PROFILE:

August A. Imholtz, Jr.

Augusts interest in the Alice books and
then in Lewis Carroll's other works de-
veloped rather late in life and in a rather
indirect, though not wholly un-Carrollian,
manner. He had been working on the first
draft of an article on translations o[Jabber-
wocky into the Latin and ancient Greek,
when his wife purchased for him a used
copy of Lewis Carroll Observed. Much
impressed with the level of scholarship
displayed by the essays edited by Ed
Guiliano, he was even more intrigued to
learn that there was a Lewis Carroll Soci-
ety of North America and that the Soci-
ety's secretary lived in Silver Spring, Mary-
land, only about five miles from his house.
He wrote a letter to the secretary at the
listed address and a few days later was
invited by David and Maxine Schaefer to
their home to examine their collection of
Carroll books and talk about his work —
more of the former than the latter.

He finished the article, which was pub-
lished after about eight years, (even
though Horace cautions that one should
keep one's manuscripts for nine years
before publication), in the Rocky Mountain
Review and began coming to the semi-
annual meetings of the Society and has
missed only one or two in the past nine
years. At first he and his wife Clare were
only interested in the text and looked
upon the sometimes frantic efforts of the
Carroll collectors as a curiosity. But slowly
they began to be intrigued by the various
editions, different illustrations, and finally
the peculiar pleasure of the collector — the
search. Things have gotten to such a stage
Continued on Page 2

Sylvie and Bruno Featured at
Pierpont Morgan Library Meeting

On Saturday, October 21, 1989, the LCSNA held its Fall meeting in the stately
Pierpont Morgan Library in New York City. The main part of the program fo-
cused on the 100th anniversary of the publication of Sylvie and Bruno, but it was
also the anniversary, or very nearly so, of the founding of LCSNA at Princeton
University fifteen years ago. It was especially fitting that so many of the founding
members were present for this anniversary celebration. In those fifteen years the
Society has grown to 300 members, published a highly respected series of books
and pamphlets on Lewis Carroll, and has conducted almost thirty meetings at
libraries and universities around the country.

After a delicious lunch at Le Grenadin
restaurant, arranged by our Program
Coordinator, Janet Jurist, a short walk
led us to one of the Morgan's paneled
meeting rooms. In our traditional short
business meeting before the formal pro-
gram. President Edward Guiliano thanked
the Morgan for inviting us once again
and thanked Morton Cohen for helping
to make the meeting possible. (We were
last at the Morgan in 1982 in conjunction
with the Library's splendid Carroll exhib-
ition commemorating the 150th anniver-
sary of the birth of Lewis Carroll.) Pro-
fessor Guiliano also expressed the thanks
of all the members to Maxine Schaefer
for her work as secretary, to treasurer
Ray Wapner, and to the editor of the
Knight Letter, Stan Marx.

Adolph Green

Ed then reported on the soundness of
our Society's financial condition and
announced that the first volume in the
Lewis Carroll pamphlet series, covering
the Oxford pamphlets, edited by Edward
Wakeling, will be published in 1990 by
the University of Virginia Press.

Charles Lovett next briefly summarized
his impressions of the First International
Lewis Carroll Conference held at Christ
Church, Oxford last summer. (See Spe-
cial Supplement). Planning has already
begun, he said, to hold the second inter-
national conference in the U.S. Finally,
Ed introduced John Wilcox-Baker, the
creative force behind the Lewis Carroll
Birthplace Trust at Daresbury, who spoke
briefly about the need to raise funds for
the Trust.

At the conclusion of the business meet-
ing. Dr. Robert Park, Curator of Manus-
cripts at the Morgan, formally welcomed
us to the library. Stan Marx then warmly
introduced Adolf Green who was already
known to us all for his wonderful songs
and musicals such as "New York New
York, " "Bells Are Ringing, " "Subways Are
for Sleeping," "Singing in the Rain,"
"Make Someone Happy," and others. In
his talk, entitled "My Lifelong Passion
for Lewis Carroll" and delivered in his
beautiful voice, he recounted something
Continued on Page 2

Library Meeting Continued from Page l

of wliat Lewis Carroll has meant to him
throughout his life. For 19 cents, at the
young age of eight years, he bought his
first copy o[ Alice's Adventures. Wv did not
know anything about the work, before he
bought it, but on a sweltering July day
many }ears ago he disccnered Alice and
her topsy-turvy world. "vSoup of the Even-
ing" reduced him to tears. He recalled a
few more passages that left lasting impres-
sions on him and then pointed out some
of the similarities between the humor of
Groucho Marx and Lewis Carroll. He
also noted how his famous collaborator,
Leonard Bernstein, and he often quoted
Carroll to each other as they worked! In
concluding, he recited Humpty Dumpty's
message to the fish and, once again,
succeeded in "making someone happy."

Pat Griffin

Pat Griffin, who entertained us when
wc were last in New York, gave the first of
two dramatic readings from the Sylvie
and Bruno books. The text she chose for
her first reading was the charming "The
Little Man Who Had a Little Gun"
which she rendered beautifully.

Our academic speaker. Professor Ed-
mund Miller of C.W. Post College,
turned his Frye-forged guns of literary
criticism on the style and structure of the
Sylvie and Bruno books. His thesis was
that the booLs should be read in the
tradition of Menippean satire. But who
was Menippus? Wliat in the world is
Menippean satire? And what relevance
docs it have for the Sylvie and Bruno
books? Professor Miller, with much learn-
ing and wit, answered those c}uestions
and thereby radically changed this writer's
view of Sylvie and Bruno.

Menippus of (radara, a Greek slave in
the first half of the third century B.C.,
invented the serio-comic literary form
that bears his name. It is a form of satire

written largely in prose but containing
interspersed verse passages. Although
only fragments of his works survive, he
influenced many later authors, including
the (ireek Lucian, the Roman Varro, and,
according to Professor Miller, Lewis
Carroll.

Satire itself pokes fun at the human
condition and seeks to effect social im-
provement. Among the Romans Horace
is gently mocking while Juvenal is stri-
dently so. In the preface to Sylvie and
Bruno, Carroll quotes lines from Horace,
though from the Odes rather than the
satires, and in spite of the fact that they
are not exactly ver>' easy Latin, he does
not translate them.

Omnes eodcm cogimur, omnium

versatur urna serius ocius

sors exitura et nos in aeternum

exilium impositura cumbae
James Michie rather freely translates as:

Sheep driven deathward. Sooner or
later

Fate's urn shakes, the lot comes
leaping for each of us

And books a one-way berth in

Charon's Boat on the journey to
endless exile.
Dcx's this quotation, Professor Miller
wondered, prefigure the death of Arthur
Forester in the novel?

Carroll say that he cannot be responsi-
ble for the moral judgments of the charac-
ters in Sylvie arid Bruno and this is quite
in the tradition of Menippean satire.
Furthermore, the third person narrator is
never identified, though Bruno calls him
Mr. Sir. He functions sometimes like a
chorus in Greek drama as for example
when he expresses the feelings of the lovers
Lady Muriel and Eric Lindcjn.

Not only does Menippean satire com-
bine prose and verse, but also high lan-
guage (which to the ancients ahva\s meant

Teapot into KAhhh-Comfmter Art by j ill Gottesman

epic) and colloquial vulgar language. This
is true of Sylvie and Bruno. Wliat other
similarities are there between these books
and Menippean satire? Menip[)ean satire
begins, like epic, iti medias res and so do
the no\els. Menippean satire also contains
numerous digressions and is nonsystematic
in its structure. Finally, the Sylvie and
Bruno works share with Menippean satire
"ambiguity of closure" — a sort of oj)en-
ended end of the tale. Professor Miller
cited other evidence for his thesis, raised
many interesting questions, and succeeded
in placing Sylvie and Burno squarely in the
Menippean tradition.

Pat Grifiln ended the meeting by bring-
ing us back to the incredible liveliness of
some of the passages of the books with a
brilliantly expressive and sympathetic
reading of "The Little Foxes" from Sylvie

and Bruno. . , a t i , r

August A. Imholtz,Jr.

Editor's Embarrassment Debt. In the last
issue, we stated that "our' Byron Sewell
wrote the article in the Conclc Nast
Traveller The article was actually written
by Brian Sewell, the art critic of the
London Evening Standard.

Fran Abeles Delivers
Two Dodgson Papers

On August 8th, Dr. Fran Abeles delivered a
paper at the XVIIIth International Con-
gress of the History of Sciencc-On Science
and Political Order, at the Deutsches
Museum in Munich. The paper covered
aspects of Charles L. Dodgson's work that
reflected the responsibility of a scientist to
state and society. A month later, Dr. Abeles
delivered a paper at the Charles S. Peircc
Sesquicentennial International Congress,
at Harvard. The paper dealt with some of
Dodgson's work in logic and its connection
with Pierce's existential graphs. She will
expand the paper for inclusion in a volume
of selected proceedings to be published in
1990-1991.

Ms. Abeles, presently working on the
mathematical pamphlets of LC, is anxi-
ous to obtain a copy of A Budget of Para-
doxes by August De Morgan published by
Longmans, London, in 1872. Send infor-
mation to Fran, c/o Knight Letter.

Profile C onii nil fd from Page 1
that their two sons, weary and somewhat
puzzled by ])arents with 700 Alice and
other Carroll books, threatened to form a
society unto themselves - SAAW, or. Sons
Against Alice in Wonderland.

August was educated at Washington
University in St. Louis, the University of
(kjttingen in West Germany where he was
a fellow for two years, and Johns Hopkins
University and Baltimore. He is employed
as an editor with the microfilm and mic-
rofiche publishing firm of Congressional
Information Sei"vice, Inc., and recently
returned from a week in Moscow where he
conducted publication negotiations with
one of the institutes of the Soviet Academy
of Sciences.

Kmgjit Letter Special Supplement

vS' ■*■ ■'•■'- AUTUMN-WINTER 1989

On Thursday, July 27, those fortunate
enough to be delegates to the First Inter-
national Lewis Carroll Conference were
elevated from the hoi polloi (who must
be content merely to wander about
Christ Church meadows or to peep into
the cathedral) and were cordially ushered
in by the formerly fierce porter. The
dramatically sudden drop in noise and
activity as tourist-packed Oxford gave
way to the still quads and rooms of the
House helped the century of years to fall
away, and in fact, the sense of being in
another world was the beginning of a
very intense state of mind, a three-days'
absorption with Lewis Carroll.

Although registration was to have
begun at 2:00, by noon a number of
people had already checked in at the
conference office, located just down the
hall from LC's best-known suite of
rooms, at the north-west corner of Tom
Quad. On arrival, delegates received a
packet full of items of interest and useful
information, including a program of
events featuring charming Macmillan-
likc medallions on the covers by Brian
Partridge, and a copy of the new Austra-
lian Snark. The conference organizers,
Catherine and Mark Richards and Ed-
ward Wakeling, who cannot be named or
praised too often or too highly, had ar-
ranged tours of Christ Church and exhib-
itions of various LC and Alice materials
to occupy the delegates until the formal
opening of the conference at 6:00.

The Von Herkomcr portrait of LC
which normally hangs in the Great Hall
was moved to the McKenna Room (where
LC lectured in mathematics), to look
upon the opening reception and many
subsequent events. Here Philip Dodgson
Jaques declared the conference begun,
and over sherr>' we were able to examine
the model of the proposed Daresbury LC
visitor's center and artwork by Charles
Blackman and Frank Hinder, brought by
Giyphon Gallery' of Australia.

After we were initiated into the proce-
dures of eating in Hall (the b>^'ords are
Promptness in arrival and Speed in eat-
ing), the conference truly began with a
talk by Morton Cohen. Although not
billed as a keynote address. Prof. Cohen's

Report

from the

Oxford

Conference

STEPHANIE LOVETT

examination of the acquisition and na-
ture of LC's personal faith, especially the
influence of F.D. Maurice and S.T. Col-
eridge, established the atmosphere of
serious yet warmly human inquiry which
was to inform the conference. A report
on the official proceedings follows; of
course, many exciting exchanges occur-
red in private conversation, and most of
the lighter moments have, with regret,
been filed under "You had to be there."

Our days began at 8:15 with breakfast
in Hall and were filled with programs
until at least 10:30 p.m., and the confer-
ence office was open beyond that, with
port and conversation for night owls.
Friday morning's initial program was two
talks; in the first, Selwyn Goodacrc,
accompanied by piles of Macmillan
Alices, outlined the revisions made in the
Alice text by LC and considered the
difficulties of choosing a definitive text.
Brian Sibley, dressed rather like Tenniel's
Wliite Rabbit, bounded in, dazzled us
with his evaluation of LC as poet (pre-
eminent in parodies, rhymed riddles, and
acrostics, not a great serious poet, yet
capable of some lovely moments when
he's distracted, as by an acrostic), high-
lighted by his all-out declamations, and
promptly bounded away.

A coffee break followed in the room
where, as Edward Wakeling later in-
formed us, LC must have written A/fc«',
directly below his better-known rooms,
and we reconvened at 11:00 for two more
talks. Edward Wakeling shared the results
of his investigations into LC's life at
Christ Church, including the locations of

his rooms and the schema for the Look-
ing-Glass illustrations. Next, Charles
Lovctt related LC's efforts to have Alice
dramatized, such as his fruitless collabora-
tion with Arthur Sullivan, previous to the
eventual 1886 Savile Clarke production.

After lunch, we had a meriy outing to
Nuneham, destination of many river trip/
picnics for LC and friends. We were able
to wander about the grounds before pro-
ceeding to Abingdon, where the party
scattered in search of ice cream, soft
drinks, and pubs while waiting for the boat
back to Oxford. We skidded into Hall just
in time to avoid censure, and after dinner
assembled in the lecture room for Film
Night. A separate program was issued
detailing the A&^-related films (including
a 1932 newsreel of Alice Hargreaves in New
\brk) from the Schaefer and Wakeling
collections. We were not able to see the
new Swiss Phantasmagoiia, due to projec-
tion problems, and hope it will be a fea-
ture of a future conference or meeting.

Saturday began with a superb talk by
Anne Clark Amor on the relationship
between LC and Alice, her conviction
being that LC did make some proposal to
the Liddells and that he was able to have
a happy life adjusted to his disappoint-
ment, but never had another true love.
There followed 45 minutes of lively dis-
cussion, and not in the usual euphemis-
tic sense of "an argument." The effect of
a hypothetical marriage on their per-
sonalities and careers was debated, as
well as many other what-ifs and why-nots.
Selwyn Goodacrc concluded the session
with some very nice remarks about Anne
Clark Amor, and we adjourned for coffee.
The rest of the morning was hardly
enough time to inspect the stupendous
exhibit of LC material arranged by Ed-
ward Wakeling in the Upper Library.
Exhibit notes were distributed entertain-
ingly describing these items from both
the Christ Church and Wakeling collec-
tions, which included printed and manu-
script items relating to LC's published
works and to his Christ Church respon-
sibilities. Also on view in the Upper
Library was a startlingly beautiful illumi-
nated text of Alice by Eric Freeman, who
was there himself to explain his project.

(over)

Lunch was held at The Perch in Binsey,
to which tliere was both a coach party
and a walking party. The latter was led by
members of the Alice Society (Mark, and
Jonathan (ioodacre and Peter Morgan),
who lent a good deal of energ>' and exper-
tise to the conference. From The Perch
we had a short walk to Binsey Church's
holy well, long known as the Treacle Well.
One of the pair of BBC Radio gentlemen
who had been about this morning bicy-
cled with us to Binsey, and the various
people he had earlier interviewed later
expressed gladness at not having known
at the time that he was Humphrey Car-
penter, well known as Tolkien's biog-
rapher, etc.

Delegates were given a separate pro-
gram for the remainder of the afternoon,
which included a map and suggested
places to visit and featured a choice of
four guided tours. Brian Riddle, whose
article on LC and the Pre-Raphaelites
appears in the latest J abberwocky, led a
Pre-Raphaelite tour to the Ashmolean
and other points of interest. Maggie
Bowman's visit to Oxford was traced by
Mark Goodacre's group, with readings
from LC's poem "Maggie's Visit to Ox-
ford" held at appropriate sites, while
Peter Morgan led a group to places vis-
ited on Isa Bowman's visit to Oxford,
including the famous dodo remains in
University Museum. Edward Wakeling,
whose Christ Church graduate student
necktie was a passport to such normally
inaccessible sites as LC's rooms and Tom
Tower, took his group to several signifi-
cant Christ Church locations and illumi-
nated them as to the Three T's.

The evening program began with a
reception at which John Wilcox-Baker re-
ported on the LC Birthplace Trust, and
after dinner, we settled into the lecture
room for "LC Around the World. "John
Paull (greeted by a chant of "How does it
feel to be right-side-up?") spoke on a
topic new for most of us, the history of
Alice and other children's books in Aus-
tralia, where publishing began in earnest
after World War II ended the supply of
books from the UK. He also introduced
us to the Carroll Foundation, started to
promote appreciation oi Alice and chil-
dren's literature in general, and which
hopes to celebrate 1990's 125th anniver-
sary of Alice with 125 translations and 125
artists. The first Australian Hunting of

Left to Right: Panelists Ed Wakeling, Sehvyn Goodacre, Charles Lovett, Mark Richards

Morton Cohen as the Mad Hatter

the Snark, illustrated by Frank Hinder,
was also a feature of the evening.
\bshiyuki Momma gave a succinct report
on Alice's life in Japan, where she was
recently the rage among teenaged girls,
and on his hopes that Japanese scholar-
ship will be translated and become better
known. In answer to a question, he said
that he thought that girls like Alice "be-
cause they would like to be a dream child
too." Other speakers reported briefly on
Alice activities, or lack thereof, in their
countries. These included Andrej Togni
of Switzerland, who has staged Alice
using mime; Christina Bjork, who re-
marked that in Sweden Alice is consid-
ered at least as much an adult book; Joe
Brabant, who said that virtually nothing
is being done in Canada, as they are
swamped with books from the UK and
USA, and briefly mentioned his spectacu-
lar new Alice; and EUie Luchinsky, who
announced the fall meeting of the LCSNA
and described its publishing plans.

After breakfast on Sunday, Anashia
Plackis spoke on her research into the
connection between the Oxford reforms
and the subversion of authority in the
Alices, and John Hanna presented his
theory that some of the neologisms in "A
Stanza of Anglo-Saxon Poetry" (the first
stanza of Jabberwocky) were taken
from Scots dialect. Following a coffee
break, a BBC documentary film, A Don
in Wonderland, was shown, and then
Edward Wakeling outlined his press
cuttings project. He is assembling copies
of any and all references to Carroll, Alice,
etc. and filing them in notebooks by
category' for research use, and is anxious
to receive clippings with a source citation
for inclusion.

To close the conference, we assembled
in the McKenna Room, which had been
arranged with tables for a panel of six of
the speakers and Mark Richards as mod-
erator and with the chairs in a broad
semi-circle to encourage discussion. Our
purpose was to evaluate past LC work
and to consider future directions. Topics
covered included the need for an ex-
panded two-volume edition of the letters,
as well as the planned volumes of letters
on specialized subjects, a compilation of
LC's contributions to periodicals, a de-
finitive catalogue of his photos, and of

course, the complete diaries. David and
Maxine Schaefer were asked to comment
on the effect of the LCSNA's publication
oiThe Wasp in a Wig, and replied that
apart from the value of having the chap-
ter, the huge publicity generated no
lasting effect on the Society. Mark
Richards commented on the difference
between greater public interest and bet-
ter quality scholarship and turned the
discussion to Jabberwocky, the quality of
the content and production of which was
debated at some length. The need for
communication among the LC Societies
was brought up, and an annual newslet-
ter rounding up the year's LC activities
was suggested. After a too-brief hour, we
had to close for lunch with Maxine
Schaefer's thanking the conference or-
ganizers, paraphrasing Alice's words from
the newsreel, that we had had as interest-
ing a time at the conference as Alice had
had down the rabbit-hole.

Our final lunch was followed by the
Vision of the Three C's: Coffee, Cake
(elaborately decorated with LC's portrait
framed by the Lion and the Unicorn),
and the Chairman's closing remarks.
{Knight Letter readers get a bonus confer-
ence postscript, as your correspondent
pressed on to the Daresbury LC Society's
meeting the next night, where John Paull
presented a version of his talk 'Alice in
the Antipathies" and the very knowledge-
able Shirley Corke of the Guildford Muni-
ment Room gave an excellent address on
the history of LC's connection with
Guildford.) Delegates were then left to
drift down from the heights and out into
the stunning reality of a world not Car-
rollcentric, where someone could say at
the Christ Church gift shop "Look,
there's a picture of Alice- I didn't know
she was a real girl." This shock of re-
emergence was the only hangover after
this symposium, speaking in the original
sense of a drinking and philosophizing
party, where in place of rich wine we had
the above-mentioned exhilarating atmos-
phere bringing out everyone's brightest
ideas and sharpest wit. In fact, the com-
bination of exacting scholarship and
light-hearted humor, remarkable both in
the conference events and in the indi-
vidual delegates, presents a notable re-
flection on Lewis Carroll himself.

KINGS

The Limited Editions Club
Alice and its Origin.

Editor's Note: In 1940, the Limited Edi-
tions Club published a book for mem-
bers Ten Years and William Shakespeare,
giving a deseription of all the books
published by the Club since its founding.
The following, written by George Macy,
the founder, describes how their unique
edition oi Alice came about:

"Wlien I heard that Mrs. Alice Har-
greaves had accepted the invitation of
Columbia University to come to the
Lewis Carroll celebration which the
University was planning, I wrote to her at
her home in England, to ask whether she
would autograph the copies of our edi-
tion oi Alice In Wonderland while here. I
got a letter from her son in which he said
that his mother had never autographed
copies of the book, but that the sugges-
tion appealed to her, now that she was of
so advanced an age, to sign copies of our
edition before her God took her to his
bosom. He therefore agreed that his
mother would do this job when she came
to New York. ...He then stipulated the
payment of a stiff fee for each signature.

Since our budget did not permit the
payment of this fee by us, I sent a letter
to the members of the Club, making the
offer that Mrs. Hargreaves would autog-
raph each copy for which that member
paid a fee. She signed nearly twelve
hundred copies, at considerable effort to
herself. The check in payment could not
have displeased her.

When our books appear for sale in the
resale market, or in the auction rooms, a
copy of Alice in Woyiderland, signed by the
original Alice, usually fetches thj; highest
prices. I think this was because Fred Warde
made an exquisite book of it; because the

illustrations were badly printed in the
early editions, and we were sensible
enough in having them re-engraved in
wood so that they were printed properly,
in our edition, for the first time."

Selected Letters of Lewis Carroll

to be published shortly by Macmillan
The second edition oiThe Selected Letters
of Lewis Carroll, drawn from the two-vol-
ume edition of 1978, will be issued in late
1989 or early 1990. It will contain a new
preface by Morton Cohen, compiler and
editor of the original work, and will be
published by Macmillan (London) in
both hardcover and paperback. Also by
Dr. Cohen is an essay on the Christ
Church Common Room, which appear in
\blume 7 of the History of Oxford Univer-
sity, due in 1990.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

Lewis Carroll. Edited by Cooper Eden.
Bantam: New York 1989. $19.95.
An unusual edition of Alice, in that it
contains illustrations not by one artist,
but by twenty five, from Tenniel to artists
of the 20's and 30's. There are 150 illust-
rations in both black and white and full
color. Sandor Burstein, indefatigable
contributor to the Knight Letter and
former LCSNA president, wrote the
introduction.

Joel Birnbaum has a few author-
autographed copies. Write to him at
2486 Brunswick Circle, Woodridge,
IlHnois 60517.

I Author's Query ■

For a bibliographical listing of songs
about the works of Lewis Carroll, please
send any information you may have. Only
songs with lyrics are being considered.
Send list to Editor, c/o the Knight Letter.
Contributions will be acknowledged.

Alice a Long-Time
Favorite in Japan

Yoshiyuki Momma, one of the keynote
speakers at the Oxford Conference, was
kind enough to send us the transcript of
his talk. It contains a wealth of informa-
tion about Alice's popularity in Japan —
and — along with other information that
Yoshi sent us, wc are happy to pass along
to our readers a summary of his remarks:

• TTLG was translated into Japanese in
1899 — ten years before Alice!

• Between 1977 and 1988, there were
new translations of Alice's Adventures
Underground, The Nursery Alice. Sylvie
&' Bruno, The Wasp in the Wig, The
Game of Logic, Pitloiv Problems, A
Tangled Tale, as well as Alice and TTLG.

• Critical and bibliographic works, some
known to Western readers and some
not, have also been published in Japan.

• Lastly, don't expect any bargains in
out-of-print and rare Carrolliana.
Prices are equal or above Western
ones. The first edition of Underground
brings over $1,000, while inscribed
copies of the Sylvie and Bruno booLs
list for $4000.00.

-Author's Query —

Anyone with an extra copy of Martin
Gardner's The Snark Puzzle Book will
make the author extremely happy if he
wishes to dispose of it. Write to Martin
Gardner at:

116 Glenbrook Drive
Hendersonville, NC 28739
(Incidently, Martin is also looking for
unusual parodies of The Night Before
Christmas, for a new annotated edition.
Please get in touch with him, as above).

SAFE HAVENS BILL HOLBROOK

T/te lo'/^SAitAJdrTz>Aj /^^sr

SfSPr/S. m9

r»>

from our far-flung

correspondents

The Mad Gardener's
Song— Revisited

In our last issue, we dared our readers to
come up with some new verses in the
metre and style oiThe Mad Gardener's
Song from Sylvie and Bruno. The follow-
ing are selections from our contributors:

The Mad Gardener's Second Song.
by Joe R. Cristopher.

He thought he saw potato chips,

And onion rings, to boot;

He looked again and saw it was

Of minus one, the root.

"How fair the lemon flower," he said,

"How bitter grows the root."

From J. A. Brabant.

He thought he saw a Wapiti

That drove an SST;

He looked again and found it was

His bill for VAT.

"I thank my lucky star," he said,

"It's high on LSD.

From Ross Heath,

who sent words and music.

He thought he saw a runny nose

Above the LA smog;

He looked again and saw it was

A thermos of eggnog.

"When Thursday comes, or maybe noon,

I'll have to show my dog."

Take my Alice. . . Please! ^^'^ Burstem wntes

Does the 1865 edition o{ Alice's Adventures
in Wonderland have some mystical power
over its owners? Strange things have
happened at the Newberry Library in
Chicago since they obtained a copy. The
Library's charter specifies that they
collect books on printing and as such,
they don't have a children's literature
collection. They obtained the Alice as
part of the Silver Collection because the
collection was bought as a unit. They
now use Tenniel illustrations on many of
their advertisements, because they're so
popular. This has elicited numerous
questions about their children's book
collection (which they don't have).

In 1985, a meeting of the LCSNA was
held there and a member of their staff
gave a talk on Carroll's illustrators. This
year they held a three-day symposium on
children's literature, where the question
again was raised about their collection.
The symposium had noted speakers
addressing the history of children's
literature, creating children's books, and
building children's libraries. The
symposium culminated with an excellent
performance of readings from Alice by
the City Lit Theatre Company. I
wouldn't be surprised if a children's
literature collection resulted at the
Newberry because they purchased an 1865
Alice that they didn't even want!

Joel Birenbaum

The concept of "artificial" or "virtual"
realities should be a familiar one to Car-
roUians. Today, it's the hottest idea in
computer science. It involves the crea-
tion of artificial "worlds" in which the
participant (not just the viewer), by
wearing special color 3-D goggles called
"eyephones", headphones, and a "data
glove" can seem to move around, become
different sizes, and interact with the
inhabitants. Although expensive
($250,000) and cartoony at this early
stage, a commercially available version
was announced in August at a computer
trade show in Boston by VPL (Video
Programming Languages) of Redwood
City, California. The "reality" used for its
demonstration at the show was, of course.
Wonderland, complete with mad tea party.

The recent San Fransisco earthquake had
its affect on Alice, also. Extensive damage
to the Geary theatre effectively stopped
performances oi Right Miyid, a play based
on Alice and Lewis Carroll's life.

To meet losses and help recovery to
continue the production, the Geary is
appealing to LC lovers for contributions.
The theatre will send a cassette tape and
a poster to all who contribute. We think
a minimum contribution of $20.00
would be suitable. Send them to: George
Coates Performance Works, 110 McAllis-
ter St., San Fransico, CA 94102.

For assistance in preparing this issue, we would like to thank Mark Burstein, Sandor Burstein, Lucille Posner, the contributors of the
Mad Gardener poems and Otto Lennel Ubu.

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

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

isni'

Dr. Sandor G. Burstein

2233 Post Street

San Francisco, CA 9 4115