability (because it can produce Os that must be removed), it actually provides a useful form of error checking for hand calculations with integer matrices: when the algorithm is performed properly (with extra provisos for avoiding division by 0), all the entries of all the intervening matrices are integers, so that when a division fails to come out evenly, one can be sure that a mistake has been made somewhere. The method is also useful for computer calculations, especially since it can be executed in parallel by many processors. (Bressoud and Propp 1999, 638) The Refined ASM Conjecture (RASM) Trying to answer the natural question "how many ASMs are there?" Robbins, Rumsey and William H. Mills found the sequence S n = 1, 2, 7, 42, 429, 7436, 218348, 10850216, 91 1835460, ... a sequence they had never seen before. Since each ASM has just one +1 in its top row, they divided the ASMs into classes according to the position of the +1, shown below. 1 1 1 2 3 2 7 14 14 7 42 105 135 105 42 429 1287 2002 2002 1287 429 Figure 2. The counts of n x n ASMs with a 1 at the top of column k The sum of the entries in each row n is the number of ASMs for the corresponding n x n matrices, and the k th entry of the 11 th row is the number ofn^n ASMs having a 1 in row 1, column k. For example, forn = 4, 7+14+14+7 = 42 is the number of ASMs associated with a4M matrix. And when k=2 and n=3, you can check in Figure 1 that the number of 3 x 3 ASMs that have a 1 in row 1, column 2 is 3. Notice in Figure 2 that in each row, the first entry is the sum of the entries in the row above it, e.g. 7 = 2 + 3+2. When Robbins, Rumsey and Mills took ratios of horizontally adjacent entries, reducing them suitably, they obtained 2/2 2/3 3/2 2/4 5/5 4/2 2/5 7/9 9/7 5/2 2/6 9/14 16/16 14/9 6/2 Figure 3. The ratios of adjacent terms in Figure 2 For example, in the third row we have the ratios 2/3 and 3/2 for the entries 2, 3, 2. In Figure 3 the n 111 row begins with 2/(n+ 1 ) and ends with (n+ 1 )/2 . For example, when n = 4, row 4 begins with 2/5 and ends with 5/2. They now observed that each ratio seems to come from the two ratios diagonally above it by adding their numerators and denominators. For example, 16/16=7+9/9+7. This pattern, verified up to n = 20, became known as the Refined ASM Conjecture, RASM. The ASM Conjecture Observing that the first entry in each row in Figure 2 is the sum of the entries in the previous row, the RASM conjecture implies that A n , the number of the set of n x n ASMs, can be expressed as A = TT — — where ! " *i(n + j)! denotes the factorial function, e.g. 51 = 5x4x3x2x1 = 120. This became known as the ASM conjecture. For example a _ FT (3J + Q! Evaluating this expression for the successive values of j, we have 4 U(4 + j)! j=0: 1! / 4! = 1/24 j = l: 4! / 5! = 1/5 j=2: 7! / 6! = 7 j=3: 10! / 7! = 720 The product of these terms is 42, the fourth term in the sequence S n . Unexpectedly, Robbins, Rumsey and Mills learned that this sequence had appeared earlier where it enumerated a different class of combinatorial elements called descending plane partitions, DPPs. (Andrews 1979) Plane partitions, which generalize the idea of number partitions, were studied by Percy A. MacMahon in the late 19 th and early part of this century. Here is an example of a number partition: there are five ways to represent the positive integer 4 as the sum of positive integers: 4, 3 + 1, 2+2, 2+1 + 1, 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 .This is a one dimensional representation. Plane partitions are two dimensional objects. MacMahon was able to give a formula for the number of plane partitions for the number n. Using Andrew's formula for DPPs, Robbins, Rumsey and Mills tried to prove the ASM conjecture by showing there is a one-to-one correspondence between ASMs and DPPs. Although they were unable to prove the conjecture in this way, their attempt led them to the proof of another, the Macdonald conjecture, formulated in 1979 by Ian G. Macdonald for another class of combinatorial objects, the cyclically symmetrical plane partitions of an integer, CSPPs. Conclusion The ASM conjecture was proved true in 1995 when 89 referees determined that the latest version of a proof first given by Doron Zeilberger in 1992 was correct. (Zeilberger 1996) The theory of determinants that Dodgson contributed to and understood deeply evolved into invariant theory in the 19 th century: the study of properties that are not changed by a specific transformation. ASMs and symmetrical plane partitions are two of its children. Results discovered along the route to the proof of the ASM conjecture have connected them, and new applications to still other descendants of invariant theory have been established and continue to bear fruit. REFERENCES Abeles, Francine F., ed. The mathematical pamphlets of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson and related pieces. New York: LCSNA and distributed by the University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville, 1994. Andrews, George E. Plane partitions (III): The weak Macdonald conjecture. Invent. Math. 53 (1979), 193-225. Bressoud, David M. Proofs and confirmations: The story of the alternating sign matrix conjecture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Bressoud, David and James Propp. How the alternating sign matrix conjecture was solved. Notices of the AMS 46 (1999), 637-46. Macdonald, Ian G. Symmetric functions and Hall polynomials. Oxford: Clarendon press, 1979. MacMahon, Percy A. Combinatorial analysis, vol. I, II. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1915,1916. David P. Robbins and Howard Rumsey, Jr. Determinants and alternating sign matrices. Advances in Mathematics 62 (1986), 169-84. Zeilberger, Doron. Proof of the alternating sign matrix conjecture. Electron. J. Comb. 3 (2)(1996), Research Paper 13. WIHIli-f rue BODY RGOUJRIGS %\%££ ca If OUR HOURS* *Rl£Sr: feef©R£ If 1% READY ro* ANdfiflER MfAL^WMD WIU. %\ MiW CASES MWTflHI IJHlR^r or Four niriNnuni&s Serendipity It's the hope that's important. Big part of belief, hope. Give people jam today and they'll just sit and eat it. Jam tomorrow, now - that'll keep them going forever. ~ Hogfather by Terry Pratchett "The misanthrope turns twenty" In Sylvie and Bruno, one of the lesser-known works by the author of Alice in Wonderland, Bruno tells Sylvie that there are "around one thousand and two pigs" lying in the field. Sylvie responds that if he is not sure of the total number he should say "around one thousand" and ignore the extra two, to which Bruno replies very gravely, that, on the contrary, it is of the two pigs that he is sure because they are right in front of him, while of the other thousand he has no certainty. The author. . .knew well that one thousand and two is just as arbitrary a number as one thousand. It is only our use of the decimal system that makes us prefer one number to the other. It is this same passion for multiples of ten that will lead to so few people going to bed early on December 3 1 , despite the purely conventional nature of the calendar and the fact that, as we have been told ad nauseam, there was no year zero and therefore that the third millennium won't start until 200 1 . It is also this tyranny of ten that dictates that my adolescence has just ended. ~ Alejandro Jenkins in the Harvard Crimson So, in the Queen's remark "it's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards", the word poor is a 'modifier', and thus expresses a subclass of its head- word memory (ideational); while at the same time it is an 'epithet' expressing the Queen's attitude (interpersonal), and the choice of this word in this environment (as opposed to, say useful) indicates more specifically that the attitude is one of disapproval. The words it's ... that have here no reference at all outside the sentence, but they structure the message in a particular way (textual), which represents the Queen's opinion as if it was an 'attribute' (ideational), and defines one class of memory as exclusively possessing this undesirable quality (ideational). The lexical repetition in memory that only works backwards relates the Queen's remark (textual) to mine only works one way, in which mine refers anaphorically, by ellipsis, to memory in the preceding sentence (textual) and also to / in Alice's expression of her own judgment I'm sure (interpersonal). Thus ideational content and personal interaction are woven together with, and by means of, the textual structure to form a coherent whole. ~ notes for a class on Milton given by Stanley Fish at U.C.Berkeley in 1972, diligently saved by Cindy Watter Ravings from the Writing Desk of Stephanie Stoffel Greetings to one and all - and I've had the opportunity lately to think about each and every one of you, as I was putting the mailing labels on your packets of anniversary booklets and pins (those of you whose stamps were on crooked might like to know that your friend Lucy Lovett earned Christmas money by helping me with this mailing). It might have gone faster if I'd stuck on the labels without looking at them, but it was much more fun to read each one and think about you all, and where you live, and how long you've been involved. I know, or know of, many of you by now, and wish I had a chance to meet each of you. I realize of course that sometimes a person just wants to be on an organization's mailing list and is never going to be interested in going to meetings and becoming all gung-ho about it. So, my hope is that each of you is as involved as you want to be - that you will consider coming to a meeting if you haven't, that you'll contribute to the Knight Letter if you want, and that you'll be a part of the continuing dialogue on Lewis Carroll. If my reference to a ifies you, please know that received a pin (or just an booklet if you Toronto); if you ^ contact our see- Now, I last column but tell you about our Spring meeting have to look forward to New York: Hugues no doubt read articles mailing myst- you should have booklet and LCSNA errata slip for the were with us in haven't, please retary. promised in my one that I would program for the Here's what you n April 15, 2000, in Lebailly, whom you have about and by in the pub- lications of the British Lewis Carroll Society, will be repris- ing for us his Roger Lancelyn Green Memorial lecture on "The Victorian Cult of the Child". We will also be hearing Karoline Leach, author of the current book In the Shadow of the Dreamchild on Dodgson's relations with the Liddell family, and Abelardo Morrell and Leonard Marcus, whose illustrated edition of A W has come out recently. We will be meeting at the Century Club for lunch and this stellar program, so start now making travel plans and reading the works of our speakers to take advantage of your time with them. Look for your meeting notice with all the particulars in the late Winter. One last time, I must extend my and the LCSNA's thanks to Dayna McCausland and the Lewis Carroll Society of Canada for a fun and rewarding weekend in Toronto. And best wishes to you all for 2000 and beyond - 10 Leaves from the Deanery Garden I have been reading the essay "To Stop A Bandersnatch" on the internet and have found it rather intriguing in association with the research I have been doing. I am an architectural thesis student at Philadelphia University. I am proposing a project using Alice in Wonderland and the language "techniques/methodologies" in conjunction with the play of scale and perception used by Lewis Carroll as a spring point for an architectural study. The study consists of first the thesis document and later an architectural project. Originally I was planning on investigating how literature can influence architecture. Due to the overwhelming volumes of information, I decided to narrow my search. So rather than abandon the idea alto- gether, I thought by choosing a particular piece of literature that was interesting and exciting and charged to formulate a translation into architecture. And knowing that almost no ideas are entirely original (that is to say, the translation is always different but the inspiration is often the same), I would imagine that some where out there some architect or designer has taken the trip down the rabbit hole and done his or her own archi-tectural investigation. So other than set designs (although that might be helpful too), do you know of anything that would fit into this category? First and foremost, the Disney Alice is something I am trying to avoid altogether. I don't want to use someone else's interpretations of the text. And Disney combines the two stories as one which I think kills them. Each story deserves to stand on its own. I guess what I was hoping for is not a "literal" translation of the book into a "theme park" type of construction - rather an inspired piece. Someone who did some theoretical problem and focused on the shifts in scale or the manipulation of the grammar. That sort of thing. I am inclined to think that I am not the first person in the world to have come up with such an idea. I was hoping that perhaps you might be able to point me in the direction of some artwork, architecture, or any other type of visual intervention that has been inspired by this piece of literature. I think that it would be tremendously helpful in my attempt to hone in on the objective of my endeavors. Thanks for any help you might be able to offer. Jaime Masler, that architect grrl firstname.lastname@example.com (To Charlie Lovett) Received a delightful package from the LCSNA this week and have absolutely enjoyed reading the various recollections and pieces in the LCSNA 25 lh Anni- versary book. Very well done. I really like the cover art! And for a newcomer like me, it gives me a wider and quite endearing view of what the society is about and a great appreciation for what founding and succeeding officers and members have contributed. Very glad that I joined! The pin is very lovely. I shall treasure it and wear it_ All the best, Julie Weiler Yes, a superb job on the book by August Imholtz, Stephanie Stoffel, and Charlie. Prizes all around!! The pin was suggested by Mark Burstein, designed by Jonathan Dixon, selected by a com-mittee including Pat Griffin, and underwriten by Charlie Lovett. I saw the Julia Margaret Cameron exhibit. [KL 61, p.22] It's great. I know CLD didn't like her, but sometimes he was too demanding. What's a little focus between friends? What a crazy person she must have been. I also read the Roberta Rogow Case of the Missing Miss featuring CLD and A. Conan Doyle. Worse yet, I bought it. It's awful - lack of characterization (you need more than CLD saying "It's logical" every whipstitch), weak plot, and a limp grasp of human behavior in the Victorian era. Or any era. It's very bad, but I should have known. It's a story about child prostitution, and the cover art was "Alice as Beggar Child", uncredited. Cindy Watter I just had to let you know of my pleasant surprise at receiving the new Knight Letter and finding "La Guida di Bragia"! It's nice to see it in a "popular printing", and I really like the use of the newsletter as a way of distributing little-known LC works. It reminds me of old Victorian magazines and the way they printed serialized novels and things. Any chance of publishing similar unpublished LC things in the future: interesting pamphlets, letters, etc.? 11 My pleasure was only marred by those stupid illustrations. Where did you find that hack artist? And yet. . . despite their boorishness and crude rustic humor, I find something about those drawings strangely magnetic, and can't resist staring at them for fifteen hours a day. If there are spare issues around, is there anyone to whom I should appeal for 2 or 3 extra copies? My own copy is being worn out by the friction of my vision dragging across the pages. Much thanks, Jonathan Dixon Of course, the "hack artist" Jon is sarcastically referring to is himself Much praise has been deservedly lavished on him for this work! We are always looking for original Carroll material, un- or under-available. Copies of all back issues of the KL are handled through our Secretary. Answers to previous Queries Dodgson's letter of March 8th, 1891, to his niece Edith expresses sentiments about doing for others that are close to the quotes in the Knight Letter 61 [p. 17], though not nearly a direct hit. Clare Imholtz The letter reads " ...but also in acquiring all those habits needed for making the best of life. And I don't mean, by 'the best of life ', the best for yourself, but the best for others. " A perhaps closer match was provided by Morton Cohen, who suggests the letter Dodgson wrote to Ellen Terry on 13 November, 1890, containing the sentence "And so you have found out that secret — one of the deep secrets of Life - that all, that is really worth the doing, is what we do for others?" CLD was expressing his appreciation for Miss Terry's willingness to take on Isa Bowman as a pupil. By now you must have received dozens of replies, but just in case: Edmund Wilson's "C.L. Dodgson: The Poet Logician" appeared in Wilson's collection, The Shores of Light (1952). It was reprinted in Phillip's anthology Aspects of Alice (1971) and in my casebook, Alices Adventures in Wonderland: A Critical Handbook (1969). Keep up the splendid work on the Knight Letter - it gets better in each new number! Best wishes, Donald Rackin Thank you, Don. Other correct replies were received from Ann Buki, who commented "At our meeting in May, the editor, Robert Phillips, mentioned that he found (when approaching him to reprint the essay) Mr. Wilson to be a rather prickly character... "; Bea Sidaway; and, naturally, Morton Cohen, who traced the original source to the New Republic, May 18, 1932, and also mentioned Wilson's review ofGernsheim 's LC: Photographer in the New Yorker, May 13, 1950. Queries Is anyone familiar with a 1912 novella called Bransford in Arcadia, or The Little Eohippus by Eugene Manlove Rhodes? An acquaintance described it as "a Western mystery with Carrollian clues". ~ Cindy Watter While in Toronto I bought a charming little hard-bound book, The Original Alice by Sally Brown, published in 1997 by The British Library. Who is Sally Brown? I just wonder where she lives, and the usual biographical info. Age, experience, and general "claim to fame" type of stuff. Her little book is very well constructed, and a pleasure to read. I'm also thoroughly enjoying Stephanie Stoffel's well-packed "little" picture & info book [Lewis Carroll in Wonderland, Abrams/Discoveries '97] As I began reading the catalog of the exhibit we saw in Toronto, I got stumped (!) on the first "Solution-Word" ("MediuM") to the second verse in the double acrostic Dodgson wrote to his friend Marion Miller (page 33). My question #2: How does one deduce the word "medium" from LC's verse "I trust," exclaimed her teacher, "you'll Never forget the golden Rule To treasure all you learn at school." Most friendly regards, Gary Meisters Lincoln, Nebraska My initial guess had to do with "medium " in the sense of either the arithmetic "golden mean" or the other "golden rule" of "nothing in excess". Readers? Answers to Punderland, p. 12: 1. The caterpillar and his hookah 2. Cheshire Cat 3. Gryphon 4. Duchess 5. Flamingos & hedgehogs 6. Father William 7. Diamond, Heart, Club, Spade 8. Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, Derision 9. Dodo, Eaglet, Magpie, Parrot, Owl 10. Croquet 11. Tiger lily, rose, violet, larkspur 12. fifth 13. fire, house, fruit, May 14. Bandersnatch, Unicorn 15. Jabberwocky 16. Tumtum tree 17. Walrus, Carpenter, Oyster Selected explanations (which take such a dreadful amount of time) may be found on p. 16. 12 Contemporary Reviews of Sylvie and Bruno and Sylvie and Bruno Concluded by August A. Imholtz, Jr. In the Winter 1 979/80 issue of Jabberwocky - The Journal of the Lewis Carroll Society (U.K.), Vol. 9, No. 1, Dr. Selwyn Goodacre began to reprint all of the early reviews of Alice 's Adventures in Wonderland. Since the reprinted reviews, extending over several numbers of the journal, proved useful to Carroll scholars, we propose to follow Dr. Goodacre's example in reprinting all of the early reviews of Sylvie and Bruno and its sequel, Sylvie and Bruno Concluded, that we can locate. Unfortunately, Lewis Carroll did not provide later editors with a list of reviews as he had done for his first great work. For that reason our efforts may fall short of completeness, but we shall do our best and should provide at least more references than those offered in the Carroll secondary literature. The reviews are somewhat mixed, echoing a certain confusion born of the portmanteau plots and a disappointment in the preachy excursuses so unexpected in the author of Alice. Outland, it seems, lies a good distance from Wonderland. [This issue will print reviews of Sylvie and Bruno; Concluded in the next issue] The Critic , vol. 16, no. 326. Mar. 29, 1890 It is a woeful thing to own to a disappointment in the author of 'Alice in Wonderland.' To have kept that irresistible volume (and its worthy successor, 'In the Looking Glass') enshrined in one's heart and bookcase ever since its first appearance; to have laughed over, and quoted it on all occasions in season and out; to have introduced its weird characters into many an entertainment of family dramatics, is certainly to be prepared to stretch out a warm hand to another book from the same source. But here is 'Sylvie and Bruno,' beautifully printed, illustrated after the same charming fashion as Alice; and here is a reader who lays it down when finished with something like a groan. It is not because the author has avowed his belief that from the merry side of life young folks should be led to look upon the graver realities which are part of the lot of all humanity. Bowed to the earth with bitter woe, Or laughing at some raree-show, We flutter idly to and fro. Wisely, no doubt, he abandoned the idea of attempting to repeat his first success in a story on the lines of Alice. 'The path I timidly explored - believing myself to be "the first ever that burst into that silent sea" — is now a beaten high-road: all the wayside flowers have long ago been trampled into the dust; and it would be courting disaster for me to attempt that style again.' But no amount of imitation could dull the spirit, the delicious sense of humor, the close kinship to child's nature that won such quick response from English-speaking children of all lands. Any story coherent enough to enter the comprehension of a young reader could have been made to sparkle from his pen. But in 'Sylvie and Bruno,' there is such an extraordinary commingling of politics, and creeds and love making by elders, with dream- journeys, quips and quirks, rhymes and rambles for the young, that it is well-nigh impossible to find the intention of the guide. Save for the delightful visit of the two little people to Dogland, one looks vainly for a chapter suitable to read aloud to a pair of longing ears in whose recesses memories of Alice faintly sound like the horns of Elfland. There is the long dolorous ballad of Paul and Peter, disclosing to young minds a phase of human nature repulsive in the extreme. There is the merry jingle of the Buffalo upon the Chimney-piece. There is a bit as welcome as spring dandelions in the grass, about the fairy Sylvie and the wounded Beetle. There is the droll Rhyme of the Three Badgers - and then, and then - what then? It is an ungracious duty to say even so much as this, in trying to speak truth, and it is to be hoped that the testimony so given may prove that of one individual only, and that other eyes may be open to what these have failed to see. The Academy , No. 920, Dec. 21, 1889 What are we to say about this new book by "Lewis Carroll"? No critic who calls to mind the innocent delight which Alice has given to tens of thousands of both young and old will take pleasure in speaking unkindly of its author. But Ah, the pity of it! It is not always granted, even to a man of genius, to repeat his original success after the lapse of a quarter of a century. Whether it be due to the strange method of composition disclosed in the preface, or to the effort of working an exhausted vein, or to the change of temperament in advancing years, it must be sorrowfully confessed that, as a whole, Sylvie and Bruno is a failure. Not that Sylvie and Bruno themselves are not worthy of kinship with their immortal elder sister, or that some of their doings and adventures are not told with all the old humour and charm. But the setting of the story, the humans that are introduced, their preachings and their love-entanglements, are, in our opinion, positively intolerable; nor is the book any the better for being twice the length of its predecessors. If possible, we should suggest the following course, at any rate to one who proposes to read out loud to a juvenile audience. Let him begin at the top of p. 190 and go on continuously to p. 221 — this, it is pleasant to know, was the germ of the story; then let him begin again from p. 226 to p. 234, and, after skipping some more pages — but not the "Song of the Three Badgers" — read the whole of chapters xx. and xxiv, and there stop, for he will never find Sylvie or Bruno again. Perhaps he may then feel encouraged to begin at the beginning; but we can assure him that he will become weary and puzzled long before he reaches the end. The task of getting on will be not a little lightened by the pencil of Harry Furniss, who has proved himself a not unworthy successor to John Tenniel. His gardener, his professor, and his animals are first rate; and his children are always charming, even when they have to wear black stockings. The Athenaeum , No. 3245, Jan. 4, 1894 A book of which the key-note is topsy-turvyness ought surely to be produced in a somewhat topsy-turvy 13 manner, so it is not surprising to find from Mr. Lewis Carroll's preface that he first collected his incidents and dialogues, or fragments of them, and then invented a story to use these to the best advantage. He reveals, in fact, in his preface his method of composition. The chapters headed "Fairy Sylvie" and "Bruno's Revenge" are, with some slight alterations, reprinted from a tale in Aunt Judy's Magazine, 1867. Not till seven years after its publication did the idea of making it the nucleus of a longer story present itself to the author's mind. "As the years went on," writes Mr. Carroll, "I jotted down, at odd moments, all sorts of odd ideas, and fragments of dialogue, that occurred to me — who knows how? — with a transitory suddenness that left me no choice but either to record them then and there, or to abandon them to oblivion And thus it came to pass that I found myself at last in possession of a huge unwieldy mass of litterature — if the reader will kindly excuse the spelling — which only needed stringing together, upon the thread of a consecutive story, to constitute the book I hoped to write. Only! The task, at first, seemed absolutely hopeless, and gave me a far clearer idea, than I ever had before, of the meaning of the word 'chaos' : and I think it must have been ten years, or more, before I had succeeded in classifying these odds-and-ends sufficiently to see what sort of a story they indicated: for the story had to grow out of the incidents, not the incidents out of the story." Such was the "genesis" of 'Sylvie and Bruno.' Being written by Mr. Lewis Carroll, it is needless to say that it is full of amusing things, and not without some of "the graver thoughts of human life"; nevertheless it falls far below 'Alice in Wonderland,' and the illustrations of Mr. Harry Furniss are by no means worthy of his reputation. The narrator is an impersonal being who comes and goes like Miss Meadows and the girls in "Uncle Remus," and never takes much more shape. He lapses into fairyland every time he falls asleep, and returns without any sense of strangeness; and so well is this managed that we accompany him thither with perfect ease, and are quite as able to make the best of both worlds as he is. The characters are numerous. There is a warden who is deposed from his wardenship, and finds refuge in fairyland as king — a sub-warden with a wicked and very stout wife, who "looks like a haystack out of temper" — a distinguished doctor who has "actually invented three new diseases, besides a new way of breaking your collar-bone!" He wears boots specially made for horizontal weather, and is so clever that "sometimes he says things that nobody can understand." There is another professor who lectures with his back turned to the audience, and a gardener who breaks out into snatches of song which have the old ring: — He thought he saw an Elephant, That practised on the fife: He looked again, and found it was A letter from his wife. "At length I realize," he said, "The bitterness of Life!" All these characters, and others too, are amusing, but Sylvie and Bruno are, as they ought to be, more interesting and amusing still. From first to last they are delightful. Bruno, who is addressed "Y'reince," an abbreviation of "your Royal Highness," is even more fascinating than Sylvie. '"I hope you have had a good night, my child,' said the Professor to him. Bruno looked puzzled. T's had the same night oo've had,' he replied. 'There's only been one night since yesterday!'" Again, when the two children encounter the Gardener, who, being told by Sylvie that Bruno is her brother, asks, "Was he your brother yesterday?" — '"Course I were!' cried Bruno, who had gradually crept nearer, and didn't at all like being talked about without having his share in the conversation. 'Ah, well! ' the Gardener said with a kind of groan. 'Things change so, here. Whenever I look again, it's sure to be something different! Yet I does my duty! I gets up wriggle- early at five — '. 'If I was oo,' said Bruno, T wouldn't wriggle so early. It's as bad as being a worm!' he added, in an undertone to Sylvie. 'But you shouldn't be lazy in the morning, Bruno,' said Sylvie. 'Remember, it's the early bird that picks up the worm!' 'It may, if it likes!' Bruno said with a slight yawn, T don't like eating worms, one bit. I always stop in bed till the early bird has picked them up! ' T wonder you've the face to tell me such fibs! ' cried the Gardener. To which Bruno wisely replied, 'Oo don't want a face to tell fibs wiz — only a mouf" Bruno does not like snakes, they are too "waggly"; he is not "praticular," but he likes "straight animals best." He goes through his gardening most conscientiously, carefully conforming to the rules of Elfland. Being asked by the impersonal narrator what he is going to do with a dead mouse he has with him, he answers, "Why, it's to measure with! However would oo do a garden without one? We make each bed three mouses and a half long, and two mouses wide." Padding, according to Mr. Lewis Carroll, may be fitly defined as "that which all can write and none can read." He does not absolutely affirm that there is none in the 395 pages in which the story of Sylvie and Bruno is told, but does affirm that it is confined to a few lines here and there, which have been inserted to eke out a page in order to bring a picture into its proper place. He asks his readers to discover three lines of this kind which lurk in a passage extending from the top of p. 35 to the middle of p. 38. These three lines of padding, however, must either be undeserving of the epithet, or there must be other bits of the same kind in the same pages, else there would be no difficulty in disinterring them. A free use of padding is, however, a charge that could never be brought against so gay and witty a writer as Lewis Carroll, and if his definition be true, proof will be given that padding is absent, for 'Sylvie and Bruno' is sure to be much read. The Nation, No. 1289, Mar. 13, 1890 Nobody but the author of 'Alice in Wonderland' and 'Through the Looking-Glass' could have written 'Sylvie and Bruno,' and yet the marvel is that he did write it, and allow it to go out with his name attached to it. He is, however, a clergyman, and it is quickly seen that 'Sylvie and Bruno' is a tract. In his preface he urges the need of a Child's Bible, a book of pieces selected from the Bible, a collection of passages (both prose and verse) from books other than the Bible, and a Shakspere[.s/c] for girls. He introduces in the same place a little sermon on theatre going, rather raising 14 the question than settling it: "I also go to the play," he says, "whenever I get a chance of seeing a really good one"; and, "if Shakspere was not inspired, one may well doubt if any man ever was." In the course of the story he delivers himself forcibly on the sin of hunting, against the Puritan Sunday for children, against the preaching of religion as a commercial speculation, and the immunity of the pulpit to talk "shallow twaddle that, if it were addressed to you over a dinner-table, you would think, 'Does the man take me for a foolV" These intrusions, if we must regard them as such, may win friends for the author's personality, but they quite defeat any aim on his part to make a continuously amusing book. No human being can read 'Sylvie and Bruno' with smile or grin from beginning to end. It is in his old and proper view of phantasmagoria which could "go round and walk on the top of its tail, and along its back, all the way to its head." Another humor of the book is its serio-comic index. The great American people, hugging its protectionist delusion, is aptly figured in the mob of the opening chapter shouting, "Less bread! more taxes!" The Spectator , January 18, 1890 The author whose nom deplume is "Lewis Carroll" is in the practically unique position of having written a sequel which was quite as good as — if, indeed, not better than the original. Between Alice Through the Looking-Glass and Alice in Wonderland it is hardly possible to make a choice, both are so super-excellent in the realms of nonsense and topsy-turvy. Yet, in spite of an achievement so remarkable, Mr. Lewis Carroll has failed in his attempt to produce a third work which can be put on a level with his first volume and its continuation. We have had plenty of Singlespeech Hamiltons in literature before, but a two-book author is almost a lusus liter arum. Sylvie and Bruno, judged by the very high standard which Mr. Lewis Carroll's previous work forces us to apply to his performance, is unquestionably a failure. True, there are a hundred things which remind us of what the volume might have been, but placed as they are, they bring little but a sense of regret and disappointment. If we may be allowed Wordsworth's phrase, the wiser mind mourns in Sylvie and Bruno less for what is not to be found there, than for what is left behind. Unfortunately, the author often replaces his former joyous outpourings from wells of nonsense undefiled, by matter of very serious import — matter which would come under Charles Lamb's translation of Coleridge's motto, "Things proper for a sermon." Disquisitions on the cruelty of hunting, and the raising and satisfying of doubts as to the Christian religion, are surely out of place in a record of Fairyland. Neither they nor the delicate and iridescent fooling which surrounds them gain by juxtaposition. Nor is this less true of the tedious and unsatisfactory grown-up love-story which is interwoven with the tale of the elf- children and of all the strange characters of Outland. If Mr. Lewis Carroll could be persuaded to cut out all the extremely self-conscious moral and religious reflections; all the stuff about the "I" of the narrative, except where it is necessary for the machinery of the tale; all the love-making that centres round the Earl's daughter; and, in fact, everything that he has made happen in the ordinary world; and were to leave only the pleasant residuum of inspired inconsequence, he would very greatly improve his book, and would make it in some sense worthy to rank with his former efforts. Doubtless even then we should be obliged to say, "The second temple is not like the first," but at any rate we should have a very pleasant addition to the literature of the inverted mind. After having made so much of moan over what might have been, we will utter no other word of complaint, but will merely attempt to introduce our readers to a few of the best of the good things in Sylvie and Bruno. Of these, the "Mad Gardener's Song" must be named first, because it carries us back to such delightful rhymes as "The Walrus and the Carpenter," "You are old, Father William," and "A- sitting on a gate." The present lyrical effusion is scattered up and down the book, and not presented in one inconsecutive whole, for the Mad Gardener carols forth his snatches of song much as does Ophelia. Since, however, they are never a propos of anything in particular, we shall venture to collect them all together, in order that our readers may verify our declaration that they are almost worthy to stand by the side of the song the White Knight sang to Alice in the realms of the Looking-Glass: — " He thought he saw an Elephant, That practised on a fife: . . . [the poem was reproduced in full] Here we have at its best that dextrous mixture of irrelevance of thought and conventionality and commonplaceness of phrase upon which Mr. Lewis Carroll has always so greatly relied to evoke the spirit of laughter. The aptitude for seeing the potential fun in some homely and well-worn sentence such as "The bitterness of life," "I should be very ill," or "There won't be much for us," though astonishingly acute in Mr. Lewis Carroll is not, however, confined to him. Mr. Gilbert possesses it in a marked degree, as is shown by hundreds of instances in his operas. Again and again, his best hits have been produced by suddenly turning the limelight of humour full upon some banal and every-day expression, out of which all sense and meaning has been worn by constant repetition. "Hardly ever," "It sometimes is a convenient thing," "All very agreeable girls," or "They usually objected," will occur to every reader's mind. But Lewis Carroll excels every other humorist in his power of matching his commonplace propositions with some extravagant and fantastic image. For example, the manner in which the laugh is compounded in the rhyme about the Banker's clerk is alike beyond praise or imitation. The story of the nonsense-part of Sylvie and Bruno — the only part we care to dwell on — is simple enough. Practically it consists of the doings of a little elf- boy and girl — the Sylph and the Brownie — the son and daughter of the Warden of Outland, afterwards promoted to be King of Fairyland. The conspiracy hatched by the wicked 15 Vice- Warden, his wife, and the Chancellor, the odd doings of the two old Professors, and the children's wanderings in Dogland, are some of the more amusing incidents, and over all is a pervading atmosphere of topsy-turveydom. Though not the funniest, one of the most fascinating episodes in the book is "The Frog's Birthday Treat," to which we must specially direct the attention of our readers. Before taking leave of Sylvie and Bruno, we must say a word as to Mr. Furniss's drawings. Those which have to do with things strange, unreal, and fantastic, are excellent and full of spirit and humour, except only that Sylvie is a little too like a ballet- girl. As to those in which the ordinary human element predominates, we cannot help expressing a less favourable opinion. "Easy, vulgar, and therefore disgusting," was an infamously bad criticism of Lycidas, and would doubtless be far too strong a judgment to apply to Mr. Furniss's attempts at grace and beauty. Still, there is undeniably in his efforts to portray subjects other than the purely grotesque, an element which suggests the famous phrase just quoted. Possibly, however, a fairer criticism would be conveyed in the words applied by a modern poet to the statesman whom Mr. Furniss has so constantly and so ably caricatured: — "Such wit, such humour, and such lively force, The whole so clever — must we add, so coarse?" Though in no way coarse in the worst sense of the word, those of the drawings that are meant to be pretty are devoid of all true delicacy or refinement of feeling. Selected Explanations for the Answers, p. 12 1. Catarrh 2. Che's shire cat 3. (Merv) Griffin 4. Dutch "S" 5. Flaming "0"s 7. Spayed 10. "Croak, eh?" 14. Band, er, snatch | unique corn 15. Jabber/walkie (-talkie) 17. Wall'R'Us The following letter was seen by August Imholtz in a Carroll exhibit at the Free Library of Philadelphia's Rare Book Department and is reproduced with their permission. It is printed here in a more legible handwriting font than Mr. Rack- ham's . The recipient is officially "unknown", but August hazards a guess in Carroll bibliographer Sidney Herbert Williams. While we're on the subject, August thinks that Rackham's Mad Hatter may be a self-caricature, below. HOUGHTON HOUSE, HOUGHTON , ARUNDEL . 26 Oct. 22 Dear Sir In/ reply to- your letter of 2 yu ^ / ashing- -for cv note/ on/ "Alice/ in/ Wonderland/', I'm/ going- to- ask/ yow to- execute/ me/. I have/ illus- trated/ it, & partXcularly ay I am/ Still/ financially interested/ in/ it I feel/that I had/ better notpublish any remarks about it. My experience/ of the/ booh, as it hoppers, was absolutely delight- ful/. So- far as I rernernber I was not very young/ when/ 1 first had/ it. About 10. And/ it was read/ aloud/ to-ay(3 about same/ age/ 11, 10, 9 say) • by my father & at once/ be- came/ a/ household/ word/. Ay it was presented/ to- us it gave- us no diffi/- culty. out I awv inclined/ to- think/ there is a/ custom/ of giving- it to- children/ when/ they are/ too young-. It is possible/ that my father's- full/ appreciation/ of it helped/ as children/ too-. It was read/ to us with full/ drcunatic affect, the/ songs sung/ & so forth. Altogether an/ wnforgettable/ & epoch/ marking- event in- my life. But I think/ 1 had/better say noth- ing- in print, if you/ wilt kindly let me/off Youry sincerely AKVHUK KACKHAM 16 <5©Jf ^§(©#P^ 8c A Note on the Publication of Martin Gardner's The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition How many notables in history, do you think, can claim to have es- tablished a new genre in literature, music, or art? By and large, genres evolve rather than appear in an in- stant. The novel, the serious play, the narrative poem, the opera, the musi- cal, painting in oils or watercolors - no one person can claim to have establishing the genre. Most of the time, we cannot even point to the individual or team who first popular- ized the form. That makes Martin Gardner an exquisite exception, for clearly he deserves credit for establishing the relatively new genre of the "Anno- tated" text, How many "Annotated" works have appeared in the wake of the first Annotated Alice since it was published in 1960? Dozens surely, and the genre is now securely imbed- ded in our literary culture. And yet, as we know so well, establishing this genre is only a small part of Martin's achievement. His other work on Lewis Carroll, and especially on the puzzles and games, would be sufficient to establish his international reputation. But he has ranged far and wide beyond Carroll. He has written children's books and novels, he has contributed to many branches of the tree of science, he has proven himself a sound and relentless debunker of pseudo- science, speculative myths, and prejudice masquerading as religion. All hail Martin Gardner; the Lewis Carroll community owes you a great debt. May you continue to thrive and rage far into the new millennium for the betterment of all. ~ Morton N. Cohen As Gardner sows, so shall we reap Martin Gardner's new "Defin- itive Edition" of his Annotated Alice (Norton, 1999, 0-393-04847-0, $30), - see note, left - a portmanteau combin- ing material from the 1959 and 1990 editions (but without the Newell illustrations), has been redesigned and updated with material discovered in the 40 years since the first publication and the decade since the latter, with additional material including the "Wasp in a Wig", newly discovered Tenniel pencil sketches, and a fihnography by our own David Schaefer. Adam Gopnik's essay in the New York Times Book Review, 5 December, 1 999, says that Gardner's mind, "compellingly split between a fist-class skeptical intelligence... and a heartfelt love of the fantastic and irrational, is a high product of its era". Furthermore, a second edition of Gardner's autobiography The Whys of a Philosophical Scriverner has just been reissued in paperback (Griffin, 0312206828, $18). "Cult" maybe, "Fiction" for sure A book by English (!!) journalists Andrew Calcutt and Richard Shephard, called Cult Fiction: a Reader 's Guide (Prion Books, U.K. or Contemporary Books, U.S.) gives page-long synopses of the lives and careers of authors who have built up a cult following. The accuracy of their opus may be gleaned from the following: "Lewis Carroll... was a fastidious and exacting man who always wore gloves, even in the hottest weather... The character of Alice was based on Mary, the second daughter of Henry George Liddell...The stories... were devised during boating trips in which Dodgson was accompanied by Mary Liddell. . ." They then go on to discuss the sixties, "White Rabbit", and "I am a Walrus" [sic], ending with a recommendation to read Jeff Noon's abominable Automated Alice and the works of Angela Carter. Thanks a lot. Bradburied Alive The news for Oz-philes is quite good: the University Press of Kansas has produced a stunning new release of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (The Kansas Centennial Editon, 0700609857, $25) with superb scratchboard drawings and wood engravings by Michael McCurdy. Unfortunately, the Baum-bastic preface by Ray Bradbury comes off terribly in favor of Oz at the expense of Wonderland. Calling Wonderland a "winter landscape" where Alice's friends "perpetually sneer", and coming up with such statements as "If you unlocked the door of a desolate mansion minus central heating, a proper hot water bath, and a kitchen, all knives and no spoons, you must certainly find Alice's Janus friends, two-faced but mostly facing north, pleased by blizards and bloodless tantrums. 17 Your slumbers would be one long glide off a glacier into a lake of cold soup." Saying the reader of Carroll must be "a cynic, a skeptic or just a disillusioned drop-out", he makes no friends among us. For completists only. Give me a Levenger and a place to stand Levenger Press is reprising two lesser-known works, Eight or Nine Wise Words About Letter-Writing and Feeding the Mind, containing 32 original illustrations by Edward Koren, perhaps best known for his cartoons in The New Yorker. (See our cover). Koren's exuberantly detailed drawings of fat minds, skinny pens and intrepid letter- writers capture Carroll in all his inspired whimsy. "It is high time that these two essays by Lewis Carroll were back in print and available for readers," said Morton Cohen, who saw prototypes of the books this summer. Both books contain forewords by Edward Wakeling. The books, each a diminutive 4 W by 6 '/a", are bound in green leather and have a second color of the author's "customary violet ink". These two limited editions are available exclusively through Levenger, the upmarket catalog company known for its "tools for serious readers" (www.Ievenger.com). Order by phone (800.544.0880) or online at www.levengerpress.com. Cost is $30 for each book or $50 for both. In celebration, the Levenger catalog also has a Tweedledum inkwell ($40), Alice's house of cards ($20), a new editon of Carroll's word- game "Syzygy" as a game with tiles ($35), and many great things for readers. Also http://www.levengerpress.com/ #FeaturedBooks has an inteview with Edward Wakeling. Colorfully Classic Harcourt Brace has published an American edition of Macmillan's 1995 set of AW/TTLG in two full-color hardcover volumes in a handsome slipcase. The books maintain the arrangement of words and art agreed upon by Carroll and Tenniel for the first edition, and the texts include the changes made to them during his lifetime and also incorporate the prefaces, poems, and letters added to various later editions. Two artists colored the Tenniel illustrations: Victorian artist Harry Theaker handcolored eight plates for each of the books in 1911, and Diz Wallis finished the rest of them in 1995 and 1996. These are the only editions with all of Tenniel's original art in full color in the correct arrangement currently available, the Random House / Fritz Kredel set being out of print for over fifty years. 015202199X, $35 the set. An Austrian Alice Artfully Arrayed by Jan Susina, Illinois State University Lisbeth Zwerger, the Austrian book illustrator and the 1990 winner of the Hans Christian Andersen Medal for Children's Literature, has produced a new Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (North-South Books, 1999, 0- 7358-1166-0, $20) and was recently in the United States to promote the new edition. While most Americans are familiar with the Caldecott and the Newbery Awards which are given out annually by the American Library Association to the outstanding American picture book artist and children's author, respectively, the Andersen Medal is more prestigious in that it is awarded every two years by the International Board of Books for Young People to an author or artist whose body of work has provided a lasting contribution to children's literature - their Nobel Prize. Other past winners have included Astrid Lindgren, the Swedish author of the Pippi Longstocking series; Tove Jansson, the Finnish author and illustrator of the Moomintrolls books; and the distinguished American Mau- rice Sendak. While Zwerger was in New York City, I was able to conduct an interview via telephone. A significant artistic turning point for her was the discovery of Arthur Rackham's work, and she credits English book illustrators such as Ernest Shepard, Heath Robinson and John Leech as important artistic influences. She also feels that a book's pictures "must be in keeping with the artist's style" and that they "should not resemble their predecessors". Zwerger's first illustrated book was E.T.A. Hoffmann's The Strange Child (1977). Other fairy tales followed, including the Grimm's Hansel and Gretel (1980) and Hans Christian Andersen's The Nightingale (1984), as well as classic children's stories such as L. Frank Baum's The Wizard of Oz (1996) and Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol (1988). A selection from her twenty books of dream- like and delicate watercolors, which have developed a popular following in more than twenty countries, are collected in The Art of Lisbeth Zwerger (1993). Zwerger compared Alice in Wonderland for a book illustrator to an actor playing Hamlet, in that it is a challenge of a lifetime. I asked her how a contemporary artist, given the intimate relationship between Tenniel's illustrations and Carroll's prose, can attempt to provide a new interpretation. She explained that she tried to free herself from Tenniel's drawings, choosing to let Carroll's text speak for itself. Where so many illustrators of Alice have simply modernized Tenniel's images, Zwerger tried to avoid the obvious. Her clever drawing of the Mock Turtle is true to the text but manages to do something different from Tenniel. Given the dissatisfaction between Carroll and Ten-niel, Zwerger felt that this allowed her to distance herself from the original artist. Despite her appreciation of Rackham, she tried not to be influenced by his style either, although she admitted that perhaps a bit of it might have slipped in somewhere. Nor did she consult Carroll's own illustrations of Alice's Adventures under Ground. While relying primarily on Carroll's text, Zwerger also consulted Martin Gardner's Annotated Alice for background information. For Zwerger, "fairytale illustration and fairy-tale research are two different things", and con- sequently she read much secondary criticism. She feels that "to illustrate a fairy tale is not an intellectual or scientific interpretation, but a transposition of internal pictures and feelings". So rather than attempting to picture Wonderland within a historical Victorian context, it is put in a timeless situation. The other major source of inspiration for her were Carroll's photographs of young girls. What impressed 1! Zwerger most about those images was a sense of stillness, sadness, and slight unhappiness, feelings which haunt her own interpretation. Wonderland becomes a slightly unpleas- ant place and one that Alice willingly wishes to escape from as soon as possible. Zwerger presents Wonderland as "a weird place, full of weird people". One of the most interesting aspects of comparing different drawings in the Alice books is that the artist must develop a personality for Alice as well as providing the atmosphere for Wonderland. While not exactly the threatening nightmare that some critics and illustrators have envisioned, Zwerger 's vision is clearly no dream. Wonderland is a world that Alice is grateful to leave - the final image presents Alice so eager to escape that she is literally rushing out of frame, and Zwerger mentioned that she enjoys presenting characters who are either leaving or coming into a drawing, and indeed many of her pictures show Alice in a fragmented view or moving off the page. Not surprisingly, Zwerger mentioned that after completing Alice in Wonderland, she didn't have a great urge to go on to Through the Looking-Glass - the first book was grim enough. Only after she was done did Zwerger came across the last photograph that Carroll took of (the adult) Alice Liddell, an image that seemed to convey the same feelings of sadness, distance, and melancholy that Zwerger had been attempting to achieve. She has suggested that some of the "most beloved are ambivalent characters" and that Alice seems to be one of those figures who have a "tragicomic touch" that need "to be freed from melancholy and lone- liness". Just as Alice is a bit more somber and muted character than that found in other editions, Zwerger's palette is a more muted and earth-toned, her watercolors providing a very dream-like and mysterious feel. The one exception is the pair of bright red stockings that Alice wears in an arresting illustration where she is trapped in the White Rabbit's house - the point of view seems to be peeking up her red stockings, which caused me to ask if Zwerger was hinting at a sexual reading. She just laughed and said that she was sorry to disappoint me, but that she had just wanted to draw red stockings. Zwerger's Alice is a consistently melancholy maiden rather than the spunky, spirited and curious child that many others present, seeming here to be a counterpart to the sad young girl playing alone in Giorgio De Chirico's "The Melancholy and Mystery of a Street". Her Alice is often pictured with downcast eyes or a somber expression. Equally melancholy are the three little girls who lived in the treacle well, who really do look quite ill. The book was published in Germany prior to pub- lication in the United States, and some reviewers have questioned if Zwerger has presented Alice as too serious and pale. As Susan Koppe has observed, "in spite of her love of beautiful patterns, ornaments, and delicate arrangements, she resists sentimentality." Zwerger's vision is of a much more serious and stoic character, not necessarily enjoying Wonderland, and she adds "Well, /wouldn't. It's a bit nasty and Alice is always being ordered about." Zwerger's illustrations provide a very European sensibility to a very English text. It is a curious and compelling combination and well worth careful examination. Contrariwise Helen Oxenbury's simultaneously published illus- trated AW is of an entirely different order. In a review in The New York Times, 21 November, 1999, Rebecca Pepper Sinkler calls Oxenbury's Alice "a pretty little thing in sneak- ers and a blue jumper right off the rack at the Gap. She's spunky and cheerful and cute. Also fearless and wholesome. And Lewis Carroll's Alice wouldn't cross the street for a play date with her. Unchangingly upbeat, (her drawings) miss the subtext of a story that is, for all its whimsy, about the terrifying instability of identity." Sinkler speaks of a "car- toon quality" to all of Oxenbury's creatures, contrasted to Zwerger's more adult, harrowing rendering. A nice edition for children, nonetheless. Here in the U.S. it is available as a paperback from Candlewick Press ($25); in the U.K. as a hardcover (£15), a set of four prints (£5) or playing cards (£5) or in a boxed Limited Edition (£60) from Walker Books, 87 Vauxhall Walk, London SE11 5HJ England; +44.171.793.0909. Carrollian Notes It Wood Be Nice As we move into the 21st Century there is a unique way of celebrating the life of Lewis Carroll - planting trees. To mark the centenary of his death, the Woodland Trust, working closely with The Mersey Forest, the Daresbury Lewis Carroll Society and the Cheshire County Council, is creating a new wood at his birthplace in Daresbury, Cheshire. One hectare of land adjacent to the birthplace has been purchased for the creation of the Lewis Carroll Centenary Wood as part of its national millennium project which aims to create 200 new woods throughout England and Wales. The Lewis Carroll Centenary Wood will be owned and managed by the Woodland Trust forever and will be freely open for visitors to enjoy peaceful walks and quiet reflection. This piece of the beautiful rolling Cheshire landscape will also be home to the Lewis Carroll Centenary Feature - a hexagon of six oak trees, encompassing a stone medallion, inscribed with Lewis Carroll's signature, echoing his fascination for mathematics. The aim is to plant 1,800 native broadleaf trees including oak, ash, wild cherry, dog rose, rowan and hazel. The creation of new habitats will also benefit many species of wildlife including snipe, partridge and skylarks (but not Snarks). A donation of just £10 will help plant and care for 19 one tree. By so doing you would: • help create a lasting memorial to Lewis Carroll. This wood should be here for the next 1,000 years, or more. • be a part of an important environmental project for the 21st Century. • receive a personalised certificate - a perfect gift for any Carrollian. Contact: The Lewis Carroll Appeal, Woodland Trust, Autumn Park, Grantham, Lincolnshire, NG31 6LL, England; +44 1484 609510; www.woodland-trust.org.uk; JudithStuttard@ woodland-trust.org.uk. Oliver and Dee's Excellent Adventure The award-winning Canadian program "Mentors", an innovative half-hour series premiering on the Family channel on Sunday, January 2 at 6:30 pm (encore showings each following Friday at 6:00 ET/PT), follows the adventures of two teenagers, Oliver and Dee, who discover a way to transport legendary historical figures into the present for 36 hours, "calling upon famous personalities to mentor them through the challenges of their lives". Produced by Anaid Productions and Minds Eye Pictures and filmed on location in Edmonton, Mentors was the recent recipient of a 1999 Alliance for Children and Television Award of Excellence for Best Drama. Targeted to a family audience, the series features Oliver Cates, a 15-year-old computer genius who invents Visicron, an amazing computer technology with the ability to zap famous figures into the present for 36 hours. It features Thomas Cavanagh as Lewis Carroll in one episode, but I haven't been able to determine that particular air date. See www.family.ca. Exhibiting Bad Behaviour Lewis Carroll's handwritten manuscript of Alice's Adventures under Ground is to be found at the Library of Congress' exhibition called "John Bull and Uncle Sam: Four Centuries of British-American Relations". The show, through March 4, is part of the celebration of the bicentennial of the library, founded in 1800. August Imholtz writes "The whole exhibit is terrible. The card describing the Underground [sic] MS is full of errors, e.g., "the manu- script was written for Alice Liddell, the daughter of a friend" and Carroll "slipped it into her Christmas stocking in 1 864." The manuscript is placed in a case with political history materials, especially World War II and Marshall Plan items, without any explanation of what it has to do with the post- World War II American goodwill gesture orchestrated by Librarian of Congress, Luther Evans. I have written to the Library of Congress asking to give a talk about the MS to correct a few things. To give you an idea of the logic of the exhibition, a notebook of Orville Wright's calculations is placed above a flush toilet developed by Thomas Crapper." Now I've got a headache The otherwise admirable site of the Migraine Awareness Group (MAGNUM) at www.migraines.org has an "Awareness Art Gallery" section on famous sufferers, which includes this paragraph: "One of the more interesting artist-Migraine relationships is the fine-art photographer and author Lewis Carroll... One of his albumen prints, circa 1862, is of his niece, Alice. [This is illustrated with CLD's photograph of Mary Millais.] His books were heavily influenced by his Migraine experience. For example, a well- accepted interpretation of the Cheshire Cat is as a symbol of the Migraine disease itself. The Cheshire Cat has a tremendous influence on Alice's adventures and only reveals itself to Alice. Remember: Migraine is an 'invisible' disorder.... Other references in Carroll's adventures include Alice being blinded by the moonlight (Migraine sufferers are extremely light-sensitive), and the many references to hallucinations and drugs: 'One pill makes you smaller, one pill makes you larger, the pills mother gives you do nothing at all,' observed the Cheshire-Cat.'" [They have been very cooperative in our correspondence, and Sandor and I will be working up a much better informed paragraph for this worthy organization.] Weaving the Dream Cindy Watter The fall Dreamweavers' Young Actors Theatre Program (Napa, CA) production was "Alice in Wonderland". This fine show was directed by U.C.Santa Cruz theater arts graduate Katie O'Bryon, and featured dozens of local young people. James LaVoy was a hen-pecked King of Hearts and a rather Noel Coward-ly Lewis Carroll; Jennifer O'Bryon was an outstanding singing and dancing Alice; Mallory Wedding was a sinuous, scene-stealing Cheshire Cat, wearing a beret and "cat eye" sunglasses. The play owed a little to Andre Gregory and a lot to Carroll. Staging was clever, using a mix of styles from English Music Hall to Noh drama. The costuming and set decor were of necessity low-budget but very creative, holding to a checkered chessboard motif. The cups at the Mad Tea Party appeared to be made out of old 45s, flowerpots, and cookie cutters; the Red Queen's scepter was a bright red (new, I hope) plunger. Opening night refreshments had a Victorian tea party theme, with an amazing variety of teapots, cakes, and biscuits. This was an enjoyable night out because the director had a strong cast and emphasized fun over weirdness, remembering it was an entertainment for children, but the grown-ups enjoyed it, too. A Life Examined The erudite and charming Peter Heath, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Virginia and President emeritus of the LCSNA is the subject of a captivating interview in a 42 (of course) minute videotape entitled "Lewis Carroll in Wonderland", covering many fascinating aspects of this lifelong Carrollian. It is available for $35+$3 s/h from VAVideo Associates, 1130 Marion Drive, Charlottesville VA 22903 (also available in PAL format). Dear Mrs. Beck Johnston, who produced this and edited it down from six hours of raw footage, lost her life in a disastrous house fire this past summer. May she rest in peace. 20 A Hole Lot of Nonsense It started with an article in The Times (London) on September 15, 1999, wherein Nigel Hawkes and Nick Nuttall reported from the British Association for the Advancement of Science (meeting in Sheffield) on a talk by Tony Cooper of the British Geological Survey. The cause of Alice's fall, he said, was the soluble gypsum rock that underlies Ripon in North Yorkshire. At regular intervals the dissolving rock causes collapses that create holes large enough to swallow buildings. He said that Lewis Carroll was brought up near Ripon and had visited the town many times. Not only must he have been aware of the holes, but there is another connection: Carroll's father had a close friend, Canon Badcock, who lived at Ure Lodge in Ripon. His daughter, Mary Badcock, was later used by Carroll as the model for Alice's appearance. He gave a photograph of her to John Tenniel, the artist who drew the original illustrations, with instructions that this was how he wanted Alice to look. In Carroll's day there were many collapses in the fields opposite Ure Lodge and it is likely that in 1834 he visited a dramatic hole that opened up about 300 yards northeast of the house. This left a shaft more than 60' deep and 35' in diameter, with solid rock exposed at the sides. '"Down, down, down. Would the fall never come to an end!'" Alice thought to herself as she fell. In Carroll's time, he alleged, the holes were indeed believed to be bottomless. Near the village of Croft, where Carroll grew up, was Hell's Kettle, a huge hole filled with water. Prosaically, divers who have plumbed its murky water in recent times have found it is a mere 20' deep, but that was presumably unknown to Carroll. The dissolving rock under Ripon is gypsum — chemically, calcium sulphate — originally laid down when the area was under an enclosed sea in tropical temperatures more than 250 million years ago. The evaporating sea left behind the gypsum sheets that lie sandwiched between water- permeable limestones. Underground streams flow through the gypsum, said Dr. Cooper, at depths of 100' to 350'. Over the years channels form as the gypsum dissolves. Eventually the rock is so weakened that it can no longer support the overlaying ground. In Carroll's day, Ure Lodge was the solid home of a clergyman. But in 1997, a huge hole appeared close to the house, destroying a row of four garages. The house itself has now been demolished. A letter in The Independent (London) two days later from the Reverend David Felix, Vicar of Daresbury, replied "Sir: Lewis Carroll (Charles Dodgson) did not 'grow up' in Yorkshire but here in Daresbury, Halton, where he was born and lived for the first 1 1 years of his life. As for the source of the rabbit holes, you need only visit my garden and our churchyard to see where the true source of his inspiration lies. Cheshire rabbits must have far better excavation skills than their Yorkshire friends and relations." Down, down, down, down, down Without giving us much of a chance to recover from the NBC debacle, the trades have been alive with announcements of what promises to be the most gdawful production yet - possibly the worst conceivable. It is due to be released next year. If the Y2k bug does not cause the end of Western Civilization, here is a backup plan. Quote: "Dateline: London. A new film about Alice in Wonderland depicting the caterpillar as a dope-smoking Rastafarian and the Mad Hatter's Tea Party as a rap concert is to be released next year. The musical version of Lewis Carroll's book is to star the teenage pop idol Britney Spears in the role of Alice, and Ricky Martin, the Latino singer, as the Mad Hatter. Instead of dreaming about the White Rabbit — as she does at the start of the book — the action starts when Alice is run over by a VW Rabbit. 'After that it's chaos,' said the screenwriter Sarah Thorpe. Instead of finding a tea party hosted by a sleeping dormouse and a Mad Hatter, 'she's in the midst of a rock 'n' roll, hip-hop musical that's far from anything Lewis Carroll imagined.' [Indeed.] MTV, which is making the movie, describes the film as a 'contemporary musical' and is cagey about discussing the finer points beyond saying the script is still being 'tweaked'. But early drafts suggest that the Mad Hatter will appear as a talent scout at his own party, intent on spotting young singers, the Queen of Hearts is the Queen of Pop and the caterpillar is a spaced-out junkie. In this aspect, the role of the caterpillar departs little from how Carroll imagined him, puffing on a hookah. 'It has room for incredible cameos,' Thorpe said. The composer of the music for the movie has not been named. 'I'm amused,' said Kenn Oultram, the Founder and secretary of the Daresbury Lewis Carroll Society. He said he felt particularly positive about this version because it was so far removed from the book. 'All previous versions of Alice films have flopped, because they have tried to keep to Lewis's text. But it doesn't lend itself to the cinema screen.' The film will be the fulfilment of Carroll's longstanding dream that his book be turned into a musical. Though the star of the MTV version, Spears' acting ability has only been tested so far by playing a stewardess in a Hollywood film, Jack of All Trades. The MTV film likely will be the sexiest Alice in Wonderland ever made. Spears, loved as much for her pneumatic physique as her ability to sing, is far removed from the swottish Oxford don's daughter upon whom the book was based." Run for your lives!! 21 From Dor rar-^wQ' Books The Dictionary of Imaginary Places by Alberto Manguel and Gianni Guadalupi has been updated since its 1980 release and reissued by Harcourt Brace. 0151005419. $40. An Exhilaration of Wings: The Literature of Birdwatching, edited by Jen Hill contains a section by LC. Penguin Putnam 0670887242. $26. Eating the Cheshire Cat : A Novel by Helen M. Ellis, Scribner, $23, 068486440. Not much save the title. The Grolier Club's Gazette #50 prints Morton Cohen's 1998 lecture "I'm Not a Collector, But...". (Not for sale.) "A Sage's Journey: The Story of Tangrams" (including a free tangram puzzle set) by MathMaverick Press, $8 incl.p&h; P.O.Box 41, Waterford CT 06385; www.mathmaverick.com. CLD was particularly fascinated by tangrams. Exhibitions and Events A drawing entitled "Alice in California" by Grace Slick was exhibited at Buckley's Place in Tiburon (CA) on 20 November as part of a fundraiser. Two very large (3') humorous ceramic heads of the Duchess (wearing a Cheshire Cat t-shirt) and "Alice Gets a Job" (as a waitress) by Tony Natsoulas were exhibited September - December as part of the "Contemporary Crafts" show in the lobby of One Bush Street, San Francisco. The artwork is for sale by the Virginia Breier Gallery at 415.929.7173. The Columbus (OH) Museum of Art is displaying the life-size "Alice in Wonderland: A Grand and Curious Chess Set" by Joan Wobst through Jan. 23, 2000. On 12 October, COLT Telecommun- ications teamed up with Starlight Children's Foundation to host a celebrity-studded AW-themed party at the Kensington Roof Gardens to grant wishes to 28 seriously ill children from all over London.. Correspondents Articles "Alice's Discriminating Palate" by Kevin W. Sweeny in Philosophy and Literature, Vol. 23 No. 1, April 1999, identifies the content of the bottle labelled "Drink me" as a Grand Cru white Burgundy from Alice's description of its taste, and discusses the aesthetics and theories of the gustatory sense. Our sister organization, the Lewis Carroll Society of Japan, has begun publication of an excellent periodical, Lewis Carroll Studies, of pieces in English with summaries in Japanese. No. 1, 1999 weighs in at 130 pages of scholarly articles by Japanese writers, under the editorship of Tsutomu Hosoi. Contact : L.C.S.J., c/o Dept. of English Literature, Teikyo University, 358 Otsuka, Hachioji-shi, Tokyo, 192- 0352 Japan. "Creating a Wonderland of Your Own" in the Columbus (OH) Dispatch, 24 November, 1999, describes activities for children to use their imaginations in the manner of AW. "Curiouser and Curiouser", Celia Wren's superb article on the theatrical adaptations of AW, particularly the darker modern versions, appears in the December (not October) issue of American Theatre magazine, Vol.16 #10. "Hinter dem schwarzen Tuch der Plattenkamera", a review of Morton Cohen's Reflexionen im Spiegel, the German editon of Reflections in a Looking-Glass, in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 30 November. '"Him, and ourselves, and it': On the meaning of the 'evidence poem' mAW by Karl Maroldt in Semiotica, 118-1/ 2 (1998). "Pronouns have an indexical or deictic function..." "Metamorphopsia of the AW Syndrome" (in Dutch) in the Ned Tijdschr Geneeskd, 19 December 1998. "Mirror, mirror" in The Economist, November 20, 1999, discusses the neurobiological implications of D- serine, a "right-handed" amino acid discovered a few years ago in Japan. According to The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team of researchers at Johns Hopkins have dicovered therapeutic properties - the whole discussion being in context of Alice's question of whether looking- glass milk was good to drink. Performances Philadelphia-based American Theater Arts for Youth is touring a musical AW to 18 states this season. http://www. theaterforyouth.org/. "Alice Lost Wonderland", September, the Broadway Pier in San Diego CA, depicted "the forces that shape a girl as she navigates the bumpy waters of adolescence" in Gina Angelique's pas- sionate, socially aware choreography. "Malice in Wonderland" by the Bird Theatre "contemporary Irish dance loosely based on the tales of Lewis Carroll", Cheltenham, 3 1 Oct. The Queensland (Australia) Ballet celebrates its 40th anniversary in 2000 and will open its season with AW choreographed by Francois Klaus. AW in giant puppets, 19-21 October 1999 at the Bardavon theater in Poughkeepsie, NY. Places The Sunday Times (London) in an article on "Self catering cottages with literary associations" described "The Duchess", a 17th-century former inn near Dartmoor national park (which) has been turned into an AW treasure trail. Clues have been left throughout the property, leading treasure-hunters to the key to The Duchess's secret. Sleeps up to four; no children under eight. Book with: West Country Cottages +44(0)1626-333678. 22 Video "The Hunting of the Snark & Jabberwocky" (KL 61, p.23) can also be ordered from http://www.firstrun features.com/. 800.229.8575. From the L.A. Times: "With fluid dissolves, fine lines, sunbursts of color, firelight reflecting like melted butter, a curling, churning ocean, electric movement and a sense of wonder, this short film is unmistakably an artist's vision, enriched further by James Earl Jones' narration and composer Caleb Sampson's score." Art and Artifacts Hand-made key rings including several A ^characters from Lark Rise Designs, 11, Julia Avenue, Monks Cross, Huntington, York Y039JR, U.K. +01904.653065. A pewter keyring in the shape of a book with "Lewis Carroll" on the front and "Sentence first: verdict afterwards" on the back, from Novelkeys. That Disappearing Cheshire Cat Mug can be found at a reduced price ($5) in the Wireless catalog. 1.800.669.9999. A great "Pop-Up" card of the mad tea party from Santoro Graphics. 248.656.7681. Set of 4 cast resin ornaments (4" tall) from "Someplace in Time" ($30 for the set). 800.366.0600. Ten hand painted bone china porcelain candle snuffers from Bronte portray the stars of the books (3" high, $140 apiece) from "The English Channel" at http://www.english-channel.com/rf/ wonderland.html. Or enquire at Retail Futures Ltd, Vine House, 16 New Street, Ledbury, Herefordshire, HR8 2DX, U.K; +44 (0) 1531 637100; Fax:+44 (0) 1531 637109; customer firstname.lastname@example.com. The British Hedgehog Preservation Society has a fabulous "Hogalogue" containing every possible artifact - ties, cards, sweaters, stuffed toys, jewelry, videos, etc. Hedgehog House, Dhustone, Ludlow, Shropshire, SY8 3PL England; 01584 890801; http:// www.software-technics.co.uk/bhps/. Member Dede Satten writes "For quite a while (years!) I had been looking for a Dodo from the Royal Daulton Bes- wick collection. I finally found it and, in case others are looking for Toby mugs or figurines, they might want to contact this company: Jim Eldert at Pascoe & Company, 800.872.0195 ext. 109; 101 Almeria Avenue, Coral Gables, Florida 33134." Donald A. Peters fine lithograph ($57) of a garden landscape with miniature Alice characters can be seen at http:// members.aol.com/ojaiarts/. Order from firstname.lastname@example.com; or Diane Steele, 323 E. Matilija St. PMB 169, Ojai, CA. 93023; 805.646.5702 Alice coloring book, produced by Roni Akmon of Blushing Rose Publishing, San Anselmo. 11" by 14", Tenniel- esque, but the faces are different. $7. Cyberspace An article on "Lewis Carroll and fuzzy logic" ["fuzzy pensiero"] with many internet links appeared in the online edition of the Italian journal "II Sole 24 Ore" (28 Nov. 99) www.ilsole 24ore.it/ SoftLock (www.SoftLock.com) allows cyberusers to purchase e-copies of books. Recently announced is A W from Boson Books. Why a user should pay $10 for something so available in cyberspace and in the public domain remains a mystery. Remember "MadLibs"? where you enter an animal, a piece of furniture, and so on and a story appears - in this case, in the style of TTLG. http:// www.netsprout.com/mad/mad2.html Kathy Donohue-Vredevoogd's "Lewis Carroll Illustrated" site has many fine links: http://www.rust.net/~kdonohue/ alicel.html. A fascinating study guide for grades 6 - 12 can be found at http:// edsitement.neh. fed. us/guides/ g6_b2.htm. Called "Childhood Through the Looking-Glass", it "explores the vision of childhood created by Lewis Carroll in AW. Students begin by looking at Carroll's photographs of the real Alice for whom Carroll imagined his story and compare the image of childhood that he captured on film with images of children in our culture." Then they compare Carroll's vision of childhood with that presented by 23 'Songs of Innocence and Experience'. Finally, students consider the interplay of image and text in their own favorite children's literature and how the vision of childhood presented there compares to their experiences as children". With ties to the Victorian Web and other resources, it teaches "visual art analysis, literary interpretation, research skills, critical thinking, (and) Internet skills." Ingeborg Gastel is very proud of her 20 ,h -generation link to CLD, traced through royal genealogical lines. The visitor is only slightly disturbed by an applet saying "Punch the Monkey and Win $20". http://worldroots.com/bri gitte/famous/1/lewiscarrollline.htm. Eric Harshbarger's four-foot tall, 126- level LEGO® brick sculpture of Alice is visible at http://www.ericharshbar ger.org/lego/alice.html. Auctions Christie's (London) 29 November sale of a single-owner collection included "a note from Queen Victoria apparently inviting Charles Dodgson to a garden party but, in fact, written by the author himself for the amusement of the Drury sisters" (Minnie, Ella, and Emmie), photographs of them, and a series of copies of his books inscribed to them is expected to fetch upwards of £30,000. His relationship with these sisters is somewhat rare in that he kept up a friendship with them all their lives, even squiring Minnie's daughter, Aud- rey, to the theater. Two brilliantly colorful tempera/ watercolor illustrations by Aleksander Koshkin for a Russian AW were part of an "Original Children's Illustration Art" auction by Pacific Book Auction Galleries, 21 October 1999. Follow upcoming auctions online at www.pacificbook.com or write to 133 Kearny St, 4 th Floor, San Francisco CA 94108.415.989.2665; pba@pacific book.com. Academia On July 15-18, 1999, the Canadian and British Societies for the History of Mathematics met at the University of Toronto. There Robin Wilson, professor of mathematics at the Open University (England) and his troupe of mathematician-actors gave a reprise of their sold-out performance of a skit on Carroll's mathematical life given at the most recent annual meeting of the American Mathematical Society. Fran Abeles also gave a paper on Carroll's version of pari-mutuel betting. Media "Alicia a l'Espanya de les Meravelles" 1978 (85 m.), dir. Jordi Feliu broadcast on Barcelona television in October. The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland. "A very AW-ish 'Sesame Street' spinoff in which little fire- engine-red Elmo gets sucked into a vortex that leads him straight to Grouchland, where he has to deal with talking caterpillars, a quirky queen and a Mad Hatter-ish villain with eyebrows so furry they could cover the world." The 51st Annual Primetime Emmy® awarded by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences for "Special Visual Effects for a Miniseries or a Movie" was won by Hallmark's adaptation of AW shown on NBC. Being John Malkovitch - see KL 60, p. 12 - extraordinarily Carrollian in texture, structure, and references. A must-see. Alice in Cyberspace by David Demchuk, a 10-part series airing on Canada's CBC Radio One's "This Morning" from Dec. 20 to 3 1 at 9 a.m. Membership / Order Form Name Membership: □ New or □ Renewal Address □ Regular ($20) □ Contributing ($50) ' □ Change of Address □ Publication Order E-mail Publications : □ Snark illustrated by Dixon / members $10, others $15 □ □ Proceedings of the 2nd International LC Conference I members $10, others $15 □, deluxe $50 □ □ Mathematical pamphlets I members $52, others $58 □ □ In Memoriam (CLD's obituaries) / members $10, others $15 □ □ Knight Letters, $2 each, Numbers: □ Grolier exhibit catalog "CLD, alias LC" / members $15, others 20 □ □ LC & the Kitchins, $5 □ LC: An Annotated International Bibliography (ed. Guiliano), $5 □ Kaufmann Snark $75 °® a superb boxed deluxe edition at an unbelievable price (orig.$400) Further details on these publications are in KL 57, p. 19, or are available from the secretary. Please photocopy this form & send it along with a check to The Secretary, LCSNA.18 Fitzharding Place, Owing Mills MD 21117. Prices include tax and postage. Edward Koren's illustrations on the front cover and on p.9 are from Feeding the Mind (see p. 18) and are reproduced with the permission of Levenger. For help in preparing this issue thanks are due to Fran Abeles, Earl Abbe, Alice Berkey, Sandor Burstein, Angelica Carpenter, Llisa Demetrios, Johanna Hurwits, August Imholtz, Janet Jurist, Horst Muggenburg, , Lucille Posner, Bea Sidaway, Stephanie Stoffel, Barbara Szerlip, Alan Tannenbaum, Cindy Watter, and Nancy Willard. Knight Letter is the official journal of the Lewis Carroll Society of North America, published several times a year and is distributed free to all members. Subscriptions, business correspondence, and inquiries should be addressed to the Secretary 1 8 Fitzharding Place, Owing Mills MD 21 1 17. Annual membership dues are U.S. $20 (regular) and $50 (sustaining). Please send submissions and editorial correspondence to the Editor, Box 2006, Mill Valley CA 94942. President: Stephanie Stoffel, email@example.com Secretary: Elite Luchinsky, firstname.lastname@example.com Vice President and Editor: Mark Burstein, firstname.lastname@example.com Lewis Carroll Society of North America Home Page: www.lewiscarroll.org/ The Lewis Carroll Home Page: www.lewiscarroll.org/carroll.html 24