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Charles Dodgson

“My Alices”: Writer John Crowley shares his connection to “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”

April 2, 2015 - Harry Ransom Center

John Tenniel's illustration of Alice from the first published edition of Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland."

John Crowley, whose archive resides at the Ransom Center, is an American author of fantasy, science fiction, and mainstream fiction. He published his first novel, The Deep, in 1975, and his 14th volume of fiction, Lord Byron’s Novel: The Evening Land, in 2005. He has taught creative writing at Yale University since 1993. A special 25th-anniversary edition of his novel Little, Big will be published this spring. Below, he shares how Lewis Carroll’s classic Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland influenced his own work.

A critical (best sense) reader of my work once wrote an entire essay about allusions to and quotes from Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland books in a novel of mine called Little, Big—a very Alice sort of title in the first place. Some of the quotes and allusions, while certainly there, were unconscious; the turns of phrase and paradoxes and names in those books are so ingrained in me that they simply form part of my vocabulary. I first heard them read aloud: my older sister read them to me when I was about eight years old. I don’t remember my reaction to Alice in Wonderland—except for absorbing it wholly—because for certain books read or heard at certain moments in childhood, there is no first reading: such books enter the mind and soul as though they had always been there. I do remember my reaction to Through the Looking Glass: I found it unsettlingly weird, dark, dreamlike (it is in fact the greatest dream-book ever written). The shop where the shopkeeper becomes a sheep, then dissolves into a pond with Alice rowing and the sheep in the stern knitting (!)—it wasn’t scary, but it was eerie because it so exactly replicated the movements of places and things and people in my own dreams, of which I was then becoming a connoisseur. How did this book know about such things?

Another profound connection I have with Alice I only discovered—in delight—some years ago in (of all places) the Wall Street Journal. In an article about odd cognitive and sensory disorders, it described “Alice in Wonderland syndrome:” “Named after Lewis Carroll’s famous novel, this neurological condition makes objects (including one’s own body parts) seem smaller, larger, closer or more distant than they really are. It’s more common in childhood, often at the onset of sleep, and may disappear by adulthood…”

I have tried to describe this syndrome to people for years, and never once met anyone who recognized it from my descriptions. In my experience it’s more odd a feeling than this, and more ambivalent: I feel (or felt, as a child, almost never any more) as though my hands and feet are billions of miles distant from my head and heart, but at the same time I am enormously, infinitely large, and so those parts are in the same spatial relation to myself as ever, or even monstrously closer. It was awesome in the strict sense, not scary or horrid, uncomfortable but also intriguing. I wonder if Carroll (Dodgson, rather) had this syndrome. I’ve thought of including it on my resume: “John Crowley was born in the appropriately liminal town of Presque Isle, Maine, and as a child suffered from or delighted in Alice in Wonderland syndrome.”

The Ransom Center’s exhibition Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is on view through July 6.

Click on thumbnails to view larger images.

Cover of "Little, Big" by John Crowley
Cover of “Little, Big” by John Crowley.
John Tenniel's illustration of Alice from the first published edition of Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland."
John Tenniel’s illustration of Alice from the first published edition of Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.”

Filed Under: Authors, Books + Manuscripts Tagged With: Alice in Wonderland syndrome, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Charles Dodgson, John Crowley, Little Big, Through the Looking Glass, Wall Street Journal

Museums and Libraries Celebrate the 150th Anniversary of Lewis Carroll’s Famed Work

March 11, 2015 - Marlene Renz

Mabel Lucie Attwell illustration from a 1910 edition of Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland."

2015 marks the 150th anniversary of Lewis Carroll’s classic story Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Since its publication in 1865, the book has never been out of print. It has been translated into countless languages and has become a work that truly transcends the time and culture in which it was written.

In honor of the book’s legacy the Harry Ransom Center presents Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. This exhibition follows the evolution of Carroll’s story through time, around the world, and across different types of media, from stage and screen to children’s toys. The exhibition offers something for everyone and provides interactive opportunities throughout. Highlights of the exhibition include a rare copy of the 1865 “suppressed” edition, Carroll’s own photograph of Alice, Edith, and Lorina Liddell, the sisters who inspired the story, and Salvador Dalí’s 1969 illustrations.

View the Ransom Center’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland video preview.

Museums and libraries around the world are joining in the observance of Alice’s sesquicentennial. In New York City, the Morgan Library & Museum will display Dodgson’s original manuscript (on loan from the British Library) in its upcoming exhibition Alice: 150 Years of Wonderland, while Vassar College Archives and Special Collections Library will exhibit an early printing of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland alongside other works of fantasy from the period. John Tenniel’s original drawings will be shown at Harvard’s Houghton Library, and Philadelphia’s Rosenbach Museum & Library will exhibit Carroll’s letters to publisher Alexander MacMillan and a first edition of the book from his library.

Mabel Lucie Attwell illustration from a 1910 edition of Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland."
Mabel Lucie Attwell illustration from a 1910 edition of Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.”

Filed Under: Art, Authors, Books + Manuscripts, Exhibitions + Events Tagged With: Alexander Macmillan, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Charles Dodgson, exhibition, Harvard, Harvard University, Houghton Library, John Tenniel, Lewis Carroll, Morgan Library & Museum, Rosenbach Museum & Library, Salvador Dali, Vassar College, Vassar College Archives and Special Collections Library

In the Galleries: “The Rectory Magazine”

February 13, 2015 - Danielle Sigler

Illustrations from Charles Dodgson's [Lewis Carroll], The Rectory Magazine, produced by Dodgson and his siblings in 1850.

The man who became famous as Lewis Carroll was born Charles Lutwidge Dodgson in 1832. Dodgson, the third of 11 siblings, grew up in northern England surrounded by his brothers and sisters. Together they put on plays and created family publications like The Rectory Magazine, named for their home in Croft-on-Tees. Dodgson’s father was an Archdeacon in the Church of England and lived in a rectory, or a residence for the parish clergyman.

This edition of The Rectory Magazine includes essays, poems, and short stories, as well as hand-drawn and colored illustrations. The sense of humor and parody that appear in much of Carroll’s later work is already evident in The Rectory Magazine, produced when Dodgson was 18 years old.

Visitors to the Ransom Center’s exhibition Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, on view through July 6, can turn the pages of a digital version of The Rectory Magazine on a touchscreen in the galleries.

Please click on the below thumbnails to view larger images.

Title page of Charles Dodgson's [Lewis Carroll], The Rectory Magazine, produced by Dodgson and his siblings in 1850.
Title page of Charles Dodgson’s [Lewis Carroll], “The Rectory Magazine,” produced by Dodgson and his siblings in 1850.
Illustrations from Charles Dodgson's [Lewis Carroll], The Rectory Magazine, produced by Dodgson and his siblings in 1850.
Illustrations from Charles Dodgson’s [Lewis Carroll], “The Rectory Magazine,” produced by Dodgson and his siblings in 1850.
Illustrations from Charles Dodgson's [Lewis Carroll], The Rectory Magazine, produced by Dodgson and his siblings in 1850.
Illustrations from Charles Dodgson’s [Lewis Carroll], “The Rectory Magazine,” produced by Dodgson and his siblings in 1850.
Illustrations from Charles Dodgson's [Lewis Carroll], The Rectory Magazine, produced by Dodgson and his siblings in 1850.
Illustrations from Charles Dodgson’s [Lewis Carroll], “The Rectory Magazine,” produced by Dodgson and his siblings in 1850.

Filed Under: Books + Manuscripts, Exhibitions + Events Tagged With: #aliceinaustin, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Charles Dodgson, exhibition, In the Galleries, Lewis Carroll, The Rectory Magazine

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